’s Death Valley returned for season two on Sunday evening, bringing John Chapel and DI Janie Mallowan back to the case in Wales just as their personal lives start colliding with the job. The cosy mystery is back with a fresh run of crimes, but the real hook this time is that John is dating Janie’s mother, Yvonne, while Janie has just been promoted and is trying to keep control of her new role.
Timothy Spall, who plays John, said the relationship with Yvonne opens an emotional story for the character and takes him into territory he thinks is heading toward something long term before it shifts abruptly. That change also affects John’s working relationship with Janie as the pair team up on a new case, giving the series room for comedy as well as John’s usual habit of self-dramatisation. Gwyneth Keyworth, who plays Janie, said the promotion has not been the smooth step up she hoped for and that she is struggling under the pressure.
Death Valley is set in Wales and follows John, a former actor who once played a famous detective in the TV show Caesar, and Janie, who met him in season one and began solving crimes with him after that first encounter. In the new season, Janie is now a DI, DCI Barry Clarke is her awkward but well-intentioned boss, and the police team also includes Helen Baxter on the pathology side and DC Evan Chaudhry. To create some distance from her mother, Janie moves in with Helen, even as John’s relationship with Yvonne continues.
The family setup gives season two its biggest tension. John is trying to act the part of a man moving into a more settled future, but he is also reentering the world of acting, while Janie is trying to prove she deserves her promotion without saying so outright. The result is a case-driven series that keeps the crime format intact while pushing its two leads into an arrangement that is awkward, comic and personal all at once.
Spall said that is exactly where John works best, describing him as a character whose sophistication, conceits and vulnerability all feed his self-dramatising streak. For viewers, the question is not whether John and Janie can solve the next mystery. It is whether they can do it while their families, careers and loyalties are pulling in different directions.
