After the reputation Line of Duty gained for providing jaw-dropping moments in its first run, 2014’s second season had plenty to live up to.
Focusing on slippery central suspect DI Lindsay Denton (Keeley Hawes) and delving more into the personal lives of the AC-12 team investigating her, we think it delivered admirably.
With more twists and turns than an episode of Strictly Come Dancing it was tough to keep track, but here is CultBox’s guide to the ten biggest shockers of Season 2…
1. The Defenestration (Episode 1)
Just as we were getting to know DC Georgia Trotman (Jessica Raine), and were wondering if her hard drinking was going to be a problem, she was shoved from a hospital window when attempting to stop a murder.
2. The Crush (Episode 5)
Desperate to clear her name, Denton pins Prasad (Sacha Dhawan) against a wall with his car and records a dying confession from him. Then, just for good measure, she attempts to smother him too.
3. The Kettle (Episode 3)
In the safety of the medical room, after being attacked by other prisoners, tea turns into torture as one of the guards scalds Denton’s hands with boiling water and orders her not to cooperate with AC-12. Answering only yes or no… does she get the message?
4. The Age (Episode 5)
At the pivotal moment in a lengthy interview with DCC Mike Dryden (Mark Bonnar), he is floored by photos showing the apparently murdered Carly Kirk in the front of his car, getting intimate with his lap. He is then told she is only fifteen years old.
5. The Bottle (Episode 1)
Denton shows her aggressive side for the first time, when she brutally bottles her noisy neighbour.
6. The Flush (Episode 1)
Returning to work in a neck brace, post ambush, Denton is met with smiles and sympathy… until she goes to the loo and receives a school bully style flushing. With all her colleagues looking on she’s told that it’s her they should be burying.
7. The Footage (Episode 4)
With access to CCTV recordings of a police function, theories come together in a quite horrific pattern as we discover that Dryden is implicated in Carly Kirk’s murder. Not only was he there with Prasad, but Carly was waitressing too.
8. The Reversal (Episode 2)
Tackling her accusers head on, Denton spins the interview process in her favour and utterly derails their case. She provides photos of Arnott (Martin Compston) getting over-familiar with a witness, has the skinny on Hastings’ undeclared debts and threatens Fleming (Vicky McClure) with secrets culled from her mobile phone.
9. The Murder (Episode 5)
With Denton in their clutches, Prasad kills his partner in crime DS Jeremy Cole (Henry Pettigrew), who has become a liability.
10. The Crash (Episode 4)
Heading back from a visit to her mother’s nursing home, Denton is in the back of a prison van when it is flipped on its side. We experience it all from her perspective, locked in the back.
What was your favourite shocking moment in Season 2? Let us know below…