The Jody Farr case reaches its highly anticipated climax in this final clash of swords between Britain’s legal masterminds.

The ever sinister Mickey Joy continues to intimidate, forcing Martha to decide where her priorities truly lie. The subtlety of the interaction between Farr, Joy and Costello makes for an extremely gripping opening, laying bare the difficulty of Martha’s situation defending a man she despises.  For once neither her personal nor professional worlds are morally black and white, not made any easier by Clive’s somewhat unsupportive jibes at her ‘corruption’.

Jody Farr continues to displays his superior intimidation techniques. Simply stating that his co-defendant has ‘a wife… and two small children’ succeeds in screaming threat. The mind boggles that a man can admit in open court to being a dangerous drug dealer as part of his defence for murder, without suffering any penalties. Nevertheless, once again Martha manages to sniff out the rat and a true courtroom crescendo brings Joy’s world of manipulation and double crossing to a satisfactory crumble.

It was only a matter of time before Billy’s underhand activities caught up with him and he finds himself in much deeper water than we could have imagined. Indeed, it makes a refreshing change from his usually Artful Dodger act to see him in the court room and under pressure. This role reversal forces a compelling new intensity and integrity from Neil Stuke’s upbeat portrayal. That coupled with the troubles we know he is facing in his personal life and Billy is a character transformed. All we can hope is that it isn’t terminal as a Series 3 without Billy. Well, Shoe Lane just wouldn’t be the same.

There continues to be further development of the evident spark between Daniel and Martha – despite a veiled warning from Billy – and we can only imagine that Series 3 will bring more of this intriguing dynamic. It’s about time Martha got some.

Meanwhile, Clive struggles both with a pang of jealousy over said glimmer, and in his ongoing battle with Silk. However, attempting to leverage CW’s experience brings more baggage than he had foreseen as he discovers that the rumours about her drinking are not unfounded… He is left in the uncomfortable position of being in her debt for the Farr case, which CW has strategically thrown at him, and fessing up to the court authorities – unusual for Clive to be in a moral quandary.

Peter Moffat continues to showcase an effortless ability to establish realistic interrelating storylines between the key characters, along with creating authentic background cases on which each episode stands. The one, and really only, criticism is that the potent and poignant storyline of Martha’s lost pregnancy so subtly developed in the first series is not touched up on the second. Neither is the slight hint that the baby might have been Clive’s.

Well, the BBC will just have to commission Series 3 to address that one. All in all, a thoroughly successful closing to what has been a genuinely thrilling series.

Aired at 9pm on Wednesday 20th June 2012 on BBC One.

> Buy the Series 1 DVD on Amazon.

> Order the Series 2 DVD on Amazon.

What did you think of the finale? Let us know below…