Ever since Inspector Reid’s fateful encounter with Susan and Capshaw in Episode 4, Ripper Street’s third season has been treading water somewhat with two generally standalone instalments.
This week didn’t cut down on the standalone case of the week action, but packed in plenty more character work and plot advancements to make a packed episode that’s both completely assured and slightly bloated.
Ripper Street has delved into some grim territory this season, but the case of the week in ‘Live Free, Live True’ continued to show that there’s pretty much no depths that the criminals of Whitechapel won’t plumb. The tale of backstreet abortions and family feuds was a surprisingly relevant one, exploring gender roles and feminism in a compelling manner that displayed Ripper Street’s skill at making Victorian situations really resonate with modern day society.
The strong focus on Dr Frayn (an excellent performance from Sherlock’s Louise Brealey) was a great choice, with the character’s impassioned pleas for independence and the right to choose making Dr Frayn a deeply likeable and nuanced character that was extremely easy to root for despite the character’s fairly obscure role before this episode.
‘Live Free, Live True’ was elevated by how it cleverly linked the standalone case of the week to the ongoing character arcs of the season – Susan and her pregnancy served as an intriguing counterpart to ‘George Tate’ the woman in man’s clothing who sought to flee from the ‘prison’ Susan is now caught in, showcasing the varied ways that woman deal with the prejudice in Victorian society in a way that adequately serviced the two major parts of the episode.
Like last week, the conclusion of the case of the week was an appropriately melancholy and bitter one, as ‘George’ is stripped of her dignity and carried away to be hung – it’s an unconventional way to wrap up a plotline, but these slightly nihilistic, thought-provoking conclusions where the ‘criminal’ is either wrongly persecuted feel entirely fitting for a show that routinely, expertly plays with audience suspicions to ensure that the labels ‘heroes’ and ‘villains’ never feel quite adequate.
An example of this is within Susan’s story – Susan, ostensibly, is the main villain of season three having indirectly caused the locomotive crash in episode one and shot Reid, yet she’s entirely sympathetic for the duration of ‘Live Free, Live True’.
Her victory against her domineering male colleagues is essentially a moment of cathartic triumph against oppression, and her heartfelt conversations with Dr Frayn show her to be utterly sincere and friendly – in short, Susan is presented as a conventional protagonist for a great deal of the episode despite her relatively villainous role, and it’s this moral complexity that continues to vindicate the decision to place Susan as a more antagonistic character than before.
‘Live Free, Live True’ is a polished, confident instalment that delivers a satisfying experience in of itself and as a set-up for next week’s season finale, but unfortunately it’s slightly lesser than the sum of its parts.
There’s simply too much going on here – smaller threads such as Reid’s daughter’s escape to the police station and Drake and Rose’s engagement don’t have time to breathe within the sheer weight of other plotlines going on, leaving certain parts as disappointingly underdeveloped, with crucial plotlines sacrificed to give screen-time to the more major elements of the story. It’s a problem that may actually be exclusive to BBC One’s cut-down version, but it’s still a frustrating flaw that lowers the quality of a stellar episode.
It’s almost a disappointment that Susan appears to have been usurped in the villain stakes by the arrival of a new villain – her father – but Susan’s clearly not out of the woods yet, with the Obsidian owner having left an extremely important fingerprint for Jackson to analyse…
Aired at 9pm on Friday 11 September 2015 on BBC One.
> Order Season 3 on DVD on Amazon.
> Buy the Season 1-2 box set on Amazon.
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