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

steve on pills in his flat w his empty fruitbowl = peak bachelor

not v exciting granted but lots of setup so i guess we’ll just wait & see who falls off a balcony or jumps out a window i guess

the fkn fort knox lock system on herself’s condo has me VERY intrigued

Agree with everyone so far - not exciting, but could be some ok groundwork laid for later developments. Was the acting and a lot of the writing always this bad though? Did I just ignore it in earlier seasons because I was hooked on the overall storytelling and twists etc? Some scenes here were just dire and laughably wooden.

I was musing on the ludicrous door lock system as well - I guess it was another (possible/likely red herring?) wee signpost to make us think she's dodgy, needing such a security system to keep whatever dubious people she consorts with at bay.

Also, are we avoiding saying too much here for now, or is this a 'don't read if you're not keeping up to date' kind of a thread? I assumed it was the latter, but will try to hold my whisht more if not.

Locks for her phalanxes of jilted lovers surely

Yeah I think we need to be able to speak freely here - no one would have a case if they got spoiled by reading a thread about a show that’s on right now that they haven’t watched the most recent episode of

In terms of acting, I feel like each season is designed as a showcase for the 'guest suspect', and none of the other performances really matter or are given much room to breathe. Dunbar is the only one of the three long running leads who is maybe more than an occasionally adequate actor, and I he seems to be taking the piss a lot of the time.

The main appeal of the show has always been plot, plot, plot. Doesn't need much else to be supremely entertaining.

yeah it’s extremely “TV show” that way which is one of the reasons i love it

Adrian Dunbar is ridiculously hammy in some scenes and I love it. He’s everyone’s favourite for a reason.

xp that too Tracer! Handy for keeping out one's leather jacket slicing ex-partners as well as shadowy crime bosses & their balaclava wearing henchmen.

Maybe I just have a rose-tinted memory of the Lennie James and Keeley Hawes focused earlier days.

The guest stars are generally pretty good!

Though I didn't entirely buy Kelly Macdonald as a high ranking cop.

I love Kelly Mac a lot and her whole brittle vibe worked really well I thought.

I think she's a good actress but she didn't quite have the hard nosed authority for it or something? Not compared to eg Thandie Newton.

I'm glad Kate is no longer doing undercover, she was so shit at it. "Alright boss, fancy going down the pub later and planning some corruption?"

"Well up for a bit of corruption, don't know if there's any going on round here."

I'm glad Kate is no longer doing undercover, she was so shit at it.

Sounded like she will end up being effectively undercover there by next episode though.

i can't help thinking that KMac has been assuming she's been undercover the entire time

I think there've been some good secondary performances, Craig Parkinson obv, but also the likes of Gina McKee, George Costigan, Jonas Armstrong, even Neil Morrissey was okay.

It tends to be the smaller supporting roles that are the weakest. Case in point the fella playing the CHIS handler in last Sunday's episode, he was dreadful.

Agreed

However the heavily lidded Lomax i.e. Perry Fitzpatrick already feels like he's been an integral part of the show for years

Completely forgot Neil Morrissey was in this show

Seems like a lifetime ago

so a couple of catch up questions: did hastings ever account for taking the laptop into that dodgy place?

is it a bit… weird that no one has wondered if carl banks is related to lee banks from S5? or have i missed something?

also it’s odd that if buckell and/or davidson were responsible for the initial delay in responding the previous evening that anything that needed sorting out could be sorted out then rather than requiring a staged armed robbery to delay temporarily.

lost my faith in mercurio to close gaps a bit in S5, but normally he’s good at accounting for these and usually they are v much part of the tortuous design.

I questioned the Lee Banks/Carl Banks connection when watching it. There is a history of repeated names in this show - another Hargreaves as a social worker iirc? as well as all the Janes - and we still don't know for sure why Hastings did visit Lee Banks unless it was indeed to rat him out.

didn't hastings do that with the laptop because he'd looked at porn on it and was worried that jesus could still see the cookies or something?

Yep, when he was being interviewed he said the reason he'd destroyed it was because he'd been using it for porn

thought this was a decent first episode though i did have to look things up after i'd watched it because i forget whether or not certain people had been featured before (farida and buckells i'd both pretty much forgotten about)

i also have no recollection of Terry Boyle being in the first season of the show as well as season 5

i also don't have the excuse of having watched these years ago because i watched all of the previous seasons in 2019

I think Terry Boyle was played by a different actor in season 1. Does his freezer which has mysteriously gone missing still have Jackie Laverty in it then? Assume Ryan is involved somehow, and yeah, odd that no-one spotted the Banks connection.

oh of course that's what that was all about, i guess i didn't do enough research

Parts of Laverty were found with Corbett's body last season but not sure if that was all of her xp

I remembered enough to know it was a different actor in S1&2 and that there were still some body parts in the freezer. I'm sure it was a different flat too, though I guess the freezer could easily have travelled with him (and its occupant).

It seems almost beside the point to say this was mostly terrible, right? I'm here for the long haul, obvs.

ya that's what I meant when I said things in appliances.
There's a bit of a different vibe this series I think but most likely due to covid restrictions when filming? Read an interview about how they dealt with that halfway through filming.

Lol I did have a thought during the forensics scenes, like, are they going to set half the series in situations where all the characters are wearing masks for diegetic reasons

Read an interview about how they dealt with that halfway through filming.
Do you have a link for this?

I seem to have forgotten nearly everything from S4 and S5.

https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/line-of-duty-jed-mercurio-h-big-rt-interview/

Glad it's not just me that can't remember anything! Tbf there are a lot of details in this show.

i enjoyed series 2 and then never watched any more so I'm hoping they'll repeat them again.

Cheers for that, Kinder

My wife is catching up on series 5 and I'm tagging along though I haven't seen any others. If I had a drink for every time I heard the phrase "bent coppers" I'd need medical attention.

series 5 is just bad. which is a shame because the rest was incredibly tight. and yes lol at kate’s undercover “fancy a quick pint of corruption down the local, boss?” and steve’s vacant concentrated frown and the slightly uneasy use of “mate” with everyone. but the plotting was really tight. and give it just went all to shit. so now in six mercurio’s got to somehow tie up 1-5 and retrieve 5 imo. totally here for it ofc.

ted was MVP of this episode

He always is.

Also this was the episode where they said the name of the show! Always a highlight.

i feel like they even did a little camera move when he said it too :D

And we had a "bent coppers" from Hastings too

oh yeah we did. he wound up for that that one. set it up, planted his feet - THWACK

So my o/h's view is that the bookie van delay is a red herring and possibly genuine, the real delay was Buckells saying the night before not to investigate it (after discussing with someone above him, 'the SFC', who wanted to wait for executive sign-off). Not sure why that hasn't come up.

It is a running theme in LOD that there's a random element that puts some sort of coincidence that sets something off at a tangent. Denton on duty (I think?), Danny Waldron coming face-to-face with his abuser, the Huntley/Ifield fight.

I keep thinking Chris Lomax is the grown-up Ryan instead of the real Ryan. Bet there's something dodgy there.

Ted only interested in bent coppers *and* "in the line of duty" = Mercurio knows about LoD drinking games and is playing everyone.

Bit *too* heavy on the "have we all being paying attention to the last five seasons, boys and girls?", I thought, but hey, it's what we're here for. Especially Buckells post-Steve visit standing silently in front of a picture of a man playing golf (CADDY GUYS DO YOU SEE??) was a bit much, but it's all part of the fun.

Lomax and Vicky McClure were in a drama about their abusive relationship (he was a toxic boyfriend) hence I don't trust him.

Enjoying this season so far, hopefully it doesn't fall down the "balaclava men storm the police station" or "actually Organised Crime is the name of my dog" holes that pervade post-S2 LoD.

Giving Hastings a whole monologue of Irishisms while Arnott stands there was some blatant fan service but why not