DI Jimmy Perez took his leave at the end of the previous chapter, with Ashley Jensen<\/a> stepping in as his replacement Ruth Calder, a native Shetlander who reluctantly returned to the isles to retrieve a key witness in a gang-related shooting.<\/p>\n O\u2019Donnell also echoed that sentiment in another interview<\/a> a few days before the new chapter debuted.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re brought in something totally different to really shake everybody up,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd as actors, it was so exciting for us because it allows us to try different things. Risk brings out a different side in all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n And they weren\u2019t wrong.<\/p> When season 8 finally premiered after months of anticipation about the impact of Henshall\u2019s exit on the show, Shetland had undoubtedly entered a new era, something we noted in our review<\/a>. Ruth\u2019s introduction had changed things, much of which stemmed from her dynamic with Tosh<\/a>, which is markedly different from how the character interacted with Perez, and there\u2019s also Ruth\u2019s own backstory, which is slowly being unravelled as we learn more about her.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the case itself, which revolves around the aforementioned runaway witness Ellen Quinn. Following the shooting in London, she fled back to Scotland, but with two gun-toting gangsters trailing her, it was only a matter of time before she met her maker \u2013 and at the end of the first episode, she was found dead.<\/p>\n But it wasn\u2019t Howell and Nowak who had murdered her, but someone from Shetland itself.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got yourself a homegrown killer running around,\u201d the former said to Ruth in the interview room, an eerie score heightening his observation.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an infinitely more sinister outcome than Ellen dying at the hands of the two out-of-towners who she had a tenuous connection to. Instead, she was murdered by someone that she had a relationship with, whether a family member, a friend, or another from the local community.<\/p>\n She could have been forced inside the vehicle on that dark and lonely road on which we last left her after she escaped Howell and Nowak, but there\u2019s also the possibility that she willingly climbed inside after recognising a familiar face, one she trusts, which makes this development significantly more unsettling, and cleverly takes the investigation in a whole new direction.<\/p>\n And that wasn\u2019t the only piece of information we learned.<\/p>\n Tosh\u2019s digging into the mysterious sheep killings plaguing farmer Agnes Moffatt, the woman who was held hostage by Howell, was essentially paused when Ruth arrived on the scene as they raced against the clock to locate Ellen. But during the post mortem, it emerged that the two cases are linked after a tattoo matching the symbol found on the animal carcasses was also located on Ellen\u2019s body, blowing this mystery wide open.<\/p>\n While Howell and Nowak blew in like a tornado and caused sizeable damage during their short stay in Shetland, including the death of humble shopkeeper Maura Watt, the truth looks set to be far more destabilising for the local community.<\/p>\n That twist, engineered brilliantly by writers Paul Logue, Denise Paul and Vivienne Harvey, not only intensifies that sense of creeping dread, but it\u2019s also very much in keeping with the tone of the series, and taps into what has kept people tuning in since 2013.<\/p>\n Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n Ruth\u2019s arrival, while bringing something new to the table, initially looked like it would be a fairly mundane, cut and dry affair, as expressed by one RadioTimes.com<\/a> reader who bemoaned the \u201cstereotypical villains\u201d. But that all looks set to change moving forward.<\/p>\n Perez is now out of the picture, but one man does not maketh this TV show. This is still the Shetland that people know and love.\u00a0<\/span><\/p> ![\"Alison](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2023\/10\/shetland-tosh-ruth-db27f96.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413\" "\\"Shetland\\"\/")
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