Well-done, but convoluted (SPOILERS)

First off Alwood, I can see you are desperate for answers given that you posted on each of the films’ message boards. I agree that the scope of the Red Riding trilogy is expansive and its material dense. After seeing all three films and then going back and reviewing several parts from all three I do believe I understand most of what has happened in their respective stories. As to the sense that the story is convoluted I would say that the fact the that these events take place over a long period of time and that they all interconnect allows for most of the plot turns to end up being justified. I don’t think it is nearly as ambiguous as you make it out to be. I will say that a few events don’t make sense or aren’t clearly spelled out, mostly centering around the Karachi Club shootings. I’ll try to answer your questions as best I can. I am going to reference people by their character names followed their real names in parentheses. If you don’t remember who is who, Google image search the actor’s name to jog your memory. And yes, this post will be massive.


1. Who was actually the ripper? Were Sean Bean and Peter Mullan working as a team?

[From 1980]The Ripper (Joseph Mawle) was the guy they caught and who confessed to killing almost all the women. The important part of the whole Ripper story line was that the Ripper truthfully denied killing Clare Strachan (Kelly Freemantle). BJ (Robert Sheehan) lays it all out that Strachan was killed by Bob Craven (Sean Harris) in such a way so that people would think she was killed by the Ripper. The corrupt police officers then fabricated the letter in which the Ripper claims responsibility for Strachan’s death. Clare Strachan was killed because she was the barmaid at the Karachi Club on the night if the shootings in 1974 and saw what really happened.
[From 1983]Yes, John Dawson (Sean Bean) and Reverend Martin Laws (Peter Mullan) were working as a team. Dawson was the Swan and Laws was the Wolf. When Laws is “interrogated” in film number three, that sequence is a flashback to the year 1974 during the investigation into the 3rd young girl to disappear: Clare Kemplay. In that scene Laws gives a slight nod that he is the kidnapper and killer of the young girls but says, in effect, that he was doing Dawson’s biding or at least he had full knowledge of Laws’ activities. When later questioned about it Dawson gives an alibi for Laws, saying that Laws was with Dawson all that day. After all, it was Dawson who was obsessed with swans, so it must have been him attaching the wings to the girls.


2. Why was Rebecca Hall killed by Sean Bean? Did she know too much, and if so, what?

[From 1974]From what I gather reading online, the film character John Dawson (Sean Bean) is a composite of three book characters: John Dawson, an architect; Don Foster, owner of a construction company; and Derek Box, local gangster. In the book, it is Box who tries to bribe reporter Eddie Dunford (Andrew Garfield) by giving him the story about the gay politician – in the film, it is Dawson. In the book, when Dunford refuses to accept the bribe, Box kills Paula Garland (Rebecca Hall) to try to frame Eddie Dunford for it. I can only assume that, in the film, Dawson kills Paula Garland for the same reason. He doesn’t come right out and kill Dunford because he has already had a reporter killed, Barry Gannon (Anthony Flanagan), so killing another one so soon would be very suspicious. Also, Dunford had made a big scene at Dawson’s party further drawing attention to their connection.


3. Why did the cops storm the nightclub after the reporter had killed Sean Bean, and kill everyone else?

[From 1974&1980]This is, by far, the most troublesome and head-scratching event in all of the Red Riding films; the Karachi Club shootings. Firstly, why would the cops, Bob Craven (Sean Harris) and Tommy Douglas (Tony Mooney), give Eddie Dunford (Andrew Garfield) a gun as well as set him on path to kill John Dawson (Sean Bean) and then be anywhere near Dawson those next few days. To specifically answer your question, why they decided to kill everyone is that they panicked when he killed Dawson in a public place. I’m assuming that they believed that if it got out that Dunford, who was known to be investigating the child killings and had been seen around Dawson several times, that people and/or other reporters would put together why Dunford had killed Dawson. With Dawson’s secret out the very lucrative (for the Officers) construction/development plan would have been shut down immediately. Hence, they wanted to leave no witnesses to counter the false story that Craven and Douglas gave that the shootings were committed by a 4-man robbery team that had been working in the area.

Other things about the Karachi Club shootings trouble me. It is never made clear in the films just how the corrupt cops were able to assemble and appear so quickly. If the injured Craven or Douglas called it in then it should have taken a while for the five police officers to all get there with masks and the plan to kill everyone. During that time we are to believe that the injured if not incapacitated officers Craven and Douglas were able keep everyone from leaving. I suppose some of the other corrupt police officers could have been keeping an eye on Dunford and then called in all hands when he killed Dawson in public. Regardless, it doesn’t seem like they were too far away. In fact, from the flashbacks in the second film, it seems like they all arrive just after the initial shootings took place.

As to who the shooters were: Bill Malloy aka the Badger (Warren Clarke), DI Richard/Dick Alderman (Shaun Dooley), DI Jim Prentice (Chris Walker), and the betrayer John Nolan (Tony Pitts). Also in on the shootings, outside sitting in car (seen by BJ (Robert Sheehan) and Clare Strachan (Kelly Freemantle) as they’re escaping) is police Commander Harold Angus aka the Owl (Jim Carter). So it seems every corrupt police officer that we meet in these films was at Karachi club that night except for the star of 1983, Maurice Jobson (David Morrissey). Although it is never made definitively clear that he wasn’t there.

Another failure of logic is the cover story that everyone, eight in total including Dawson, was killed by the 4-man robbery team. This group kills everyone else yet happens to leave both the police officers (in plain clothes) alive, Craven wasn’t even shot. How would the corrupt officers in any way think that that scenario would be believable to others?


4. Who killed the ex-cop and his daughter--and why the daughter?

[From 1980]The only person in the films capable of killing ret. Officer Tommy Douglas aka Dougie and his daughter in that manner is Bob Craven. We learn that it was he who brutally killed Clare Strachan in imitation of the serial killer’s style, so he certainly has it in him. My guess as to why the daughter too, is to throw off any suspicion that Douglas was killed to ensure his silence. Instead, trying to make it look like a random killing by a crazed maniac.


I hope these answers were helpful! It was fun getting all my thoughts clearly down in writing.