LINE OF DUTY: cop-on-cop action TV procedural that demands analysis

Also I’ve missed Kate and her hopeless undercover sitcom scenes this season

AM-M was very broad in this ep, almost like a Comic Relief skit, but I thought it kind of worked

Agreed, what are they playing at with the "remains relating to an IC1 male"? We glimpsed remains wearing a bloody brown leather jacket, not the stylish hoodie ensemble Corbett was last seen in.

didn't think much of it but lots of speculation that it's a police exam

xps: IC1 male whose dna matches Corbett though, iirc?

someone has spotted that Ryan Pilkington's social worker was a Jane Hargreaves (the third Jane/Jayne along with Cafferty and Aykers!) - unknown if related to Lester.

as I see it there are a few possible reasons for Ted's weird behaviour/attitude:
- genuinely going off the rails/ going maverick due to pressures of the job, wife moving on, wife getting tortured, feelings of betrayal /guilt re Maneet
- acting out some kind of masterplan to draw out the real H/ crack the case etc
- Adrian Dunbar doesn't know which way this is actually going to go so having a bit of fun/ not knowing best way to approach the character

We glimpsed remains wearing a bloody brown leather jacket, not the stylish hoodie ensemble Corbett was last seen in.

I think it just looks brown because of all the blood.

I like how the AC-3 people are alternate-reality versions of AC-12. I like that Brandyce even has the regulation haircut.
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/lineofduty/images/6/6e/Michelle_Brandyce.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/310?cb=20190428223028

someone on another thread said it's like when Father Ted, Jack and Dougal go to one of the other islands :)

Yes!

It's a bit weird that anyone would leave £50k lying around in a hotel room tbh. Wouldn't you put it in the safe or take it work or hide it in your car or something? You'd only leave it on the side if you half wanted someone to come along and find it. Or was the non-concealment of it supposed to help his defence?

tbh even assuming dunbar did suddenly forget how to act (or was badly directed by michelle of eastenders) i can't make head or tail of ted this last ep

https://comb.io/0OdbLn.gif

(i actually didn't think it was a very good ep)

Yeah, Ted in prison should be a wrenching NOOOOOOOOO kind of moment, and instead it's really just "well, I guess it kinda depends on whatever the plot turns out to be".

The mystery box plotting removes agency from the characters. It's like an RPG railroading kind of thing.

I think it just looks brown because of all the blood.

I've reviewed the evidence item and you are correct.

bubble wrap laptop = mystery box

someone on another thread said it's like when Father Ted, Jack and Dougal go to one of the other islands

Yes! I thought of that bit in Shaun of the Dead where "our" gang run into an alternative gang of Tamsin Greig and others escaping a different way, but Father Ted works too.

Strong debut for Anna Maxwell Martin almost distracted from the general dreadfulness of the rest of the episode.

s2 rewatch notes: the fall of dryden is good stuff

do actual real coppers outside this programme really always know the exact number of every single law and reg -- i say in fact no

s3 rewatch notes: when denton's trial ends and she is free to go (sentence already served) and speaks to the press on the court steps and all dot's burner phones light up and start buzzing angrily

I remember liking that moment too. An oblique glimpse at the powers above Dot.

Caught up to the current episode last night. Been quite a three weeks blasting through it all in quick succession, but it’s meant we’ve been able to spot a lot of connections that I suspect you’d miss if you’d watched in real time.

Feel a bit bereft that there’s a few days to wait now.

Last episode was kind of anti-climactic after s5e4, but I guess it just needed to position things for the finale.

rewatched the three eps culminating in "urgent exit required" w/my sister last night -- just fizzing with cheeky turn-it-upside-down energy and surprise reversals, contrast w/sunday's ep (hastings in slammer not steve) is stupefying

sister's considered conclusion (re story) is that ted's brane is broken in his desperate plight: this isn't ploys it's mental collapse and flailing -- i guess we'll see

jed's brane also broken in *his* desperate plight (= maintaining thrills via black box plus resolving everything he's set up, possibly NOT by long-arc planning?) in conclusion during ted's next AC-whatever interview he either resorts to a time-travel reset or arya suddenly appears and stabs someone

crimey-wimey

the actual best bit in this entire sequence of series is dot cottan in his blue suit and tall man's long shoes just running and running and running

oh oh also also: ryan (see above re police exam) is The Caddy for the next generation

i would say this, but the "Obsessed With Line Of Duty" podcast is v v good. Lolly Adefope and Brett Goldstein

I can't remember, but Dot is definitely dead, right?

Main disappointment this season in how small and crap the OCG seem to be. It's like when the Cylons turned out to be a bunch of moaning handsome people with office politics.

Generally agree there is a certain SWAGGER that is missing this season.

swagger directly proportionate to Lindsay Denton screen time iirc

dot shot dead on-screen final ep that series – dying declaration taken by kate – but WHO KNOWS

In essence, the last episode, and doubtless the next one, are the loud flappings of Jed's long feet.

and we are kate absurdly running on foot after a speeding car that keeps turning new corners so it never actually recedes and escapes but instead keeps passing near us down a different street

they totally pulled the punch on the pre-interview buzzer in this ep is my big complaint

The upcoming feature-length episode opens with a 60-minute beeeeeeeeeeee

a thing i've noticed in the rewatch without working out what's going on is that everyone is contantly saying "well done" and "good work" to everyone else -- possibly mainly when it turns out not to be good work at all? or else not in good faith? not sure

nice one mate

Main disappointment this season in how small and crap the OCG seem to be. It's like when the Cylons turned out to be a bunch of moaning handsome people with office politics.

― Chuck_Tatum, Wednesday, May 1, 2019 12:50 PM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes this is bugging me a bit as well. Where's the well-organised shadowy network that makes bent coppers like Dot and Hilton shit themselves with fear at the mere mention? There must be more to it than just five or six goons in a print shop, I hope there's some big reveal coming but I fear I may be disappointed.

TBH the series has always been at it's best when it's essentially a Columbo-like battle of wits between AC-12 and some specific devious individual - Gates, Denton, Huntley. This series has lacked that specific focus, and although the murder of Corbett was a great shock ending it also served to completely deflate the tension built up to that point.

This is clearly just one tiny cell of the OCG, no?

Well, I hope so. Bit of a cop-out(ha) if that turns out not to be the case.

Yeah, I assume this is just one of a number of arms of the OCG.

The OCG is a venerable organization with an elaborate, well-established culture that must have been built up organically over time by far more people than the print shop goons:

- wearing balaclavas
- unregistered pay-as-you-go phones in envelopes
- slitting throats
- blackmailing coppers
- hijacking convoys
- tykes on bikes
- remains in freezers
- concealed stacks of £50s in envelopes
- leaving corpses on that one pier

A proud tradition!

Yeah, I assume this is just one of a number of arms of the OCG.

ha, this reminds me of my own surprise as a young child to discover there were other police ac units in the world beyond my garden fence and not just ac12. yea, both have manifold tentacles that reach unseen throughout the shadowy places of this land. but have you noticed that the structure of the ocg is actually the mirror image of the police ac teams? they work in a mysterious balance, and change in one is reflected by change in the other - death paid for with death, arrest matched with suspension from duty, you shut down their print shop and they raid your warehouse. the closer the police come to cracking the ocg, the more turmoil is created within their own ranks. but what unseen hand guides this? the H you are seeking is the principal of Harmony in the universe. as an initiate, hastings understands this. his anguish at the death of corbett come from the knowledge that he himself must restore the equilibrium with his own sacrifice

damn

is the yin of bent coppers not subtly balanced by the yang of rats and undercover officers? it is these invisible harmonies that the jedi mercurio seeks to reveal

mercurio retrograde

[staring off into the middle distance]

woaaah

I watched the very first episode a couple of weeks ago and wasn't especially keen, it all felt a bit too dour, too murky. Then it got to the twist at the end of the second episode and I'm on board.

b: it is great at shock developments (on sun i told myself "just one more ep b4 bed" and hence confronted self w/a home invasion and a throat-cutting)

― mark s, Wednesday, March 29, 2017 10:57 AM (two years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

coSINE

Now I think of this as a British spin-off to John Wick, with its own magical crime universe of frozen body parts, infinite AC units, part man/part balaclava-men, etc.

Ha, that was pretty much the exact moment we went "OK, this is worth watching now, wtf is going to happen" too Matt DC.

I believe it was Newton who first postulated that for every corruption there is an equal and opposite anticorruption

Often within the same officer.

lol steve is such a sulky pup

(s4 rewatch notes)

He's more a determined little terrier, surely