Like the Shetlands or Ireland’s west coast, there’s something moody, atmospheric and remote about the West Wales landscape. It’s the perfect setting for a crime drama – as we’ve seen with Hinterland, and more recently, Cleddau. Back in 2024, we reported on the latter and it was one of the most popular articles on Crime Fiction Lover, so we’re pleased to bring you the news that season two begins on S4C on Sunday 11 October 2026 at 9pm.
Although it will appear on the Welsh language channel first, English subtitles will be available, and the programme has been shot bilingually, so you can expect the English version – The One That Got Away – to arrive on BBC Four, probably in March 2027. We know that for many crime fiction lovers subtitles are not a problem and you’ll find S4C here on the iPlayer.
It won’t surprise you that season two of Cleddau begins with a body, but this time it isn’t found by a dog walker. Two members of the local wild swimming group are splashing about in the Milford Haven estuary, near the Cleddau Bridge, when a decomposing corpse surfaces. The body is that of a woman, Sara Danbridge. DI Ffion Lloyd (Ellen Rees) and DS Rick Sheldon (Richard Harrington) are called out to investigate.
The case could easily be written off as a suicide. Sara had a fairly serious psychiatric condition, substance abuse issues, was recently divorced, cut off from her eight-year-old daughter and living in a dreary DSS flat. It’s not hard to imagine her jumping from the bridge. But this is a six-part crime series, so there’s no way that’s going to cut it. Besides, the signs were there that Sara was turning her life around and had lots to live for.
Forensics come back with signs that the woman was held underwater until she drowned, then bound and weighted down. It’s murder.
For Lloyd and Sheldon, two potential suspects emerge. One is Sara’s ex-husband, Tom (Garmon Rhys) – a man who shows himself to be quick to anger and a little vindictive when he’s interviewed. In the small community around Pembroke Dock, everyone knows everyone, just about, and Tom Danbridge happens to teach Sheldon’s daughter. Tom is receiving messages from an unusual young woman called Manon, which adds to the suspicion around him.
The second line of enquiry is a man Sara met through a dating app. Unfortunately, the fellow is hard to trace, using pay-as-you-go phones and so on. Finding him becomes a priority when the team discover that in spite of having a girlfriend, this mysterious man has an unhealthy obsession with a number of women on the dating site.
As well as the case itself, the show focuses on the key characters of Lloyd and Sheldon, and their relationship. Long ago, they were engaged but Sheldon jilted Lloyd and married Helen (Rhian Blythe). In season one, there was all kinds of old-flame tension between them with resentment on Lloyd’s part and longing for what might have been on Sheldon’s. The tone in season two is totally different. Now they are friendly with one another and function better as colleagues.
Although she had a successful career as a detective in Cardiff, DI Lloyd has remained in Pembroke on account of her father Griff’s dementia. Her mother is finding it harder and harder to cope and we see scenes of him wondering off, looking for his long dead parents in a derelict part of the town. A notorious avoider of commitment, Lloyd has started dating again but is finding it hard to connect with a man she’s met, who seems nice… The man is even learning Cymraeg.
Meanwhile, because of events in season one, Rick Sheldon has been thrown out by his wife Helen. Now he misses the children, and the separation of her parents means their daughter Mati is losing her way at school, and more. Sheldon seems to want to get back together with Helen, but who knows how that will pan out?
How long the waters remain calm between Lloyd and Sheldon in season two remains to be seen, but with their immediate relationship less of an issue, there is the intrigue of the murder itself for us to focus on.
Several of the characters you met in season one make their returns, notably the gregarious DC Morgan (Mali Ann Rees) – aka Moggsy – and the team’s stern and silent guvnor, DCI Vaughan (Ioan Hefin). DS Celyn Howells (Aled Pugh) is back, mainly dealing with the technical aspects of the investigation. Another face from season one returns as well, throwing us a big, creepy twist at the end of the first new episode…
Surrounding it all there is the Pembrokeshire setting – with a town that feels far away and forgotten; dreary buildings to go with the wet, cold, grey weather; and beyond that a wild landscape smashed by the sea. As we mentioned at the beginning, it’s the perfect backdrop for some Celtic fringe crime fiction.
