Following its premiere on Amazon Prime Video earlier this year, The fourth season of Ripper Street arrives on BBC Two.
David Threlfall and Harry Potter actor Matthew Lewis join returning regulars Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn, Adam Rothenberg, MyAnna Buring and Charlene McKenna for the seven new episodes.
Other new cast members include Jonas Armstrong (Robin Hood), David Warner (The Omen) and Killian Scott (Calvary).
Buy the complete Season 1-3 box set on Amazon.
Episode 1: ‘The Stranger’s Home – Part One’
Monday 22 August 2016, 9pm
Three years have passed since Reid left the heaving maelstrom of Whitechapel for a life of quiet contemplation by the sea with his daughter. However, he finds himself drawn back to the naphtha glare of those East London streets when he learns that Isaac Bloom, a Jewish mathematician who helped Reid on two previous Whitechapel investigations, is set to hang before the week is out.
Bloom’s purported crime is a vicious murder, and it is a crime of which Reid believes his old friend incapable. And yet it was Drake’s investigation that sent Bloom to the hangman’s noose, so when Drake learns of Reid’s return the two men must surely come to blows.
An Indian man has been found murdered at the docks, and Drake finds himself working alongside the man’s father – a Bengal Lancer by the name of Haroun Al-Qadir – to track down the young man’s killer.
Meanwhile, Bloom is not the only familiar face soon to meet the hangman’s noose. Long Susan languishes in Newgate Prison, awaiting retribution for her part in the Leman Street locomotive disaster of 1894.
Episode 2: ‘The Stranger’s Home – Part Two’
Monday 29 August 2016, 9pm
With the help of Major Al-Qadir, Drake continues to investigate the mysterious murder of a young Indian-born lawyer. However things get tricky for Drake and his men when it becomes clear that their investigation is stepping on Special Branch’s toes.
Things aren’t going smoothly for Jackson and Long Susan either, as their original plan to save her from the rope has fallen through: can Jackson come up with another idea in time?
Meanwhile, despite his better judgement, Reid continues to dig into the conviction of his old friend Isaac Bloom. But time is running out because – even before Susan – Bloom is soon set to face the hangman’s gallows.
Episode 3: ‘Some Conscience Lost’
Monday 5 September 2016, 9pm
It is Reid’s first day back at H Division and the police force he once commanded is now under Inspector Drake’s authority. Despite his initial anxiety, it soon becomes clear that Reid’s investigative instinct is as sharp as ever – as evidenced when Drake puts him to work uncovering the mystery behind a series of recent attacks where the victims have been detached from their right hands. Reid’s mind is on other matters however, and he risks incurring Drake’s wrath when he becomes entangled in a case to which he is not officially attached.
Unable to resist the urge to help a distressed singer, Reid sets about investigating the sinister disappearance of the young woman’s son. Reid’s investigation takes him to the workhouse, but when it becomes apparent that the mother could be losing her mind, Reid is forced question whether her testimony can be relied upon.
Drake is frustrated by his former boss’s preoccupation, and fissures in their working relationship start to emerge. Drake finds more problems at home where Rose is struggling to cope as a new mother to young Conor Judge. It turns out that taking on another woman’s child is no easy feat. Susan, meanwhile, finds it difficult to keep to herself in the dangerous dockside world of Abel Croker, and takes a chance to grab some power and glory for herself.
Episode 4: ‘A White World Made Red’
Monday 12 September 2016, 9pm
One month has passed since Inspector Reid returned to H Division. Drake and Reid are working once more in harmony but Whitechapel is forever haunted, and this time by a spectre with a taste for blood.
The discovery of a body entirely drained of its blood at first seems the stuff of nightmarish fantasy, but soon it becomes all too real for Jackson when the case links to a man who aided Long Susan’s escape from Newgate. Can Jackson help Reid and Drake solve the case without the truth about Susan emerging? The fate of a young Polish seamstress depends on it.
Rose, meanwhile, seems to have found the trick to caring for little Conor, but the balance in her household is upset when Drake discovers Rose’s secret…
Susan is struggling to cope with her new life of dockside incarceration and begins to reveal more of her dark past to her villainous guardian, Abel Croker. Their forced proximity brings them ever closer together.
Episode 5: ‘Men of Iron, Men of Smoke’
Monday 19 September 2016, 9pm
Just as it seems that Reid and Drake have found their working dynamic once more, they are forced to engage with a difficult murder case that threatens to open old wounds.
A young man – Charlie Tanner – has been found murdered and the investigation takes our heroes to the Thames Ironworks, and into the brutal world of Victorian football. The game is in its infancy and Tanner the star of the team – a man with apparently no enemies. But there’s a familiar face among the victim’s co-workers, a certain Thomas Gower: a man once saved from the rope by Drake, and instead sent to soldier abroad.
Drake soon finds he has an affinity with the lad, but when the case begins to move closer to Gower – fissures begin to emerge between Drake’s and Reid’s investigative instincts.
Meanwhile, Jackson throws himself into investigating the early science of blood spatter patterns at the scene of Tanner’s murder. Work is a welcome distraction for the Captain given Long Susan’s increasingly errant state of mind – desperate for a glimpse of her son, Conor, she forms a plan that will to risk everything she and Jackson have worked for in a move that may spell her downfall.
Episode 6: ‘No Wolves In Whitechapel’
Monday 26 September 2016, 9pm
When a young man close to Drake’s heart is discovered murdered, it exacerbates the considerable rift that has developed between Reid and Drake, and threatens to throw H Division as a whole into turmoil. The man’s fatal injuries appear to be consistent with a previous Whitechapel murder, but this cannot be because Drake sent the perpetrator of that crime – Isaac Bloom – to the rope…
Yet the cases’ similarities force Drake to question everything about that original investigation, and confront the realisation that Reid’s misgivings about Bloom’s conviction could prove well-founded.
As if this weren’t enough, Drake faces pressure from another quarter: with his wife Rose convinced that the woman the world saw hang, Long Susan, still lives – and she is determined to prove it. Drake’s refusal to believe Rose puts a strain upon their relationship at a dangerous time, and Rose’s mounting hysteria makes her vulnerable to manipulation by those with interests counter to those of our heroes…
Jackson and Long Susan, meanwhile, set about organizing the customs house heist that they hope will furnish them with the funds to finally effect their flight from the country. The wharfinger, Croker, has promised his assistance, but – with Jackson’s characteristically slapdash approach to contend with – it seems unlikely that this plan will go off without a hitch.
Episode 7: ‘Edmund Reid Did This’
Monday 3 October 2016, 9pm
As a new serial killer plagues Whitechapel, Reid and Drake become convinced that his crimes are being covered up by another party. Together they follow a trail of corruption that leads to the heart of Scotland Yard, and to Assistant Commissioner Augustus Dove.
But as our heroes prepare their case, Dove uses Rose to help unearth a terrible secret from Reid and Drake’s past. Our coppers have entered into a battle like no other.
Jackson and Long Susan, meanwhile, prepare for their escape following the successful customs house heist, but attempts to fence their stolen booty soon send them into the path of Reid and Drake – and the hell that is about to engulf Leman Street. Once again our heroes face the question: do they turn against one another, or stick together and fight?
Buy the complete Season 1-3 box set on Amazon.
Watch the Season 4 trailer…
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