Something so restlessly grim as Line of Duty should not be so damn enjoyable to watch.
No, wait. Is enjoyable the right word? Probably not.
It’s not like you can say ‘I enjoyed’ when talking about the scene early on where Jonas Armstrong (remember when he was Robin Hood a billion Saturday nights ago?) giving his powerful ‘Mr Smith’ speech to DS Arnott. That sequence detailing an abused innocence is a combination of writing and performance so unflinching that I felt physically queasy after.
But I was glad that I did. It shows how effective a drama this is. Martin Compston is your onscreen representative of anger and impotence, with his best performance in the show to date, as he stands over the stroke-addled Jabba that is the paedophile Mr Roach and almost loses his carefully cultivated AC-12 professionalism. I’d have cheered if he had, but right now he’s one of the few people above the moral grey area, despite what Lindsay Denton says.
In this post-Saville world, where a yew tree is no longer immediately synonymous with a lovely conifer, no doubt the hairs of suspicion were already pricking up on the back of your neck in Episode 1. But it’s tonight when past events are explicitly detailed, to the point where Jed Mercurio is unafraid to narrow the parallels between drama and real world cases of historic sex offences.
Initially it seemed this third season of Line of Duty was going to be about the rights and wrongs of the police force’s use of firearms, but it’s quickly ricocheted off into far darker, more complex territory. Danny seemed like he was to be the villain. Now he’s the victim. Everything he’s done, however repulsive, has been as a victim.
Creating victims left, right, and hanging from a beam is ‘Dot’ Cottan, a villain that Jed Mercurio has put a lot of work into, having moulded him in a vacuum of procedural oversight over the past two seasons.
Like a mould, Cottan’s thrived in the forgotten space between the big cases. In that, he’s been carefully shielding high-profile paedophiles, and other criminals, from the law, and doing so by any means, even staging Rod’s death as a suicide and framing Hari for it.
And wow, it’s a wonder Cottan even has time to make a pot of chilli, given how well-prepared he is in stitching Hari up. I guess he readies all the ingredients in the morning, standing in his PJs at the hob, browning the mince and practicing his bad Cockney accent – ‘You’d be nuffin without me. Nuffin. Noffin. Ahem. Nuffink. You’d be nuffink without me.’ – then bunging the whole lot in a slow cooker. Yes, probably that.
He seems like a well-planned sort of guy. He’d have to be to pull off setting up Hari for Rod’s murder so seamlessly. Hari’s arrested and Cottan’s put forward for a commendation because Superintendent Ted Hastings can’t hear you banging on your TV screen.
But he’s playing a dangerous game, and judging by all those burner phones, doing so with a lot of bad people. His victory is loudly cut short by the release of Lindsay Denton, and the release of the viewer from the not-very-interesting court sequences.
There was a worry that the hallmark spectacular interview sequences were being phased out for barristers being snide, but thankfully the we’re spared a Broadchurch 2 situation and still get another classic AC-12 grilling as Jackie comes clean.
Unlike the previous two weeks, this was not an episode that set out to set Twitter alight with a surprise entrance or exit. This was an hour that, having earned our attention, continued to explore a plot that is becoming even more intricate and enveloping than previous season. It’s the most ambitious the show has ever been, and so far it’s paying off.
That’s not to say there aren’t one or two warning flags. Vicky McClure’s Kate Fleming doesn’t feel like she’s being used to her full potential, and maybe it’s just me, but I’ve a nagging worry that the more complex the plot becomes, the harder it will be to give a satisfactory end to the season and the storylines of each character (the ones left alive by Episode 6 anyway).
Remember, despite a cracking run of episodes, not everyone was enamoured with the end of Season 2. What Lindsay Denton does next, whose side(s) she’s on, may redeem that, or may over-complicate Season 3.
But let’s not worry about the future and keep an eye on the present, and an episode that genuinely made me feel nauseated, angry, confused, hungry (Cottan’s chilli…), and entirely powerless in the face of so many conflicting motives and no sign of a resolution. And experiencing all of that? That was enjoyable.
More enjoyable grimness next week, please.
Aired at 9pm on Thursday 7 April 2016 on BBC Two.
> Buy Season 3 on DVD on Amazon.
> Buy the complete Season 1-3 box set on Amazon.
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