# The Guilty (2013)

> Five years after a young child vanishes, DCI Maggie Brand reopens the investigation and risks her own happy family life in the process.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/51931

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 3
- Episode runtime: 60 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: crime, mystery, thriller
- Cast: Tamsin Greig, Arsher Ali, Tom Beard, Darren Boyd, Katherine Kelly, Linda Marlowe, Nicola Thorp, Cleo Sylvestre
- TMDB rating: 6.7/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2821466/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: mild
- Tone: tense, sombre, emotionally raw, bleak

## Synopsis

The Guilty (2013) is a British three-part crime miniseries created for ITV by Hartswood Films. When a young child goes missing, the lives of everyone around the case are torn apart, and five years later detective chief inspector Maggie Brand (Tamsin Greig) leads a fresh investigation that threatens her own settled family life with husband Daniel Reid (Darren Boyd) and their household. Her working partner, detective sergeant Vinesh Roy (Arsher Ali), helps push the inquiry through a tangle of old statements, reopened witness accounts, and tense confrontations with superiors such as detective superintendent Alan Reece (Tom Beard). The engine of the story is the slow pressure of a cold case that refuses to stay buried, with each episode peeling back another layer of the families involved. Told in three hour-long episodes, the miniseries plays as a single continuing investigation rather than a case of the week. Its tone is sombre, tense, and emotionally raw, closer to the grief-heavy realism of Broadchurch and The Missing than to glossy genre fare. Fans of Broadchurch, The Missing and Happy Valley will find resonance in its patient, character-driven unease.

## Shows like The Guilty

- [What Remains (2013)](https://ember.film/tv/51788)
- [Criminal Record (2024)](https://ember.film/tv/127316)
- [Safe (2018)](https://ember.film/tv/63441)
- [The Missing (2014)](https://ember.film/tv/54870)
- [Stay Close (2021)](https://ember.film/tv/112588)
- [Unforgotten (2015)](https://ember.film/tv/55562)
- [Crime (2021)](https://ember.film/tv/88874)
- [In the Dark (2017)](https://ember.film/tv/63434)
- [The Victim (2019)](https://ember.film/tv/74817)
- [Dept. Q (2025)](https://ember.film/tv/161456)

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