What happened in the Vigil season 2 ending and who was behind the Dundair killings?

The Vigil season 2 ending finally revealed everyone who was behind the Dundair killings and the conspiracy went far higher than you might've expected.

So much has been changed between the series 1 Vigil finale and Vigil series 2, not least the setting. However, whilst it didn’t revisit the claustrophobic submarine-based concept of season 1, the second instalment delivered plenty of equally intense moments and subterfuge to untangle by episode 6.

The Vigil season 2 ending saw DCI Amy Silva and DI Kirsten Longacre expose serious corruption in the Air Force and the intense twists and turns might well have led fans down some wrong avenues before the truth was uncovered. The finale tied up loose ends politically and investigatively and featured personal developments for Amy and Kirsten's story too.  

Vigil season 2 ending 

The second series of Vigil focused on a very different kind of investigation for DCI Amy Silva and DI Kirsten Longacre, not least because it was land-based rather than split between the mainland and a submarine. The case began with the murder of seven people, including several from the (very much fictional) Middle Eastern country of Wudyan. This happened during what had initially been deemed a very successful weapon exercise involving remotely piloted drones at the fictional Scottish airbase of Dundair, before one of them carried out the killings. 

Prior to this, several people from Wudyan had been convinced to put in an order for the drones and the deaths soon led to an escalation of international tensions. The pilot of the drone protested his innocence and when Amy and Kirsten started to look into it, they became convinced of this too. In the Vigil season 2 ending Amy uncovered Acting Squadron Leader Eliza Russell had been involved in what happened with the drone - and she wasn’t alone.

She’s been acting on the orders of corrupt Air Vice Marshal Marcus Grainger and Derek McCabe who had a very different agenda. Derek was the Vice President of the Scottish company that manufactured the drones and he and Marcus had been hoping to encourage an all-out war, with the UK joining on one side in Wudyan. Derek’s stock prices looked set to rise if war happened and Eliza initially claimed to have been tempted by the money he was paying her.

Eliza had been the pilot of the drone that had killed the people at Dundair and went on to kill technical lead Wes Harper because he’d been blackmailing her, before making it look like an act of self-defence. In an interrogation after working out it was Eliza, Amy asked her why so many people had to die when they would’ve come in and investigated a single death.

All the conspirators needed was an investigation which they would’ve used to encourage UK interest in joining Wudyan’s war. Eliza responded that it “had to look real” and the massacre had to be something that people “couldn’t ignore”.

Eventually in the Vigil season 2 ending Eliza also told Amy that she had been compelled to commit the murders because of pressure from the security services. This was something that MI5’s Daniel Ramsey vehemently denied - or at least he denied that he’d been involved in anything of the sort.

Amy also worked out that despite Eliza claiming to have hired veteran Ross Sutherland, it had actually been Marcus Grainger who’d done this. With the plot unravelling before his eyes and Amy presenting him with evidence that incriminated him, Grainger ended up confessing to his part in the crimes and declared that it was for the greater good. He also confirmed to Amy that Eliza had said the security services were involved to try and protect him, because she is a “good officer”.

Alongside these developments in the Vigil season 2 ending we also saw Kirsten injured by McCabe after she followed Ross to a meeting with him. She’d attempted to persuade the veteran that he wasn’t helping his contact stop terrorists, but helping them to get an excuse to go to war and sell more weapons. 

He’d replied that if she was right, he would kill his contact but in the end McCabe had killed Ross and Kirsten ended up being treated in hospital. Thankfully, both Kirsten and her and Amy's unborn baby were ok and the DI identified McCabe as the one who'd shot her and killed Ross. Following this, McCabe fled the country and Grainger and Eliza were both charged with treason and whilst she received a life sentence with a 30 year minimum term, Grainger’s was a minimum term of 45 years. 

As the judge himself put it, his term was given out in consideration of his role as the “instigator and controlling mind” of the conspiracy and means he’s unlikely to be eligible for parole “within [his] natural lifespan”.

Their trial was attended by Amy, who later walked home over the bridge, seemingly on the phone to Kirsten. In the final few seconds of the Vigil season 2 ending, Amy said simply, “Hey, Love, it’s done. I’m coming home.”

Was Rose Leslie pregnant during Vigil season 2? 

Alongside curiosity about the Vigil season 2 ending, fans might also have found themselves wondering whether Rose Leslie was pregnant throughout Vigil's second instalment. Her character Kirsten was and the fact that she and Amy Silva were expecting a baby son together was a big part of their relationship storyline. Rose Leslie was also pregnant in Vigil series 2 and she was expecting her second child with her husband, Game of Thrones star Kit Harington.

Suranne Jones (DCI Amy Silva) previously opened up to RadioTimes.com how the BBC drama filmed during Rose’s pregnancy and how the sound department helped her when her co-star went to have her baby.

"Rose was actually pregnant while we were filming, which was lovely, though perhaps not for Rose on many occasions - it must have been really tiring! It was lovely though as she really had the bump that we see in the series,” she said. 

Suranne added, "Even when Rose had to go and have her real baby, the sound department did this wonderful thing where they recorded Rose’s dialogue so when I had the phone calls with her, they would then play Rose on the phone so it felt like she was there for the whole shoot."

Vigil series 1 and 2 are available to watch now on BBC iPlayer.