I don’t habitually check out crime procedurals, but when a show harkens back to the olden, golden days of my fandom, I have to sit up and pay attention. 

I stumbled onto Gone (2026) largely by fluke this week. I’ll admit it, I was trolling streaming for Rupert Evans roles that I haven’t watched yet. It’s always a good day to catch up on Rupert Evans’ work. 

Then I saw David Morrissey (Blackpool (2004) is an always-and-forever favorite). Then you bring in Eve Myles? Torchwood gave me ALL of the feels beginning in 2006. I decided I had to check this one out. 

Gone, for those who don’t have a BritBox account, follows the happenings around a prestigious school when the headmaster’s (Morrissey) wife is found murdered. Is DS Annie Cassidy (Myles) the only officer who can solve the complicated crime?

Kids, I ate this show up in a way I wasn’t expecting to. Like I said, I don’t usually seek out procedurals; I’m even guilty of losing focus on them much faster than I should. This cast though, pulled me in and kept me watching right up until the end in all the twisty-turny chaos. 

Do with that what you will. 

*Plot Discussion. Spoilers After This Point. Proceed at Your Own Risk*

**

I was watching Murder By Death recently, and this series reminded me, especially as I reached the final episode, of Lionel Twain’s (Truman Capote) rant about mystery writers making their books impossible to solve by introducing killers late in the story who were hardly in the book before. 

I struggled to understand my feelings as I learned that I predicted Gone’s ending. 

I don’t predict endings. I never predict endings.

Throughout the show, I was fixated on Rupert Evans’ performance as Rory Bowman, a longtime student at the school who would grow into a teacher. I kept watching his character. Why would an actor who is ‘a name’ take a role that is largely in the background? There had to be something else going on… 

There was. 

The result is, I spent the entire show doing mental jumping jacks. As the story leapt between its various suspects, I kept wondering why they weren’t focusing on Rory. Was he really just what we saw on screen? 

Rupert Evans (a perennial Kim favorite) is always a perfect academic. He’s a versatile ‘behind-the-eyes’ actor. You can feel everything he isn’t saying. His portrayals are buttoned up, but there’s a beautiful emotion just beneath the surface. 

As episode six rolled around and they solved the crime… I wanted so much more. Rupert Evans deserves so much more. 

Rory takes a back seat in the series to Elliot Cowan as Stephen Sedgwick, and we spend most of the narrative bouncing between Sedgwick and Morrissey’s Michael Polly as the potential murderers. Both men get meaty emotional work as we try to figure out whether they ‘did it’.

Rory’s narrative only takes shape deep in the series finale, with Evans giving a captivating performance in his character’s key scene. His loaded fragility, his emotions, and his overwhelm shine through beautifully. His relationship with murder victim Sarah Polly is emotionally complex, and I was left wanting more. More scenes. More story development. More time for Rupert Evans to show just how damn good he is. 

More of this, please, BritBox. 

Gone is now streaming on BritBox in the United States.