SPOILER ALERT: This blog is for people watching Spiral series four on BBC4. Don't read on if you haven't seen episodes seven and eight – and please do not leave spoilers if you've seen further in the series.
Catch up with Vicky Frost's episodes five and six blog
Hello Spiral heads. Vicky Frost is away this week so I'm filling in before she returns to tackle next week's offering. If you have even a passing familiarity with the show you know that suspect rights in Spiral rank about as highly as animal rights in a horse abattoir, so the new terrorism suspect reforms that come into play this week could be something of a watershed for all involved. That a lawyer must be present at all times during custody in terror cases seems likely to change the interrogation dynamic dramatically. Laure is predictably unhappy about this. "Mister Atalay needs to shut his hole because I'm in charge in accordance with the law!" is her response. It's going to be a steep learning curve adapting but she and the rest of the cops are going to have to lump it.
It has been a busy week so, if it's all right with your lawyer, I'll get cracking.
Les flics
How does Gilou get into these scrapes? And how does he keep getting out? The Sarahoui brothers badly want that late licence and have his DNA on bullet shells and a dead snitch as leverage to make him get it. Gilou performs perhaps his greatest feat of escapology so far, breaking into their business premises just as the raid on their homes takes place, exiting with the bullet shells safely in his possession. None of it would have been possible without his glamorous assistant Amina, who provides sterling radio backup and spirits him away afterwards. Et voila! The problem has vanished.
But as one problem vanishes another appears: the return of Samy. Funny, I was just saying the other day how the show forgot him and then he appears. He arrives carrying a torch for his former flame Laure and that's exactly the kind of burn Vincent can do without. She lights up in Samy's presence and all of a sudden Vincent has the look of a condemned man about him.
You might say the same for Tintin, whose lightning return to the force after his shooting is the standout blunder in a series of bad mistakes. Even Atos might consider declaring him unfit for work after taking a bullet to the head but Tintin is back on the job and apparently off his trolley. Clearly traumatised, he screws up the surveillance on the gun deal in the quarry and Gilou is immediately on his case because, as we know, he'd never make a catastrophic error of judgment, putting everyone's lives in danger. Tintin has long been the conscience of Berthaud's outfit and you wonder how toxic they will become without him around. I have a bad feeling we may soon find out.
Monsieur le Juge
In an act of breathtaking cynicism Judge Garnier attends Marie's funeral and convinces her parents to testify at Roban's disciplinary hearing. Roban locates Lise Mahieu, who confirms that police pressured her into identifying Raulic, but can't persuade her to speak out. He takes the setback with his trademark stoicism but completely loses his cool when he hears of Marianne's transfer. All is not lost though, as she promises to hit the clerks' old-girl network to find out what she can. Clerks stick together, she tells him. I'm glad someone on Spiral does.
Les révolutionnaires
The revolutionaries' big play, the Vandenberg kidnapping, is abandoned at the last-minute, leaving law-enforcement and lefties alike feeling bereft. The "leftist toerags" really earn their name, though, with the horrendous Yannis sexually assaulting Sophie and her subsequent exile from the group. The radical left's attitude to rape has been much discussed over the past year so there's a certain grim topicality here.
Revolutionaries willing to trample over the innocent becomes something of a theme with the introduction of the Ozbeks. Members of the PKK, the Ozbeks are three brothers running guns and illegal workers under the command of their mother Layla Ozbek, the Ma Baker of Kurdish resistance. Layla orders the killing of Yussuf Kulen, who handles the illegal immigrants on the building site, but Berthaud gets her hands on him first. The prospect of his family's deportation gets him to give up key information on the Ozbeks and for the first time in the investigation the police seem to have eyes on the bigger picture.
Les avocats
Joséphine seems determined not only to poke the Special Branch bear but to slap it in the face with a wet cod. Her issues with authority notwithstanding, I don't see her angle in phoning in a warning just before the abduction of Vandenberg. She says that Thomas and his crew of flunkies are dangerous people but we know she has faced down worse. She secretly records Special Branch's threats but that seems like a high-risk strategy when you're as exposed and compromised as she is. Things get worse for her when Sophie turns up accusing her of sleeping with Thomas, and Pierre appears to give the claim some credibility. Joséphine may be many things but opportunistic shagger of low-status chumps she is not. Bad call, monsieur.
Meanwhile, Jorkal instructs Pierre to persuade his nephew Brandon to retract his testimony and, although Pierre goes off-message by convincing the young fool to testify against himself, the end result is a good one – with Brandon doing his time like a man and the Jorkal name restored in the criminal community. Jorkal is impressed enough to recommend his new hotshot lawyer to his organised crime associates. This promises to be lucrative but this Pierre is not the principled magistrate we met in series one. Is he now to be reduced to legal horse trading to keep scumbags out of prison?
Notes, quotes and observations
• Jorkal believes jail is character-building. Çetin believes it's like a holiday camp. I'm starting to think custodial sentences are not the deterrent many think.
• "Get used to working in the shadows" is Laure's interpretation of Roban's advice. I think she's done a pretty good job of that so far.
• "May I warn you that you're looking for a slap?" I'm not sure when François started channelling Danny Dyer but I think we need more of this.
• The Ozbeks may be ruthless killers and revolutionaries but they are a family like any other with all the hierarchies, resentments and jealousies that entails. It's kind of cute.
• Now Sophie is out of the gang could she ultimately be the one to bring them down? There would be a certain poetic justice to that.
• Forget Justin Bieber tickets. Berthaud knows what every teenage girl secretly desires is a series of shooting lessons. Does anyone else worry that the stroppy Zoe is a high-school massacre waiting to happen?
