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

I love Ted, but scenes where he leads (like the laptop and cash and visiting the OCG nightclub in the previous series) somewhat expose his acting limitations imo.

Shit take

"suckin on diesel" is such a great half-wrong phrase for him to be saying lol

Are there any examples of Ted being good at his job? Mostly he's alienating his management and hounding the wrong suspects.

still <3 him though obv

you're not wrong

AC-12 raiding another department and arresting the wrong person who then needs releasing the next day is practically a series requirement at this point

I mean I'm reading the head lady in charge as a Cressida Dickalike, hence the worst of the worst IMO, but yes, the high-ups do have a point. But exactly similar things happened IRL when straight-arrow cops were brought into to clean a force up -- i'm blanking on the names bcz i'm old and busy. there was a cop helicoptered into northern ireland to examination RUC corruption -- john something? -- who was himself taken down via some (bogus?) scandal himself?

John stalker?

Are there any examples of Ted being good at his job? Mostly he's alienating his management and hounding the wrong suspects.

john stalker yes. there was also a straightarrow outsider cop parachuted into the met in the 70s for similar clean-up purposes whose name hurried googling hasn't uncovered for me (i don't think he was mired in fake scandal tho)

i did discover that met officers referred to the operation countryman anti-corruption squad (made up of rural coppers) as "the sweedey" lol

thank you

Frank Williamson is the man you're thinking of although he was in the Met already I think and couldn't get traction on his efforts which is why Operation Countryman (Dorset constabulary) got started.

I think that BBC show was quite dismissive of Williamson, that he talked the talk about when it came down to it wouldn't risk his pension over accusations.

Frank Williamson: this isn't the person i'm thinking of

it was sir robert mark

or nark as i wrote first

If Ted H was H (or otherwise involved with the OCG) he wouldn't have had to visit Lee Banks in prison, would he? The channels of communication would already be in place.

This is what he'd want everyone to think, of course (which can be the answer for everything to do with LoD.)

Mostly he's alienating his management and hounding the wrong suspects.

In the case of Ryan Pilkington and Jo Davidson he's bang on, though.

Thought of the Steve: hot or not? debate again this week when Twitter went mad over him charging the industrial unit to potentially avenge a fallen comrade. He's a coiled spring! Ladies love that shit. Apparently.

Those little baseball caps tho

Everybody had em this time. Did they get a discount or

the over-egging of hastings' coming doom, the blizzard of possibly false hints that he's a wrong un too, has kind of become a black box they can get anything out of and we won't be surprised (which means we'll be a bit disappointed either way)

― mark s, Monday, 15 April 2019 10:17 (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

^^^

Steve is a hottie! There's no ambiguity.

xpost i'm getting a "last chance saloon" vibe from ted's overuse of the catchphrases this season

john stalker reminds me of how i was too young to have been alive (or was a baby) when he was in the public eye for his policing and so i just knew him as the guy in the awning advert

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZzeeAMtIVQ

wonder if that was his final awning

The sheer preponderance of closed loops and callbacks and every character getting a bit of an action scene and Ted told to retire feels extremely This Is The Last Season to me

this is what they want me to think ofc

who is going to turn out not to be dead after all?

tommy hunter
john corbett
DENTON <-- i want this but im not going to get it i know
jackie laverty

DOT COTTAN

I rewatched this because I’m mental and also because my wife hadn’t seen it.

I liked how the chief constable characterized quashing AC-12’s corruption investigations as “taking back control”.

Here’s something. When Jo Davidson is In The Chat with the person we presume is H, H says AC-12 got two of their men killed. Jo was like yeah, good ol’ Lewis. H replies, it was Fleming. Now, how on earth could H know that it was Kate who tipped AC-12 off about the workshops? The only person Kate told about that was Jo, when Jo confronted her.

i thought it was more that Kate was causing trouble in general - potentially recognising Ryan, and being an old ac12 adversary to boot

Maybe so, but it seemed explicitly connected to the deaths in the workshop. Like this was the final straw and Kate needed to pay. It seems like only someone in AC-12 could have known that Kate was the source of the info on the workshop.

H-ate ? 😬 🤯

dont this-makes-no-sense me, you DOT-DOT-DOT-DOT-swallowing chumps

I rewatched this because I’m mental and also because my wife hadn’t seen it.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTaTATDUJ2sn2s06GoiN15eETpnvNSZK1lSZw&usqp=CAU

One of the things I love about LoD is how the memes overlap with other programmes now.

trishyb if that picture is any indication you have apparently authorised intrusive surveillance of my house

My favourite bonkers theory is that because Jimmy Lakewell told Steve to look into the 'race claim' - when you add H to that you get an anagram of Carmichael.

If this was Russel Davies I could see it, but I'm not convinced.

The sheer preponderance of closed loops and callbacks and every character getting a bit of an action scene and Ted told to retire feels extremely This Is The Last Season to me

this is what they want me to think ofc

While at the same time Adrian Dunbar is doing press and dropping hints about S7 (it's what they want you to think).

https://metro.co.uk/2021/02/23/line-of-dutys-jed-mercurio-hints-at-more-episodes-after-series-6-14134508/

Mercurio says he expects there to be more beyond S6, but this may just be what he wants you to think.

That RT interview upthread was inconclusive:

In our previous interviews, Mercurio explained that securing a two-series commission was essential; if only one was guaranteed, he told me, he would wrap up the entire storyline, rather than risk it being cut short. So – without going the full Ted Hastings on him – either Mercurio knew the sixth was the last series or he has abandoned his rule of always plotting two series ahead. Which is it?

“Yes,” he replies enigmatically, before elaborating: “That was part of the conversation with the BBC. We’re in a situation where it’s not entirely clear that there will be a seventh series. We would hope there could be. But we’re having to do our planning coming out of COVID, and a whole bunch of other things around the idea that these things aren’t guaranteed at all now.”

Interviewing dramatists is often tricky, as they have a natural understanding of the rhythms and tactics of dialogue. But Mercurio is an especially challenging conversationalist, as his signature interrogation scenes show a highly sophisticated sense of the flow of information and misinformation. Tempted to borrow Hastings’s trademark exclamation of frustration, “Give me strength!”, I have another go.

This time, then, Mercurio hasn’t stuck to his rule that, if he wasn’t sure there would be a next series, he would wrap it up in the one he was writing? “I haven’t necessarily been true to that,” he says. “I think the indications are that the BBC remains very supportive. So, without a formal commission, I would say conversations have been very reassuring from the standpoint of not having to wrap things up.”

(That's all quoted text btw)

lol

horcruxio call him by his name

For anyone with Alexa, ask it "Who is H?"

Bit underwhelming. It feels like there was a romance plot between Kate and Jo that got subtracted somewhere in the script stage. Looking back it’s like... what actually happened? Did we learn anything we didn’t know before? Apart from the fact we probably won’t be seeing James Nesbitt any time soon?

Loved the Hastings Raised Eyebrow of Respect when Jo started quoting law regulations

Finding a flyblown corpse in this show doesn't quite convince me Thurwell's definitely dead xp

He's clearly not dead.

I'm not 100% clear on why Kate ran. Was she not supposed to have a weapon?

Bit underwhelming. It feels like there was a romance plot between Kate and Jo that got subtracted somewhere in the script stage. Looking back it’s like... what actually happened? Did we learn anything we didn’t know before? Apart from the fact we probably won’t be seeing James Nesbitt any time soon?

Initially I thought they were going off to do some in-real-time DETECTING which would be impossible if they were gummed up with explaining how they killed Ryan. Kate's reluctance to give up her gun would suggest she thought she was in imminent danger of being shot by bent coppers?

It seems weird that the series would be extended to seven episodes and then spend this whole episode on not really moving things forward materially - unless the point was to slow everything down and make it feel as though they're going to run out of time. (xp with gyac, exactly).

I appreciated a long interrogation scene, it’s clearly been done to ratchet up the tension between Carmichael and the rest of the gang even more, Ted seemed like a man with increasingly little tolerance left so interested to see where that goes for the finale. Ofc his police pension is at risk but he’s never shied away from doing the right thing even if it would cost him personally.

you just know she had the time of her life with these lines. the crew must have been howling after each take, egging her on