‘D.I. Ray’: Parminder Nagra Says ‘Rachita’s Suspicious of Everybody’ in Season 2
Preview
“She’s probably a little bit reluctant, honestly, to go back to work,” Parminder Nagra admits of her character, Detective Inspector Rachita Ray, when D.I. Ray picks up with a second season on PBS on June 16.
The show’s first season ended with Rachita discovering that her fiancé, DCI Martyn Hunter (Jamie Bamber) was dirty; he was arrested and is now in prison. During the course of the investigation, Rachita grew close to and romantically involved with PS Tony Khatri (Maanuv Thiara), and he was killed. So how is she doing at the beginning of Season 2, which picks up two months later, following her suspension from the force?
“She wasn’t left in good shape by the end of first season after the amount of betrayal that she went through, especially with her partner and the fact that we pick up so quickly after the shooting of Tony, [Martyn] going to prison, and then Rachita being suspended—which in my mind, I’m like, ‘For what reason really? I mean, for doing my job?’ But I think she’s probably a little bit reluctant honestly to go back to work because she’s still going back to the same workplace and still dealing with the same people,” Nagra tells TV Insider.
But DI Ray has another homicide to investigate. “It’s obviously another sensitive case and being who she is, if she’s going to go and do it, she’s going to go and do it to the best of her ability. And that’s what I actually love about Rachita, is she just sort of goes for it,” Nagra continues. “She’s just thrust back into it, and it’s a race against time trying to, as with all these crime dramas, get to what is happening, who’s involved, unpicking and unpacking everything one step at a time.”
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The team is expanding in Season 2, but the detective inspector can’t help but be wary of, well, everyone, the star admits. “I think Rachita’s suspicious of everybody,” she says. “At this point, there’s no one she can trust. The one person she thought she could trust was her partner and he turned out to be not so great. So I think she’s going into Season 2 from that place actually, not a lot of trust but wanting to do her work.”
Ray and the team are assigned to investigate the brutal shooting of a young nurse and the head of a notorious crime syndicate outside a Birmingham hospital. “There’s already a turf war going on between two rival families, and because [the head of one] has been killed, there’s a lot of suspicion around that and that leads to tensions brewing between both families. And so Rachita really has to get to the truth of what’s going on before it completely erupts,” Nagra previews. ” The way that Season 2 has been shot, it’s very noir, it’s a lot grittier. There’s a lot more edge to it, which I just love. I love the whole look of this season.”
As for her personal life this season, after what happened, it’s understandable that while she does want to date, she’s not looking for anything serious.
“She’ll see how it goes, but it’s, again, to do with trust,” says Nagra. “But she’s a lonely character in that way. During her suspension, she’s probably just at home eating cornflakes and working out. She goes back to work and that’s essentially her life and there’s no other real outlet. So if she’s going to date, she’ll do it, but I don’t think she particularly wants to date. But it’s essentially just a sense to feel something, isn’t it? It’s just to feel some level of comfort, but she’s very mistrustful of it.”
D.I. Ray, Season 2 Premiere, Sunday, June 16, 10/9c, PBS
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