BBC One’s The Interceptor follows a top secret, state-of-the-art law enforcement team whose unswerving mission is to hunt down some of Britain’s most dangerous criminals.
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Created and written by Tony Saint (Strike Back), the eight-part series delves into the adventures of a dedicated surveillance team known as the UNIT. Keeping their quarries under ultra-tight surveillance, they take us into the real world inhabited by the criminals of today. And it’s easy to recognise because it’s the same world the rest of us inhabit.
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Episode 1
Wednesday 10 June 2015, 9pm
A botched operation leads Ash (O-T Fagbenle) and his best mate Tommy (Robert Lonsdale) to join the UNIT, a new undercover law enforcement team whose unswerving mission is to get to the criminals at the top of the chain.
Ash loves two things: his family and catching criminals. Ignoring the fears of his wife Lorna (Jo Joyner), the risks this new job might entail and Lorna’s dreams of a safe life for their family, he throws himself obsessively into his work. Driven by the ghosts of his past and uncompromising in his approach, Ash’s knowledge of the street soon starts to pay off.
The UNIT get under the skin of a serious criminal drug gang but, as they begin to climb further up the organisation’s hierarchy and identify the key members, Ash’s two goals in joining the UNIT are brought into sharp conflict. When it comes to it, can Ash put his personal feelings aside in order to learn more about an organisation bigger than any of them could have imagined? And if he can’t, where does this leave his role in the UNIT?
Episode 2
Wednesday 17 June 2015, 9pm
Ash (O-T Fagbenle) is closer to the big criminals than he has ever been.
The UNIT have got their hooks into an important drug dealer, Xavier (Lee Boardman), and they’re following his every move in the hope he’ll lead them to someone even higher in the organisation – and ultimately to the man at the very top.
They follow Xavier to a meeting with a rival dealer in a busy market, but events take a shocking turn when guns are drawn and an innocent boy is killed. The victim’s best friend Cal (Jack Bence), a witness to the shooting, is shocked when the murderer walks free, leaving both him and his younger siblings the targets of gang intimidation.
The UNIT immediately focus their investigation on the guns and Tommy (Robert Lonsdale) discovers that not only Xavier is arming up against the threat of a turf war, but Cal, by now terrified for his family, has also been persuaded to buy a gun and go on the offensive. Can Tommy stop Cal crossing over into criminality and destroying his life? And can the team track down the source of the guns while keeping their bigger criminal targets in play?
Episode 3
Wednesday 24 June 2015, 9pm
The UNIT is beginning to make inroads into the criminal organisation and Ash (O-T Fagbenle) is finally doing the kind of work he’s dreamed of – but it’s having an impact on his family life.
Phone taps have revealed that a big sum of money is being sent out from Xavier’s dry cleaners on behalf of ‘someone bigger’ and it’s a great lead: the money could take them to its source and therefore one step closer to identifying their Mr Big. Tracking it reveals the existence of a money launderer known as The Accountant (Neil Stuke), whose latest scheme is to use a traditional and paperless worldwide money transfer system called Hawala.
The team home in on The Rays, a family of long-standing honest ‘Hawaladars’ who have lived by a code of honour, until now. Youngest son, Zubin (Hamza Jeetooa), has agreed to launder the money unbeknownst to his father or brother Astin (Sacha Dhawan), a respectable building society manager. But when it’s stolen whilst in Zubin’s care, the Rays are in serious debt to the vicious Accountant and, if he doesn’t get repaid quickly, the punishment will be severe.
Zubin’s mistake has led the UNIT deeper into the criminal organisation and Cartwright (Ewan Stewart) is happy to exploit this. But Ash isn’t about to stand by and watch the Rays be sacrificed in the process. Can Ash and the team find a way to save the Rays from themselves, while keeping the money in play and getting a step closer to their ultimate target?
Episode 4
Wednesday 1 July 2015, 9pm
The Unit’s war of attrition on Roach (Trevor Eve) and his gang is beginning to take effect.
Under pressure and low on drugs and money they’re forced to turn to a new foreign supplier, a Norwegian nicknamed The Viking. The Unit know how vital The Viking (Christian Rubeck, pictured) could be in learning more about the crew they’re targeting, but he’s proving frustratingly hard to pin down. Clever and terrifyingly ruthless, The Viking thwarts the Unit at every turn and the team find themselves at odds
with each other about the best way to proceed.
Meanwhile, Ash’s (O-T Fagbenle) old friend Stacey (Ruby Wild), a former addict indebted to him for his help in getting clean, thinks she might have found a way to pay him back for his kindness. But when her attempt to help Ash with the case puts her life in danger, Ash’s search for the Norwegian becomes deeply personal.
Unable to leave his anger at work, Lorna (Jo Joyner) is no longer sure she recognises the man she married. While Kim (Anna Skellern) gets closer to Martin (Charlie De Melo), she finds herself questioning, like Lorna, whether this job and a personal life are compatible. With Stacey on his conscience, Ash and his colleagues close in on The Viking. If they fail this time, the city will be flooded with a ton of dangerous drugs and Roach will be a step closer to achieving his ambitious expansion plans.
Episode 5
Wednesday 8 July 2015, 9pm
A batch of toxic pills has hit the market, killing two young people in days, and the police are struggling to find the source.
When the UNIT discover a link between the pills and the gang they’re investigating, Cartwright (Ewan Stewart) agrees it’s worth pursuing – but only if it’s to further their aims of getting higher up the organisation. No one wants this more than Ash (O-T Fagbenle), but he’s equally determined to stop more lethal pills from hitting the streets.
Tommy (Robert Lonsdale) follows the phone taps to lead them to Paulo (Gonzalo Ramos), a pizza delivery man who’s been persuaded by Scooter (Dexter Fletcher), an ex-rave promoter and dealer, to courier the pills. When Paulo is arrested both the police and the UNIT want to talk to him, but Scooter has other ideas.
Determined to maintain Paulo’s silence, he kidnaps his unsuspecting girlfriend Valentina (Ana-Maria Maskell). Paulo escapes police custody but the UNIT must get to him first to discover more about the operation, stop the lethal pills and save Valentina’s life. As Roach (Trevor Eve) waits to hear news of his foray into the pill business, he’s unaware of the net closing around him.
Episode 6
Wednesday 15 July 2015, 9pm
After the failure of the pill operation, Roach (Trevor Eve) turns to violent armed robber Yorkie (Ralph Ineson) to solve his cash flow problems.
Troubled by the terrifying intelligence the UNIT gather on Yorkie, they seek to track him down. With Cartwright’s (Ewan Stewart) old adversary DCI Stannard (Simon Armstrong) determined to shut down the UNIT, finding a wanted man like Yorkie could also get the police off their backs.
But the team’s operation to track Yorkie stalls when Ash recognises his driver and purposely loses the tail. It’s his oldest friend Alex (Ralf Little) and Ash is shocked to see him in league with a dangerous criminal like Yorkie.
Determined to keep Alex a secret from the team and to warn him off Yorkie, he sets out to find him. When the two friends meet again t’s just like old times. But Lorna is terrified. Could Alex’s influence bring back the wild and troubled Ash she hoped was buried for ever?
Ash denies it, but Lorna knows the truth and his lies are hard to forgive. Even Tommy (Robert Lonsdale) doesn’t recognise the Ash he knows.
As Yorkie plans the robbery of a casino, and the UNIT close in, Ash’s desire to protect Alex and his nostalgia for old times look in danger of clouding his instincts. Can Ash save Alex, or is the past best kept in the past?
Episode 7
Wednesday 22 July 2015, 9pm
After his violent encounter with Yorkie, Ash (O-T Fagbenle) returns to work at a low ebb: Lorna (Jo Joyner) has thrown him out and now that his cover is blown with Docker (Gary Beadle), Cartwright (Ewan Stewart) has benched him.
But Ash is convinced that their ‘Mr Big’ is planning a big shipment of drugs. Cartwright is sceptical, so Ash secretly begins to investigate on his own. Meanwhile, with round-the-clock surveillance on Docker yielding nothing, the UNIT are desperate for any possible lead. The discovery of a new player in town, keen to muscle in on Roach’s organisation, could lead them to finally putting a face to the figure at the top of their board.
The team are deeper into the organisation than they have ever been, but when all their main suspects are suddenly arrested by police, it’s clear DCI Stannard (Simon Armstrong) is intent on closing them down.
Kim (Anna Skellern) is horrified to realise that ex-boyfriend Connor (Felix Scott) has used their relationship to feed intelligence to Stannard. Worse, her relationship with Martin (Charlie De Melo) has hit the rocks and she’s only just realising her true feelings for him.
As Ash continues to go rogue, Tommy (Robert Lonsdale) is becoming increasingly concerned for his friend, despite his own troubles battling with panic attacks stemming from his earlier car accident. In a thrilling chase culminating at the racetrack, the team know that everything is at stake: if they fail to finally unmask their ‘Mr Big’, the Unit is finally finished.
Episode 8
Wednesday 29 July 2015, 9pm
With Roach’s identity finally revealed, and the villain seemingly within the Unit’s grasp, the team now face the challenge of intercepting his massive shipment of drugs – and even more crucially, somehow linking it to him.
Meanwhile, Roach (Trevor Eve) is feeling under pressure from both outside and inside his organisation, and becomes convinced that there is a traitor within his own gang. But what is he prepared to do to restore order in the ranks?
As the Unit close in on what they believe to be Roach’s shipment, little do they know that Roach has a final surprise up his sleeve. The Unit grapple with the tragic fallout of his latest move, and try to come to terms with the failure of their mission. But Ash (O-T Fagbenle), with nothing else to lose, isn’t prepared to give up so easily.
He sets about laying a trap for Roach – but is it one he’ll fall into, or will he ultimately get away with his most audacious operation yet? In a thrilling and tense series denouement, Ash and Roach finally come face to face. Will Ash finally manage to bring down his biggest ever criminal adversary and, if he does, what will it cost him morally and personally? If, after it is all over, he can’t get his family back, will it all have been worth it?
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