Patrick Harbottle turned the Game of Channel 5 Season 2 finale into a trap, leading Huw Miller and police officers into a remote woods search that ended with a gunpoint confrontation. Jackie then shot one officer and fled with Patrick in her car, pushing the story from cat-and-mouse to open escape.
That payoff lands after a season built on Patrick’s letters to Huw, a year behind bars, and the pressure created by Alice’s hit-and-run death. By the time the finale closes, the show has shifted from psychological games to an immediate question of who survives the next move.
Patrick’s trap in the woods
Patrick was out of prison with Huw and police officers in a part of the woods with no phone service when the trap snapped shut. Huw had already planted a tracker in Jackie’s car and followed it to a remote farmhouse hideaway, then pointed a gun at Patrick and Jackie and demanded that Patrick drive them somewhere. Patrick had anticipated that Huw would try something like this and had already prepared for it.
At the start of the finale, Patrick taunted Huw about Margot while driving him, then tightened the bait-and-switch that carried the search into the woods. He did not need to overpower Huw in a straight line; he needed distance, confusion, and the failure of the search team to stay connected.
Jenny Atkins and Jonathan Gower
DS Jenny Atkins thought her husband Jonathan Gower was Patrick’s first-ever victim, but her investigation cut through Patrick’s confession. Patrick had admitted to killing Jonathan and offered to show police the body location if Huw Miller was involved in the investigation, yet Jenny discovered Jonathan had nothing to do with Patrick.
Jonathan died in a hit-and-run in Dudley years prior, and police could not identify him because he had only a backpack and a teddy bear with him. Natalie, Jonathan’s widow, described her own stalking of him as “looking after him,” a small line that makes the case feel less like a puzzle and more like a family wound that never closed.
Jackie’s escape route
Jackie’s role is what moves the finale from threat to flight. After shooting one officer, she left with Patrick in her car, and Patrick later thanked her for her “assistance.” Jackie was also the person Patrick sent to stalk Huw’s daughter Margot, which means the escape was not improvised; it was built from the same surveillance network that powered the season.
The season 2 finale leaves Patrick and Huw at the edge of violence, with Jenny’s discovery undercutting the story Patrick told about Jonathan Gower and stripping away one of his strongest claims. For viewers, the sharpest remaining question is not whether Patrick can talk his way out of trouble; it is what happens after Huw has him at gunpoint and the trap has already gone off.
