Kiri, Channel4, Wed 10th Jan

[southeastdweller]

Anyone else looking forward to this? The writer also wrote the recent Robbie Coltrane drama, National Treasure, and Sarah Lancashire is always superb.

www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2017-10-31/kiri-channel-4-trailer/

But it wasn’t dodgy. Which is the whole point. Dad and grandad were estranged. There was no suggestion at all that grandad had invited Dad over. Although I’m nit sure how Dad knew she was there.

The bunny t-shirt was in the foster son's room and was in his bin - why?

Jumping in with my two-penny-worth, (I'm also an adopter, waves at Italian).

Normally with interracial adoptions, the adoptive parents have to show they can still reflect/promote the child's heritage. e.g. By living in a mixed community, or having links to it or to country of origin or whatever.
However for a foster placement this isn't necessary I don't think, as normally placements are made urgently to whoever happens to be free.
So maybe there is more of an issue in this case regarding heritage because the FCs haven't been doing much and are no being allowed to adopt?

I think contact with the GF would have been happening whilst in FC anyway. Maybe the FC felt obliged to allow it to continue in order to be allowed to adopt, (especially because they weren't doing a good job culturally anyway.)

Maybe SL had concerns about lack of black role models etc in the FC home, which was why she was pushing the contact. hence the rant at her front door. She's been hung out to dry, supervisors are meant to sign off decisions aren't they?

The FM seems a bit detached to me, I didn't warm to her at all. There is a bit too much 'methink she doth protest too much' about her for my liking, all the TV programmes etc.

They're setting the plot up for one member of the foster family having done it - most likely candidate at the moment the foster son, because his neurotic old bag of a mother was obsessed with Kiri and rather neglected him and his real needs in order to fulfil her own desires. FM therefore no more successful at parenting than Kiri's grandad, making it a neat perpetrator to choose for the plot... Anyone else agree?

Sorry - foster parents' real son, not foster son!

I agree. The foster mother is also really weird - I was laughing at her instructing the grandfather not to say a word to the press when she herself had just been doing her make up ready for yet another TV appearance. When SL drove away from dropping Kiri off she appeared to be being watched by someone in a car. At first I thought that was Kiri’s father, but maybe it was the foster mother since it was apparently her following SL on the way to the house. I’m not sure why she would have killed her though - unless it was accidentally.

@LillianGish "SL's speech to the press at the end was spot on."

How was it spot on? If Kiri was in foster care with a white family it suggests there was no alternative family for her, so what would be better than a white family, if no black family is available?

"It's looking increasingly as if she came to harm at the hands of the family who were supposed to be giving her better life." It's not looking clear who did it to me!

Maybe it was the foster mum, but by accident. Grabbed scarf as Kiri ran off or something.

(Obviously you need to suspend reality that a grabbed scarf might aphixiate someone)

Yes, Lillian - foster mother extremely weird: possessive and neurotic to the point of being unhinged, with a dh who acts like he'll do anything she tells him to for fear of her reaction otherwise - maybe he has a guilty secret she will tell everyone if he doesn't do as he's told!

She wasn’t saying she shouldn’t be in foster care with a white family, but that she should have been able to continue to have contact with her black grandparents. I could see her point nd why that might be something that was good for Kiri. She was being hung out to dry for what had happened, but she felt she had done the right thing. Someone has to be seen to carry the can though.

Maybe foster mother strangled Kiri because if she couldn't have her, no-one could. I don't think she would just have followed Kiri when she went off with Kiri's father in the hope she ran off or something, though, so I favour the son being the culprit at the moment! No doubt they will drop a few more red herrings in next week, though.

I think it was accidental, and linked to the scarf. Although that would be revealed after a forensic examination.

Just catching up on this series, and the thread. Anyone know how many parts there are?
I think casting and acting is superb (adoptive family all mega creepy), writing a little far fetched but fine, that's to be expected, and Sarah Lancashire an absolute queen.
My thinking is it's always someone we see a lot but don't suspect - hello Rochelle! Probably accidental and probably scarf related, like pp have said.

P.S. A rule of suspense writing is that everyone involved has secrets and during the investigation they'll all come out in the open, and often as red herrings at first. My thinking re. Kiri's bunny t-shirt in Simon's bin is that he tried it on for a pervy little kick, then forgot about it/freaked out and stuffed it into his wastepaper basket. Not very logical, no, but how old is he supposed to be? 14-15, and not v clever with it?

Sorry if it's already been said but one part of the programme confused me, in second programme foster mum says on TV that they got Kiri as a baby to keep foster son company they state foster son was 10. Kiri was 9 when she was killed, that puts foster son at 19 so why did the policewoman say his statement didn't mate because he wasn't in school that day? Can someone explain? Would he be in school aged 19?

Sorry statement didn't match not mate

Re t-shirt sniffing..I thought it could have chloroform on it but don't think she was wearing it that day.

He's 15.

Did they say he was 10 when Kiri first arrived? Don't recall that. She was two wasn't she when they first fostered her?

Can't find her age mentioned anywhere but Wikipedia; which says she was four when first fostered.

That fits in with Si being 10 at the time and 15 now anyway!!

I am sure they said she was four when they first had her.

I think it was the Foster mum. Saw Kiri in the Park, Kiri says she doesn’t want to be fostered and wants to be with her dad and Grandad. Foster mum gets into a rage and strangles her.

Waves @UnderTheNameOfSanders

Why does everyone think foster mum is so creepy?

It's very rare for mums or women I'm general to kill children so I kind of hope it is not one of them!

IMHO, unless there was something going wrong in foster home I think it would be rare for a child to prefer a grand dad she rarely saw to a family she was part of for 5 years.

The mum is neurotic and totally obsessed with adopting Kiri, to the point her ds feels less loved and a disappointment, so I reckon it's more likely him than his mum. I'm not remotely buying her story she wanted to adopt Kiri to give her ds a sibling - she was the one with the burning desire. So far in the series, the rest of her family have just trailed in her wake.