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

The Dale Roach/Rochdale "ha, doesn't he look like Cyril Smith", "oh, look, here's Jimmy Savile" bit was HI DERE LET US HIT YOU WITH A SLEDGEHAMMER

BEST SLEDGEHAMMER EVER :D

sadly followed now by a v sad sledgehammer :(

one of the little things i like is ppl being interviewed constantly complaining abt the aggressive and hurtful tone being used

My favourite moments are when Fleming stands on the AC-12 balcony, and a SUSPICIOUS GLARE-OFF erupts between Kate and whoever's leaving the building.

Aside from that - the ending to the season four premiere suggests the new season will just be an extended game of exquisite corpse

*MARK MAY NOT WANT TO READ THIS NEXT BIT*

I dunno, it might be fun to subvert the "hi, we have a new lead actor, OH LOOK THEY'RE DEAD" trope.

*CARRY ON NOT LOOKING MARK*

I assumed they were deliberately leading you into thinking they'd pulled the same trick as last time, until the very last second. I guess we'll find out next week...

ok lol i have just completed series 3

thinking of meetings where i'd have liked to have sent that text

*MARK MAY OR MAY NOT ASSUME WE'RE TALKING ABOUT SERIES 4 HERE*

Series 1-3 all killed off leading actors who were meant to have prominent roles really early on - Gina McKee in S1 (to be fair, she lasted until episode 2), that lass from Call the Midwife that went out the window in S2, then Daniel Mays in S3. It's totally a thing, so much so that we were taking bets as to who was going to bite it by the end.

In fact, did they not off Will Mellor quite early on last year as well?

yes i had spotted this trend and am unlikely to be totally startled by its early resumption in s4

mutton-chops guy playing bowls has needed arresting since he was bob in RITA, SUE AND BOB TOO (1987)

He was a nice bloke in Happy Valley though iirc.

Although we've been cheated out of a good Neil Morrissey death scene

Personally I fear for Hastings this year

His replacement will be Zombie Denton, the best copper in history

I think I mentioned elsewhere how last year there were loads of folk on Twitter going "OMG IT WAS A TRUE STORY" just because they did they "Nige retired on a full pension, Kate was given a medal of honour" type summary over the credits, people took that to be what actually happened to real people rather than a lazy plot device.

btw, since Kate went full-on action hero and got herself a medal at a big showy ceremony, how come she still gets to go undercover as a mystery secondee called Kate and no-one ever still knows who she is?

i liked the end summaries in the earlier series: they were p much "wrong person is jailed, corrupt cops still at large and in charge, everything is fucked and getting worse"

ok i am up to speed lol

i worry a bit abt banging my own head like that on my kitchen top

e1 s4 was not on the whole a good episode

it's been a big year for kitchentop headbang deaths (see also search party)

i'm pretty sure that, unless you bull charge your kitchen top from fifty feet away, you're unlikely to injure yourself more than a mild boink

i enjoyed the first episode of the news season, btw

although yes it does seem like the show is resting on its tropes for the first time

i am not going to stop watching

neil morrissey very much not cary grant in one important respect: not handsome

come on they're basically twins

http://yeoldecybershoppe.com/malahide/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Boon_In-It-for-the-Monet-008.jpg

HERE BE SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED LAST NIGHT YET

Trope subverted! (though still managed to kill off a potentially major character, just not the one we were expecting)

Thandie was fair compos mentis for someone who had just survived a fairly major bump to the head though, eh?

I can't believe that every inch of that evidence room isn't covered by CCTV

Yeah, that was kind of ridiculous. Also can't believe Steve's being considered for promotion after all the fuck-ups in the Denton case, let alone the fact he never spotted Dot being shifty for three years.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:0

I am basically doing that "my mouth is opening and closing and no sound is coming out" thing.

so has thandie newton been covering for her husband all along?

at this point i feel like literally any character could suddenly reach up scoobydoo-style and pull off a rubber mask to reveal they're wearing a balaclava beneath it

I don't know. I assume there's some twist still to come about what happened at Ifield's flat - Mr Thandie was clearly there as well, but not quite sure how that all ties in with the murder. But fuck that, I just need someone to tell me that Steve's going to have Roz's powers of recovery from thumping one's head off a hard surface and bleeding out all over the place. I'm not even convinced it was Mr Thandie that did that there at the end - he was scared and cowering, then Steve was attacked by a strong and confident assailant. Wearing different clothes.

maybe it's neil morrissey

Huntley(Mr) was desperately trying to phone someone called Jimmy Lakewell as Steve was approaching(and was shown hovering over his phone number earlier in the episode in a way that suggested THIS PERSON'S NAME WILL DEFINITELY BE PRETTY FUCKING SIGNIFICANT). I'm guessing that was him.

But he gave Lakewell's name to Steve when Steve was on his way to the office. You wouldn't do that if you were sending him to kill him, would you?

impressed at his response time also, if it is him

It's got to be someone who was already in the building. Anyone record it and get a note of who was based on the third floor, where Steve's lift was intercepted on his way up to the fifth floor?

it's on iplayer

Yeah, I might go and have another look. It's definitely not Mr Huntley, even in full-on panic mode he wouldn't be daft enough to kill the copper investigating his wife right outside his own office.

"Vacant for refurbishment". So basically less likely to be disturbed at it then. Hmmmm. I'd make a shite detective.

the firm huntley works for is called WEBBER AND BARCLAY

we don't get much of a look at the other firms -- certainly not enough to suggest they're clues (unlike jimmy lakewell): the floor above is called MCALEER BROS CONSTRUCTION, but it's semi-obscured when we see it plainest, and the one above that says VACANT FOR DEVELOPMENT, the one above that is a bank but i couldn't read its name

why was huntley quizzing roz abt where she was the night she was with ifield if he was with her?

x-post

No, it was a bit of a long shot. But clearly this incarnation of Balaclava Man was already in the building. I'm 100% convinced it wasn't Huntley.

i'm sticking by my scoobydoo theory: it is someone in a rubber mask, with a balaclava over the top of thE mask AND ANOTHER ONE BENEATH IT

WE HAVEN'T SEEN MUCH OF DENTON IN THIS SERIES

^^^OVER-EXCITED

My money's on the ghost of Dot.

YIKES

I had a feeling something bad was gonna happen after they showed Fleming and Arnott having a nice curry together

It's like when a character randomly calls their partner to say "I love you", you know they're a gonner

Under the balaclava is a monkey, then Patrick McGoohan, then Denton

t's like when a character randomly calls their partner to say "I love you", you know they're a gonner

― Chuck_Tatum, Sunday, April 9, 2017 11:20 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yep. Also when they out-of-nowhere introduced that new member of AC12, something in my brain went "Uh-oh." That was a dead giveaway that someone else was not going to be on the team much longer.

My husband seems to always walk into the room during the last five minutes of Line of Duty, no matter when I'm watching it, so he basically thinks it's the most exciting programme in the world.

alright mate

The shark, in this series, could be ... an actual shark.

but now everyone's seen the ol' steganography trick so many times

I haven't, Tracer, and have never heard this word before.

Vigil still plodding along in a satisfactory manner. "Might X be the bad guy?...Nope"; "It must be someone else...oh it's Y". I do appreciate their (un-LODY-like) aversion to shock twists and puzzle boxes.

Plodding satisfactorily! I'd have said careering ludicrously.

I'd hoped the captain's "we have always been at war" in the first ep was going to be played as paranoia for an anti nuke theme but I guess not.

I do feel slightly uneasy about the suggestion that anti-nuke politicians and their activist allies are dupes for Russian moles.

I sense people are holding back on the post-series analysis/evaluation. Perhaps it’s been thoroughly dissected via Twitter.

I think I felt that this became more exciting in the last couple of episodes.

And I enjoyed the performances by the Admiral (Dillane) and the Captain (so marvellously watchable). Both of these struck me as "acting" in a way that was really enjoyable.

I have to concur, though, with Tracer Hand's indication, above, that the "rhetoric of the narrative" here, so to speak, was "objectively pro-nuke", anti-disarmament.

I'm not sure about the relationship between Amy and Kirsten (was that her name?). Others probably appreciated it (not very long ago a major lesbian relationship on prime time would have been a huge deal, important "representation"; maybe it isn't now). But the emotions or chemistry of it didn't much come across to me. And of course they coexisted with the action stuff in a way that was maybe incongruous.

Just spent the last episode loudly JFCing every five minutes.

Not sure it was objectively pro nuke, it showed the boats crew to be disorderly & amateurish and the top brass obstructive and secretive; sure the cnd folk and the anti nuke politician didn't come out of it any better, the only heroes really were the brave and tenacious rozzers. "We have always been at war" could be taken as paranoia or deep truth depending on your existing opinion, and iirc no case was ever directly made for the deterrent but the case against was voiced more than once.

in line with my previous "good plodding" analysis I appreciated that there was no twist - the bad guy was the bad guy and they caught him

in other shows you'd have scenes of Doward receiving orders from a figure you can't quite see and allegations of "a conspiracy of high-ranking naval officers in league with foreign intelligence" and something somewhere would have blown up

This was ultimately… not good but entertaining, so I guess that means it was at least *a bit* good?

The relationship stuff was kitsch without being interesting, which is an accomplishment. And the bad guy seemed to disappear for most of the episodes, so the revelation was a bit “oh, ok” once he turned up.

Yes to Patterson Joseph and Dillane, mentioned above. Also found Morse pretty compelling whenever he was onscreen - i couldn’t say that about Endeavour .

It was very wet and “both sides” with regards to nukes, which is objectively the same as being pro-nuke imo

The submarine was very wet, for almost its entire screen time!

I thought the love story was incredibly trite. The workaholic cop who can't say I love you. Her 'arc' is that she... says I love you. And the monstrous mother-in-law was just totally fine with DCI Silva being queer I guess? Maybe her shitty little comments were off-camera. In any case there was just no texture to any of that.

Longacre got squintier and more pinched the longer the series went on. I guess she had good reason to. But now that I know she was a Tory in real life I can't help thinking of her character as a Tory. A kind of Ann Taylor lesbian. Eventually her remonstrances of Silva - in the tub, in the bed, wherever - started to feel a little... pressure-y? Yes you fell in love with a cop who constantly looks as though she's been asked to clean cat poo off the couch. What did you expect? You're her first lesbian relationship. Ease off! Can you just enjoy a moment without giving her another 'I Love You' test??

On the other hand I thought the action on the sub was pretty great. You end up loving Prentice. The show does a really neat job of switching your allegiances around with quite a few characters. I love Paterson Joseph but I never quite got a handle on his captain. A good man? Incompetent? I guess those were his two character traits. Unbelievable that a saboteur is known to be aboard but he takes literally no precautions, changes no routines, until that bulkhead valve is wrenched open, and by then of course it's too late.

The Russian plot was I thought pretty stupid. Doesn't mean it's unrealistic. There are a lot of stupid plots undertaken by former superpowers. But the idea that a series of murders and critical failures on a British nuclear sub, all instigated by Russia, would lead to... a withdrawal of Trident funding? seems like wishful thinking! Surely MORE investment would be needed in the face of such an aggressive enemy? (And this aggression seems to put the show firmly on the side of 'we have always been at war' as a simple statement of fact rather than the dystopian paranoia it clearly wants to leave open as a possible interpretation earlier in the series.)

The action throughline on the sub was the best part and really inventive and creepy. It veered from detective fiction to horror to action movie. Really great.

Great post, Tracer.

I think I agree with you about the relationship stuff, though I wouldn't dare to call anyone an "Ann Taylor lesbian" and luckily don't know what it means. But I think you're spot-on really. I didn't know about this real-life Con garbage.

You're so right about certain things on the sub esp: XO Prentice. The Captain was somehow my highlight - this extraordinary crispness every time he spoke, as if he occupied a different element from everyone else.

Ann Taylor is an upmarket women's office-wear brand: https://www.anntaylor.com/

“We took you away from your mum for unspecified reasons after your terrifying ordeal that left your dad dead, but now that your mum has almost died on a submarine and become a lesbian we feel more comfortable giving her custody”

Just making sure I have the grandparents’ reasoning down here?

I thought she was her stepmother, not her actual mother.

I assumed that from the scene where they were laughing about people saying that they looked so alike. That wouldn't be remarkable if they were genetically related.

Not even stepmum as she hadn't married the dad yet. Otherwise tracer otm.

Oh I didn't catch that lol. I guess that explains why her daughter was calling her 'Amy' (though I have called my parents by their names since I was was 3, apparently)

Ruh roh

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58838332

i hate when spy stuff extrudes into real-world stuff, spies make nothing real happen and they shd stay contained in their relevant dramaspheres

― mark s, Monday, 13 September 2021 20:12 (three weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

^^^
this correct judgment (political and aesthetic) has stopped me watching the final eps of this drama, also rose leslie's acting is terrible (she was ok in GoT)

https://www.radiotimes.com/audio/podcasts/daisy-ridley-zoetrope-jed-mercurio-podcast-newsupdate/

^ an Audible exclusive sadly (for now)

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2021 season is nominated in the ILX TV poll, with voting ending this weekend:

ILX's Best Television of 2021 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends After January 31, 2022

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (3 minimum, 25 maximum, ranked by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail. It'll take five minutes; get to it!