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

Always find it oddly disconcerting that, as far as I can tell, nobody in this series has ever said 'London' or 'Metropolitan Police'. Is it set in some parallel universe?

isn't set somewhere nameless in the east midlands?

isn't it, rather

Aren't the force called Central Police or Midlandshire Police or something?

WIKIPEDIA SEZ that there are various on-set clues -- maps and such -- that it's birmingham (and series one was filmed there; since then it;s mostly been filmed in belfast)

nearly no one involved speaks in birmingham tho (the accent mix seems designed to be a metropolitcan mix, which is maybe why london seems a good first approx)

hastings speaks in norn irn obv

I think the city is located somewhere along the Belfast-Birmingham corridor

Reminds me of how US and Canadian shows are shot in Toronto but it's never "Toronto"

Kate was undercover as an officer FROM the midlands, so it can't be there

It was from one of the Midlands constabularies, would make sense if it was a neighbouring force. That would also mean that the crime she was supposedly investigating occurred reasonably nearby and not at the other end of the country.

The lad that RH is trying to frame - the closest we have to an authentic working class local - what sort of accent would you say he had?

Talking of accents, when I started watching (S2) I was puzzled by Steve Arnott's accent which seemed to float around a bit, kind of southern-and-yet-not. I wondered if he was from some kind of intermediate zone where the south meets the midlands like Peterborough or Northampton (disclaimer - I don't what the accent is in either of those places) so I looked him up on Wikipedia and found out that the character is supposed to be from London (as has been made clear repeatedly in the series since then) but the actor is Scottish. Why do they do that? There doesn't seem to be any need for the character to come from London, so why not just make him Scottish? It's not as if he does a terrible job of it (probably a lot more plausible than if I tried to pass myself off as a Scottish detective*) but it doesn't sound quite right and keeps distracting me.

*I might try this today and see how it goes

It's a very Leyton/Essex-y accent. I keep think he's trying to do David Beckham.

The lad that Roz is trying to frame is played by a Scottish actor as well, observant comedy fans may recognise him as Methadone Mick from the last series of Still Game.

Undercover Kate was meant to be seconded from East Midlands iirc.

Just starting this from s1 so not reading the thread but it's kind of odd so far - decent enough tho

Undercover Kate sounds like a character in Pigeon Street.

s2 is a rollercoaster!!

I've only seen S1 & S2 so far. I assume reading this thread would be a bad idea until I can get up to date? Really want to see what folks have said about S2, which I have a few niggling questions about.

You can ask away for now without scrolling up, I guess, but I'd stay off this thread after 9pm tonight if I were you.

ditto! I have questions about s2.

pointed out to a group of friends that, as noted, steve arnott looks bewilderingly like our mutual friend E -- got three YES HE TOTALLY DOES and (of course) on NOT AT ALL

I think I'm sadly best to play it safe until I can catch up - ignoring all this until then!

"the wee witch"

.the twist that there wasn't really a twist was I guess a twist

lol omigod

The person who was being interviewed arrested a second person during the interview! How much of a twist do people want?

Also, I really wanted the last update to be "Steve and Kate are still not getting it on, for some reason."

Ha ok I meant with Tim Ifield's death, it was exactly as we had been led to believe. I was sure we'd revisit the "missing footage" from after Roz woke up at the end of the first episode. The "it's a conspiracy" stuff was just a retread of the last season.

Not saying I don't enjoy the show! The plot just gets a bit looser every season imo.

the AC-12 interview room is always where the important stuff happens, the real wtf turns in the plot

it has some of the best queasily confrontational hostile interviewing i think i've ever watched -- where you really aren't sure who you want to root for, when both sides are quite compromised and also quite unpleasant ppl (or have anyway recently behaved unpleasantly)

and this seems to happen in nearly every episode! as if the somewhat ludicrous turns the story often takes are devised purely to engineer these confrontations (i mean, i kind of assume they are)

^^^this definitely holds up

Weeeeee that was fun.

Favourite moment might just have been Hastings on his own in his office giving a little smile & nod at the good work of his team.

I do feel this series was a little bit of a step down from series 2 & 3, but I was still completely hooked right through.

My hunch that didn't pan out was that crushing indie-girl Jodie would turn out to be deep-cover AC working to entrap Huntly, because I couldn't/didn't want to believe she was that much of a 'menace' as mark puts it upthread - I guess she was just that much of a menace!

"Suspect produces evidence during own interview" is a weird old device in this.

"Wee witch" brought all the roffles. And, aye, was hoping for a Steve & Kate update when they went into the lift. Lifts were quite the plot device all through, really. That, and fucking billions of folks whose name started with Her.

Getting a little bit annoyed by all the loose ends at this point, tbh. I wouldn't expect Mercurio to reveal his whole hand just yet, but I hoped we might get a little more. Hilton's demise was particularly frustrating as it's yet another key player in the conspiracy taken out before they can reveal anything. Isn't it like the third time that's happened now?

Hastings turning out to be "H"(as they were blatantly hinting) would be a hell of a twist, but I'm not sure I quite believe it. That would probably be a step too far even for this show.

real-H making a serious attempt at framing Hastings (better than Hilton's attempt whatever his motive was) could be a good basis for a season

That Hargreaves dude is clearly a potential H for next season.

I think my favourite bit might have been the whole tension around Steve trying to talk Jamie down with all the guns pointed at them then it just petering out with Jamie handing over his gun and being led away. After Kate's gun-toting heroics at the same point last season, having the tension ramp up then completely dissipate was a great contrast.

Just noticed my phone autocorrect made "H" into "Her". Has any TV cop show done a thing where autocorrect fucks stuff up and leads to wrongful arrest/conviction? It *must* be a thing.

My phone autocorrected "running late" to "vaginitis" earlier this week.

Exciting finale but too many loose ends. WHO BLEW UP THE TARDIS? Also:

Why did Tim Ifeld put on a balaclava anyway?
Why did Balaclava Man turn up at the police station at the end? Seems... shortsighted.

Also, am I right in assuming that BM was not actually a SEX PEST, but was just collecting bodies for future blackmails?

Why did Tim Ifeld put on a balaclava anyway?

I think the idea was that it would help to distract any investigation into Roz's death, away from him and towards the ongoing BM investigation, while also helping to get the man who was being framed out of prison.

Also, am I right in assuming that BM was not actually a SEX PEST, but was just collecting bodies for future blackmails?
I think so, but they dealt with this so quickly I didn't really follow

Why did Balaclava Man turn up at the police station at the end? Seems... shortsighted
No idea what was going on there.

Why did Balaclava Man turn up at the police station at the end? Seems... shortsighted.

― Chuck_Tatum, Monday, May 1, 2017 1:16 AM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Dispatched by the mob, presumably on Hilton's behest, to take out Jimmy Lakewell before he blabs. As Arnott said, Jamie would presumably have met the same fate had he got out. Sending one guy against a whole squad of armed police does seem a little silly, especially they've established that the gang uses multiple balaclava mens to do it's work.

I did wonder if Huntley was lying about being the only person responsible for Ifield's death, but then Jamie wasn't interested in removing her at all was he? Lakewell was the object of the extraction, so I guess she was telling the truth about that part?

Series 5 had better explain Maneet's role in the whole thing. And Ted can't be the big bad H because giant plot holes all over the place if he is, plus he's Ted and he just can't be.

If Ted is the big bad, doesn't that mean the interactions between him and Hilton make no sense whatsoever?

It would be like when (redacted) turned out to be Gossip Girl.

1: Hastings is not big H but we will spend a large part of s5 thinking he is
2: The interview when he turns things around will be a humdinger (hoping for 4 separate turnings of tables therein, from all four participants, with the lawyer at one point saying "Can I be a police officer now?" and immediately attempting to arrest the other three… )
3: I assume Maneet was pressured by balaclavamens -- she was weeping last time she left the station (lift action!) which surely means she is a right un
4: Jamie D was not a well integrated character, I feel he should have plucked from that final face-off upwards on a very obvious cel, shouting "To The Extreme", and then the legends at credits time would read "Jamie Desford died on the way back to his home planet"
(5: this allows me to propose my secret theory, that some of the balaclavamens are aliens and that is their actual face)
6: it is a bold and a perverse cop show that leads a series of very nasty sexmurders left unsolved at close: truly it is (as proposed) the anti-prime suspect
7: i like how very few of the villains are not cops
8: pegleg and eyepatch or gtfo
9: ifield not knowing huntley was alive remains a colossal plot hole -- so much so they had to have hastings gloriously lampshade-hang for it: "do you mean to tell me…" -- so, as we yes oddlly did not see the "missing footage" it NOT IMPOSSIBLE there is still a plot twist buried here (aliens)

i love this show enormously: it has never not been silly (and also a very dry, rather dark comedy)

I read this Guardian article about why LoD wouldn't get away with this stuff if it were a series of books rather than a television programme, and I thought it was mainly nitpicking, except for the bit about how everyone seems far more concerned with corruption than the abduction and murder of young women. I know corruption is AC-12's business, but in a book you might've got a broader picture, and those women might be a bit more than a footnote.

Or, as Mark says.

I do like the Mercurio approach of "well, you have to give me another series now, don't you?"

Also, definitely is Birmingham, since Roz hid her evidence in The Chase, which is a bit outside Birmingham

That Guardian article is totally nitpicky nonsense - like there's *never* been a crime novel with loose ends or plot holes or silly/unrealistic police work?!

Good finale mostly - like someone mentioned, it was probably the worst season since the first but remains insanely enjoyable. I felt bad for Thandie Newton - she's been excellent but seemed forced to run through DENTON's entire S3 character arc in the last ten minutes of the finale.

Was pleased by One Shot Ted's moment of action, though.

The rationale for Roz covering up Ifield's death was super weak. You could barely imagine a more textbook claim for self defence. She would also not have been convicted of manslaughter at the end, just perverting the course of justice.

If Ted is the big bad, doesn't that mean the interactions between him and Hilton make no sense whatsoever?

― Chuck_Tatum, Monday, 1 May 2017 09:41 (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The only way to save it would be that Hilton was trying to find out who was blackmailing him and Hastings has a natural talent for fake indignation.

a few things:

1) Ted's half smile of half admiration at Roz not disposing of evidence immediately after the crime because training manual was great/slightly odd.
2) in the interview where Roz came out fists wheeling and shit slinging, i didn't really feel this exposed/played a "good coppering" v "political correctness" line in the show. more another resourceful embattled good-corrupt target doing anything to throw up chaff, each showing their power to construct narratives that change everything in the all important interview room.
3) The opening episodes with the is-she, isn't-she dead stuff almost put me off watching any more (S2 is a clear favourite of mine and even S3 felt like a bit of a step down)
4) Roz was a titan
5) Hilton seemed more creepy, silly and feeble than corrupt. am i right in saying he probably didn't *deliberately* promote Dot and then allow him to go into the van with Tommy in S1 and then let Tommy go bcos terrorism and therefore has only been corrupted since? or is that off?
6) need to watch again but really didn't get "the balaclava men are legion" and why all the sex attacks? all a bit nasty without any sort of indication of motive - just looked like the necessary crime to get the show going.
7) Yes Jamie totally unintegrated. i still can't quite work out whether he was supposed to be in Hilton's pocket from the moment he came in (looked shifty when Steve went to get his back broken) or whether getting given short shrift by AC12 sent him there. If so bloody quick to put his life and career on the line.

also

i'm still fretting about the frozen remains of jackie laverty in the down's syndrome guy's fridge never being found from S1 (or did that get resolved in S1 when i was dozing?)

yes i feel s4 backed off from making anti-PC a cap-T topic and left it at the level of opportunistic weapon in Roz's smart copper's office-infighting arsenal, a weapon increasingly set aside as the waters rose around her

i'm interested how much of the full cross-series arc was even known to mercurio at the end of s1: some, perhaps, but maybe not down to the level of hilton's motivation?

like you, i get the impression: none. rather than the these days frequent and tiresome angling for another on-demand series by leaving threads hanging, I think Mercurio likes the sense of disappointment and an unassailable, almost indefinable controlling figures and structures that his endings convey. also has the advantage of leaving people/producers/commissioners wanting more of course! rather like the final episodes of the each wire series, they were all about the retractions and disappointments that come after seemingly unassailable victory.

good effort sprinkling a load of H surnames around tho.