Finally, he walks outside. He is disoriented, walking straight into the path of a police car. The officers notice his bloodstained shirt. They return to the apartment. The discovery is made.
The episode ends with Ben alone in a holding cell, the door slamming shut with a metallic finality. The last shot is a close-up of his face—confused, terrified, and utterly abandoned.
Peter Moffat, a former barrister, writes with a rigorous understanding of legal consequence. Episode 1 follows the "real-time" or "compressed time" structure that defined the golden age of British legal drama. The episode opens with Ben, a young, aimless man, borrowing his parents’ London cab. He picks up a beautiful, volatile passenger, Melanie (Ruth Negga). They have sex, argue, he takes heroin, and wakes to find her brutally stabbed.