Line of Duty
Rating:
And… breathe. After 90 minutes of nerve-shredding tension, the fifth series of Line Of Duty ended tonight on a bombshell with a killer twist.
It turned out that lawyer Gill Biggeloe (Polly Walker) was the rotten apple in the bent cop barrel. Mother of God, it was her all along! She was the devious plotter trying to frame Supt Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar), get him kicked off the force and have his beloved AC-12 unit shut down.
Why? Presumably to leave her and the ever-mysterious H to carry on living the high life off the proceeds of organised crime. Maybe even buy another pink blouse? She never had that one off.
When Gill is unmasked as being in league with the OCG, she calls them to rescue her. Uncertain whose side an armed officer is on, Kate Fleming and Steve Arnott force him to lower his gun
In a thrilling finale full of gasps, we were kept guessing right until almost the end. At one stage, Gill even appeared to be a saviour, pointing out errors in Detective Chief Superintendent Patricia Carmichael’s (Anna Maxwell Martin) investigation and reassuring Hastings, who she had slept with back in episode four.
‘You don’t have a bent bone in your body. This will all go away, Ted. Trust me,’ she said, squeezing his arm in the interview room.
It was only solid grunt work by DI Kate Fleming (Vicky McClure) and DS Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) that saved Ted’s Ulster fry – that’s bacon to you, fella, and it’s cooking on gas.
They discovered that Biggeloe had been responsible for recruiting DS John Corbett (Stephen Graham) as an undercover officer to be embedded with the Balaclava Gang. She then made him believe that Ted not only was H, but was also responsible for the murder of his mother.
Sergeant Tina Tranter launches at the crooked lawyer with a tiny knife last used to scrape some carrots in the canteen
She even stole some of Ted’s lovely hair from his comb, and used it to plant DNA evidence on Corbett’s body after he was murdered by the gang. (There should have been a special credit – Ted’s Hair was played by Ted’s Hair.)
She had gone to a lot of trouble and it was down to Ted to voice the confused concerns of the nation. ‘Why?’ he asked, when her evil machinations were finally revealed.
‘It’s complicated,’ she shrugged. It sure is! Did we really go through all this murder and mayhem just to avenge a spurned woman who was oddly in love with a man she could not have? Couldn’t someone have just written a country and western song instead?
Still, we all knew there was something suspicious about Gill, right from the get-go. She has been panting after Ted since series two; slinking around his office, turning up uninvited, inveigling herself into the action. Now, as Senior Legal Counsel to Police and Crime Commissioner Rohan Sindwhani (Ace Bhatti), the Pink Panter even managed to finally bed Ted and about that, the least said.
After Biggeloe was unmasked in the interview room, Line Of Duty protocols mean that she must immediately be neutralised, so as not to reveal the identity of the corrupt high-ranking police officer who is behind everything. Operation Kill Gill swung into action, with shocking scenes reminiscent of a surprise attack by Chucky in the Child’s Play films.
Sgt Tina Tranter (Natalie Gavin) followed her into the AC-12 loos, then stabbed her with a tiny vegetable knife. The flame-haired
