Seriously, for those of you haven’t seen BBC series Line of Duty, find it and watch it now. Its a brilliantly written police series following an anti-corruption unit that gradually over the seasons finds itself uncovering a deep seated network of corrupt senior police officers. Tightly plotted with twists that are shocking but never implausible, its got a great knack of creating conflicted, admirable, flawed characters and bringing them into conflict - mostly and especially in the set piece police interview scenes that mark the climax of each season.
For those of you have watched it all and are up to date:
Who was in the photo?
Can we trust the identification?
Do we believe John’s justification for his choices?
Do we believe the ex-copper with the convenient compensation scheme?
I’ll give this a bump for last night’s episode - genuinely surprised if most BritDopers aren’t watching.
Ye gods, it’s impossible to tell while you’re watching this how far into the episode you are. I was sure that the heist was the big climax, but they did that, had a big Ted Herring reveal, and still kept on going. The difficulty of predicting the narrative beats is a real sign of great writing.
Anyhow, that was twice you were afraid it was going to be Ted, wasn’t it? First the photo, then the bent cop in the balaclava. But no! Ted is too busy looking ridiculously dodgy (what the hell was up with that laptop?) while getting manipulated on two fronts.
Kate and Steve were both up for promotion to DI last season. No question that Hastings made the right pick - Steve is breaking regulations and putting people at risk, while Kate is running ops, managing Steve’s idiocy and keeping a wary eye on Hastings.
I thought the interrogation of the road-crash cop was over too quick - same with the bent FAO. I assume we’re building up to a massive set-piece interrogation of Ted, but it’s a shame they don’t think they can build in longer interviews with small-fry on the way. If I had a criticism of this season it would be that they’re favouring action scenes over police procedural, which is what the first three seasons did so well.
I think one difference is that this time we’re privy to the workings of the OCG in a way we weren’t previously. I always thought one of the great strengths of the series was that the balaclava men were indeed a faceless and malevolent force. They would turn up at someone’s door and slit a throat; throw a cop out a fifth-floor window; torture a detective. But you’d never see the deliberations that led to that, or the disagreements among them. They would appear unexpectedly to do devastating harm and then disappear into the depths of the underworld again.
This season, we’re interested in not one but two members of the OCG, and we’re encouraged to identify with them as human beings. It gives us more information about what they’re doing, and makes them less fearsome. The role of unknowable malefactors has been taken over by “H” and unseen corrupt cops, but it’s not the same.
U.S. viewer here. It dropped on Acorn yesterday. I took the afternoon off and binged. Lots of gasps and shouts of “kill him” from me. I’ve never believed there was an H, now let alone 4. There is a web of bent coppers, but the leader is not an H. That was Dot being an asshole. It was never Ted. Ted is the moral compass of the show. He got rid of his laptop because he watched porn on it and was ashamed. I turned off the sound during the prolonged interrogation by Ann Maxwell Martin. I’ve come to hate her voice. I am really bothered by Ryan joining the police force. He’s a psychopath and this is a way for him to be bad while being good. And why did Ted greet Lisa in a familiar way? There’s a backstory there.