IT must be terrifying to have a loved one just vanish from your life.

Almost all of us rely on family for support and so the pain of having a partner disappear without a trace and the uncertainty of not knowing whether they are alive or dead is not hard to imagine.

That was what made the finale of Ordinary Lies so strong. We could all relate to it on some level.

The episode focuses on Jo Joyner's character Beth, head of admin at JS Motors in Warrington.

After 16 months of coping without her husband Dave (Shaun Dooley), Beth receives a visit from the police who say that he has been arrested in Margate.

So she goes on a long journey to meet him, confronting a lot of repressed feelings and memories along the way.

What made the episode so compelling was Jo Joyner's performance. This was especially true of the moment her character Beth sets eyes on Dave again after all that time.

In the space of a few seconds you see a spectrum of emotions crossing the former EastEnders actor's face.

Starting with shock and pain, there is a glimmer of joy and then disgust and finally anger.

Your immediate reaction as the viewer is to sympathise with Beth but, of course, the drama is never that straightforward.

As we have learned from the previous episodes, she is in a relationship with married man and showroom boss Mike (Max Beesley).

And to complicate matters, Mike is willing to leave his wife Alison (Belinda Stewart-Wilson) to be with Beth.

It is not long before Dave finds out and Mike also risks losing everything as his father-in-law owns the majority share in the business.

So it is a matter of 'head versus heart' as Beth and Mike prepare to make decisions which will not only effect their lives but their children's lives and their careers as well.

Admittedly, this part of the episode does descend into soap opera territory but it is the clearest example of the question that Ordinary Lies keeps asking its viewers: what would you do in that situation?

You are left wondering that as the credits roll and the door is left open for a second series of Danny Brocklehurst's show in that regard.

But what was also good about the episode is that it revisits unfinished plot threads from the previous weeks.

We discover that receptionist Viv (Cherrelle Skeete) has been moved to a UK jail after her drug smuggling exploits in the Dominican Republic while salesman Pete (Mackenzie Crook) seems to have gotten away with his part in last week's car theft scam.

Other highlights included Ellie Haddington's performance as Gina, your archetypal interfering mother-in-law.

It was also interesting to see Warrington Collegiate's Museum Street campus re-imagined as Margate Police Station.