Spoiler alert: this blog is for people watching series five of Line of Duty (it also contains spoilers from earlier series). Don’t read on unless you have watched episode four.
Hold on to your seatbelts everyone! This was what we’ve been building up to. A tense hour, involving a punishment beating, hints that this fifth series is nothing to do with the mysterious H and everything to do with Hastings’s past in Northern Ireland, as well as growing distrust among both our AC-12 heroes and the OCG, culminating in the shocking death of DS John Corbett (Stephen Graham). I know Daniel Mays’ brief time on this show underlined that no antagonist is safe, but I was convinced the charismatic Corbett would make it through to the end.
The bad guys
Corbett might be dead but he leaves one hell of a mess behind him. Increasingly I feel that this season is all about the bait-and-switch, asking us to believe one thing while the real story is happening elsewhere. Thus in the opening episode we were bamboozled with acronyms and spun a convoluted tale of OCGs and undercover cops that involved our old friends H and the balaclava men.
But, as tonight revealed, Corbett’s reasons for loathing Hastings had nothing to do with that story. Instead they were rooted in Northern Ireland, where we know Hastings spent time as one of the few Catholic police officers in the RUC.
Corbett’s actions – from the horrific torture of Roisin Hastings (a punishment that was impossible to justify) to the continued insistence to Arnott that Hastings is corrupt – were all geared at getting Arnott and Fleming to look into their boss’s dark past. In that, at least, he succeeded.
With Corbett out of the way, where does that leave Lisa McQueen, this season’s other antagonist? She might talk a good game as the de facto leader of the OCG but surely she must be some sort of undercover officer, particularly given that the pre-episode catchup stressed the line about Corbett’s identity being entirely erased as he infiltrated the gang.
While she clearly misdirected Corbett regarding H and had almost certainly never set up the meeting in the shopping centre, her reaction to Corbett’s death suggests there is more going on here than simple queasiness.
Yet if she is undercover then she’s crossed more than one line. We’ve seen her commit multiple crimes – and there’s no way Corbett would have had his throat slit without her agreement.
There is, of course, another possibility: that she’s not undercover but working for someone else, unconnected to the main OCG, who has their own nefarious agenda …
The good guys
Oh Ted. That sound you hear is my heart cracking into a thousand pieces with the realisation that Supt Hastings also can’t spell definitely correctly. In mitigation, it’s a common spelling error, but at this point I am beginning to wonder if I’m simply in denial where the good superintendent is concerned.
At the very least this episode hinted that everyone’s favourite example of moral rectitude wasn’t always quite so keen on playing by the rule book. The basic facts of Corbett’s past – that he was born John McGillis in Belfast, where both his parents died within five years in the mid-80s, AKA the height of the Troubles, and he was then sent to Liverpool, where he was raised by relatives, taking their surname – suggest some sort of miscarriage of justice or death in custody followed by an RUC cover-up that Ted, willingly or not, took part in.
There are also questions to be asked about his meeting with Lee Banks in prison, not to mention the money he gave the former cop (who I suspect is working for Gill Bigelow in some capacity). Where exactly did he get all that cash from? We’re supposed to think that it was proceedings from the raid. Call me an eternal optimist, but I’m not entirely convinced.
Ted wasn’t the only one having a bad week. I do sometimes wonder just how Steve Arnott (forever now known to me as “the wee gobshite”) manages to stay in his job – and judging by both Ted and Kate’s reactions to his refusal to arrest Corbett, so do they. (I was particularly fond of Ted’s delivery of the line: “You’re skating on thin ice with me, DS Arnott, wafer thin.”)
That said, I was impressed by Steve’s refusal to back down over the order to shoot. He was right to question that and also right to query whether the shooting at the end of the last season was the right move. I wonder whether we’ll find out that Hastings did similar in Belfast.
Case notes
Farewell then, Stephen Graham. I’ve really enjoyed his performance as a man increasingly out of his depth, but convinced that somehow he could get out alive. In fact, if I have one criticism of this series, it’s that I would have loved a Corbett/Hastings interrogation scene. A missed opportunity.
In another nod back to the first series, the OCG went to Terry’s house. In series one, Ryan and Carly (the girl whose death sparked Lindsay Denton’s crusade in series two) used to hang out there and take advantage of him, something Ryan is clearly still doing. We also saw that Jackie Laverty’s body is still in Terry’s freezer.
Ryan’s graduation from nasty kid to cold-blooded killer was nicely done.
Also well-handled: the cuts between Corbett dying and his wife reading the fairytale to her children. Not only was Corbett only truly himself when talking to her, but he had also bought into a fairytale himself, convinced he could play all sides against each other and escape unharmed.
Gill Bigelow manages to be impressively poisonous, which is why Ted’s brusque brush-off may well be the most stupid thing he did this episode, particularly as she is clearly setting up AC-12 to fail spectacularly.
That said, I do applaud his End of the Affair-style invocation of God as a reason for breaking up. It’s the Catholic way of saying “It’s not you, it’s me.”
Since being promoted, Kate has yet to put a foot wrong. Given everything we know about this show, surely disaster is only one step away.
Tatleen remains the unsung hero of AC-12. Every breakthrough they have had so far has come thanks to her digging around with the files.
Weasel of the week
It can only go to the mysterious Lisa McQueen. Is she a hard-bitten gangland boss, an undercover cop gone rogue, an undercover cop working for the greater good or something else entirely? I’ve no idea, but I am very invested in finding out.
Quote of the week
“With respect, sir, I dispute the lawfulness of your order.” Oh Steve, it’s always hard when your heroes turn out to have feet of clay.
So what did you think? Is Hastings a bad ’un? What’s McQueen’s real game? And how shocked were you by Corbett’s sudden death? As ever, all speculation and no spoilers welcome below …
