Paula Reed Smith

Dr. Paula Reed Smith arrives in Belfast as a forensic psychiatrist, brought in to help profile the killer terrorising the city. Precise, watchful, and unshowy, she reads behaviour for a living and treats the investigation as a puzzle of motive rather than sensation, slotting into Stella Gibson's team with quiet professional confidence.

The role gives Panjabi a character defined by intellect rather than incident, and she plays that restraint beautifully — stillness, controlled speech, a gaze that misses nothing. Reed Smith never grandstands to prove her expertise; the performance lets competence speak for itself, which makes her scenes with Gibson feel like two sharp minds quietly testing each other.