Warning: this article contains spoilers for ITV’s Karen Pirie.

If you’ve been tuning in for the past few weeks, you’ll understand the turmoil and confusion we’ve all felt while watching Karen Pirie. The detective drama has not only mastered the art of an impressive murder mystery, but each episode manages to drum up burning questions we didn’t even know we had.

Essentially, it’s the kind of crime drama that kept us guessing to the very bitter end and, along with an amazing cast, stellar writing and the kind of tension we love, the three-part series has cemented itself as one of the best of the year.

Tasked with a 25-year-old case, you would think Pirie (Lauren Lyle) would be faced with multiple dead ends. And while she has had to weather a fair share of frosty exchanges, decades-long secrets and a police force that has completely tokenised her gender, Pirie managed to crack the cold case in the series’ highly anticipated final episode. Airing last night (Sunday 9 October), viewers watched on as Pirie had to wrestle with a possibility that we at home were still trying to wrap our heads around.

While we’ve assumed that DCI Lawson (Stuart Bowman) was the lesser of two evils when it came to him and DI Simon Lees (Steve John Shepherd), Lawson revealed himself to be the perpetrator all along.

ITV’s Karen Pirie: viewers are praising the impressive final episode and calling for a second series