After the Flood series 2 ending explained: Crushing finale of crime drama unpacked and news on a series 3
We're not okay!
After the Flood series 2 had come to a brutal and heartbreaking ending, leaving fans reeling after the shocking death of a popular main character.
And, yes, the evil and manipulative murderer Sergeant Phil Mackie was behind it all yet again. Like the events of series 1, Mackie turned killer, and viewers were left begging the TV Gods to punish him (preferably as painfully as possible).
In the final episode of the quietly brilliant series, we saw Jo’s reaction to the devastating death at the end of episode 5. And we learnt if the heinous Mackie was bought to justice.
Here’s the ending of After the Flood series 2 unpacked, and you might need a tissue.
***Warning: spoilers from the ending of After the Flood series 2 ahead***
What happened in After the Flood series 2’s ending?
The penultimate episode of After the Flood delivered the mother of all bombshells. Sgt Phil Mackie had beaten Jo’s husband Pat to a pulp. And it wasn’t a fair fight – Mackie attacked him with his police baton. Once Pat was barely conscious, Mackie pushed him over the side of a cliff. RIP Pat.
As if that wasn’t dramatic enough, Jack finally enlightened Molly with some home truths… He told her all about Sgt Phil Mackie’s corruption, and how her husband Bren was also on the take, as well as Pat.
In the final episode, Molly was broken by the news, and taking it out on her daughter Jo for not telling her. But she was on a mission to discover who was polluting the local waters.
Jo continued to investigate the death of Xav Palmer, and subsequently found out what happened to Pat. And viewers got another bombshell, too. This time about DS Sam Palmer’s true identity.
Was Pat really dead?
Tragically, Pat really was dead. When he failed to pick up his daughter Eve from nursery, Jo realised something was wrong. She located his phone to where his body lay – the place where he’d asked Jo to marry him.
Following him there, she found his abandoned car, and started calling his name. However, just moments later, Mackie turned up most likely to dispose of the body. In dramatic scenes, the pair faced-off, with Jo devastated to see the tracks in the ground where Mackie had dragged Pat’s body. When she looked over the edge and saw her husband’s corpse, it was a howling-with-grief scene we’ll never forget.
Of course, Mackie called the police, painting the scene as a “suspected suicide”. Then, in an enraging exchange, Mackie slowly tried to coerce Jo into blaming herself because of their marriage breakdown.
Jo – even in her grief – knew that wasn’t the truth. Just as the police and DS Sam Bradley arrived, Jo started looking for evidence of Mackie’s wrongdoing, and found Pat’s phone. She discovered the forged messages from Mackie pretending to be Jo, asking Pat to meet her at their special spot. She then found the app belonging to the tracking device Pat had put on Mackie’s car. It proved Mackie had been at the site of the crime at the time of Pat’s death.
Faced with the undeniable proof that Mackie had killed Pat, Jo launched herself at the killer, and the pair grappled on the edge of the precipice. But Jo had fury on her side, and managed to overpower him.
After the Flood series 2 ending: Was Phil Mackie caught?
At the end of After the Flood, Mackie was led away in handcuffs and driven away in a police car. It looked like, in death, Pat had finally managed to bring Mackie down.
However, the closing minutes focused more on Jo’s grief, her final moments with Pat’s dead body, and her emotional scene with her mum Molly.
Only a series 3 will tell us the fate of Sgt Phil Mackie. But that won’t bring back Pat.
Who was polluting the waters?
The cause of the “off-the-scale contamination” was found to be Geoff Dixon’s Bornegate Farm. Of course, this was the site where Todd Drake had worked before he died.
Molly confronted Dixon, accusing him of “poisoning the river” with pollutants. But the farmer insisted he’d done nothing wrong. Far from it, in fact – he told her he’d been forced to go “organic” because of lack of money.
Jack Radcliffe investigated further, digging through the rubble dumped on Dixon’s farm. Dixon believed organised crime gangs had been targeting the farm, ditching construction waste. But, in fact, the waste was shown to be from Aexous chemical plant owned by Alan Benson.
Jack, who already had serious beef with Alan, jumped at the opportunity to blackmail Benson with what he knew. Benson wrote an IOU for £325,000. However, at the last moment, Jack had a crisis of conscience – deciding to do the right thing, and not pocket the money.
He gave Benson the chance to “come clean, and admit responsibility for the contamination and landfill on Geoff Dixon’s farm”. Jack also made Benson promise to “guarantee to clean the land and the river, and to buy back the farm”.
Was DS Sam Bradley working for Mackie?
As we suspected from episode 1, DS Sam Bradley wasn’t quite what she seemed… In the final episode, Jo discovered a long-lens camera in Sam’s car on which she found dozens of photos of Pat and Jo. Naturally, Jo jumped to the assumption that Sam had been following them, and had been working with Mackie.
This coincided with Sam’s “son having an accident at uni” and her abrupt “departure back to Newcastle”. Only Jo bumped into her first, and demanded to have it out with her – and we finally discovered why Sam was at Waterside police station.
She said: “I’ve been using Mackie to find out how the station works. Jo, I’m anti-corruption unit. When I told them you’d seen my camera, and I’d been compromised, my bosses told me I had to leave immediately.”
Anybody else punched the air at that point? Jo finally had an ally, and she’d had no idea all along. Our joy didn’t last long though, when Sam attempted to arrest Jo on suspicions of “using police data for your own personal gain”. Sam was ACTUALLY there to investigate Jo and Pat!
But Jo soon pointed Sam in the right direction… She told her Mackie was behind everything.
After the Flood series 2 ending: Did Jo lose her job?
In the After the Flood ending, Jo was under arrest. She’d been forced to hand over her warrant card to Sam pending investigation. Of course, the 20k in Pat’s bank showed he was complicit in corruption and accepting back handers – even if they all came from Mackie.
However, in the closing minutes of the crime drama, DS Sam Bradley saw Mackie’s true colours. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Jo was off the hook.
We suspect a thorough investigation will have to take place.
Who killed Todd Drake and Xav Palmer?
Well, it’s not an easy answer, but (some of) the truth was actually revealed in episode 4. Todd actually died in a car accident after he, Xav and Layal – climate activists – broke into Aexous chemical plant to find the cause of the toxic leak. He suffered an epileptic seizure, causing them to abort their mission. As they made their escape, Todd had another seizure in the passenger seat, causing driver Xav to crash the car. The impact killed Todd immediately.
Xav used the opportunity to stage Todd’s death like a murder. He stole the Benson gun, and shot Todd through the chest with it. Half-crazed, Zav hoped the police would blame the Benson’s for Todd’s death.
As for who killed Xav, well that was a different culprit entirely. Declan Rower stabbed him to death. With his grandad Tony’s help, they subsequently staged his death to look like the Benson’s had killed him too. Of course, with both men having been shot after death with the Benson gun, it certainly confused the police for a while.
Although it was Xav’s on-off girlfriend Donna Rower whose thumbprint was on the Benson’s stolen gun, it was actually her son who killed him. And although Tony confessed to the crime, Jo saw through it, and solid police work led her to the real killer.
Declan, devastated after finding out about his grandad’s leukaemia diagnosis, started drinking heavily. When Xav arrived, the pair had a fight and Declan stabbed Xav multiple times with a screwdriver.
As for Layal’s fate? She was in all sorts of trouble. Namely for perverting the course of justice, breaking and entering, and preventing the proper burial of a body.
Is there a series 3 of After the Flood?
ITV have not yet confirmed if there’ll be a series 3 of After the Flood. But we’d be very surprised if there isn’t some good news incoming. And a spokesperson told us “no news on a S3 just yet” which surely means there WILL be an update at some point in the future.
The second series of the crime drama was even better than the first, so we can only hope that a third run would be elevated once again.
Viewers have embraced Sophie Rundle’s character DC Joanna Marshall wholeheartedly. And we need to know how she gets on with the crushing absence of her husband Pat. Estranged or not, they were a superb team. Viewers will also want to see Phil Mackie rotting in jail. But was everyone involved in his corruption exposed?
And series 2 left us with some loose threads. If Mackie would be thrown in jail, and whether Jo would survive another day in the police force. Although, we see a future for Jo in the anti-corruption unit alongside DS Sam Bradley…
Read more: The 15 best ITVX dramas to watch in January 2026
