Channel 5‘s gripping new thriller The Night Caller continued on Monday night, leaving some viewers asking the same question about one element of the story.
The series follows lonely taxi driver Tony, who after losing his teaching job and the collapse of his marriage, starts to live an increasingly isolated life and finds himself forming an unhealthy obsession with late-night radio DJ, Lawrence.
Warning, spoilers for episodes one and two ahead!
The first instalment ended on a dramatic cliffhanger which saw Tony run over cafe worker Rosa’s abusive ex-boyfriend, Ste. In the second episode, we see Tony go into survival mode as he tries to come to terms with his crime, still haunted by a mysterious event in his past involving a school pupil.
So far, we’ve seen flashbacks showing a schoolboy struggling in a swimming pool. Then in episode two, Tony recognises a young girl in school uniform while riding the bus. Before getting off at the next stop, the girl sees Tony and looks at him with despair. He quickly mouths, ‘I’m sorry,’ before she steps off.
© Channel 5 Television / Story Films / Szymon LazewskiLater in the episode, Tony speaks about his old teaching job whilst on a date with Rosa, revealing that he used to be the head of science and pastoral care. But when Rosa starts talking about the pressure on children these days, suggesting that “lots of them were really struggling”, Tony becomes overwhelmed and excuses himself from the table.
Taking to social media, viewers were curious to know why Tony got let go from his teaching job. One person wrote: “Did Tony drown the school kid, or is the kid swimming? #TheNightCaller,” while another asked: “Tony’s flashbacks of the young boy in the swimming pool, did he do something to a student when he was a teacher?”
© Channel 5 Television / Story Films / Szymon LazewskiA third viewer offered a possible theory, penning: “Seems like a child died on his watch. So he was dismissed, and now he lives with the trauma and tragedy.”
Ahead of the show’s premiere, Robert Glenister, who plays Tony, spoke about his character’s bitterness at losing his job.
© Channel 5 Television / Story Films / DaraghMcDonaghphotography.co“He’s definitely angry and there’s probably a bit of bitterness in there as well, because he was close to retirement and now he has lost his vocation. At the start of the drama, we don’t know why he has lost his job, but he’s haunted by images and flashbacks that the viewer sees,” explained Robert. “I was talking to Suzanne Packer, who plays Rosa – she has some teaching experience, and she was telling me how the stress that teachers are under now is just phenomenal. It’s the incessant day-to-day graft of maintaining a certain standard, when you might have a classroom of kids who really couldn’t give two hoots, I think it must be really tough.
“But for Tony, teaching is what he feels he was born to do. Losing that purpose after quite a successful career starts a downward spiral,” he added.
The Night Caller continues on Tuesday 9 July on Channel 5 at 9pm. Episodes one and two are available on My5.
