The story of the week kicked off with the murder of a new mother and the snatching away of her baby in the night. With the discovery of the dead woman’s vestigial tail, Reid (Matthew Macfadyen), Jackson (Adam Rothenberg) and Drake (Jerome Flynn) took themselves to a London freak show to track down answers, and came across John Goode (Tom Brooke), the woman’s former lover and father of the missing child. Goode fled the scene, with Reid and his men hot on the trail.

Culprit-hunting aside, Jackson discovered the extent of Long Susan’s (MyAnna Buring) financial entanglements with Silas Duggan – nice to see Frank Harper popping up to give us a real taste of the East End – and a replacement for Dick Hobbs (may he rest in peace) materialized in the shape of Irish gent Detective Constable Albert Flight (Being Human’s Damien Molony).

Along the way, we heard references to evolution and eugenics – it was revealed that John Goode’s father, the murderer and baby snatcher, was a man of science who had experimented on his own children in an attempt to perfect their genetic code. Despite the fun to be had hearing Reid and his men discuss the recent developments in Victorian science, we were left wondering how the blazes all of this would tie together.

Enter the Elephant Man (Joseph Drake). Introduced last week, we might have suspected that Joseph Merrick’s inclusion was just a fun flourish for the history boffins (or maybe an excuse for the makeup team to go wild) but, as slowly became apparent this week, Joseph had a crucial part to play.

We watched as Joseph worked up the courage to confess to witnessing Inspector Shine’s (Joseph Mawle) murder of Sergeant Linklater, only to fearfully shun the approaches of Reid – who (yes, rather coincidentally) sought information about Joseph’s old friend John Goode. By the end, Joseph found his courage and took himself to Reid to make a statement. In the best scene of the episode, and perhaps Ripper Street as a whole – Joseph arrived just in time to talk down John Goode, on the verge of killing himself and his infant son to save him from a life of pain.

In a speech that beautifully captured the themes of the episode – pain, shame and the value of life – and illustrated the vast potential of this series, Joseph explained that despite all his suffering, he still felt joy every day, pleading with John that the baby in his arms deserved a chance at life. And as if that wasn’t enough to get us weeping, we then watched, helplessly wailing “Nooooo!!!” at our TVs, as Shine crept into Joseph’s room and did away with him.

Though most of the time we’re kept smiling by the juicy Victorian slang and knockabout fun, there’s a genuinely heartfelt intelligence and understated tragedy to Ripper Street. Episodes like this week’s prove that, when it’s on its game, Ripper Street is seriously great series, and one that is brave enough to deny us a happy ending.

Aired at 9pm on Monday 4 November 2013 on BBC One.

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