Line of Duty, Series 2, Episode 5

There’s only one episode left and it’s not clear how they’re going to wrap everything up in just one hour.

So with all the signs pointing towards DCC Dryden (Mark Bonnar) as the main conspirator until the last 10 minutes, when under questionning he seemed pretty convincing that he was not involved in the murder of the witness, Tommy, or Carly Kirk although he was definitely involved in ‘sexual acts’ with the fifteen year old and perverting the course of justice… it now seems that maybe Lindsay Denton (Keeley Hawes) was pulling the strings all along, because she’s Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction and is a spurned woman who stalks and is hell-bent on destroying Dryden? I’m not sure I’d be happy with that kind of resolution, i.e. that the strong female character is actually a jealous harpy.

The final shot shows Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) looking at Denton’s medical records and pulling a shocked face. She terminated a pregnancy, but there was a close up on her address on the medical records and I wonder if the address on the medical records was different from the place that she lives in? I’m not entirely sure.

But back to the beginning – Prasad and Cole (from Vice) – we hardly knew you because as soon as you turned up at the end of last episode to kidnap Denton, you were then dead within the first few minutes (Cole) having been killed by the other (Prasad) and then Denton somehow managed to escape the car boot to nearly kill Prasad – getting him to record a confession on the phone that Dryden was behind everything but not quite dying, later asking for immunity from prosecution in order to give evidence.

But AC12 find photos from a flashdrive in Prasad’s boot that show Carly performing oral sex on Dryden (or at least photos that imply so) and the dead body of Carly. However, in light of the final smirks by Denton, did she plant these? As Dryden points out, Denton is very cunning – she got the financial records of Hastings, the phone records of Kate and photos of Arnott sleeping with the witness. Who’s to say she can’t do more, set up everyone and do the ultimate long con, even setting up Prasad somehow? Although Prasad and Cole definitely did the ambush on the witness and Cole definitely killed Jessica Raines and they definitely did not know Denton. Ooh.

Meanwhile Hastings redeems himself. The head of AC12 was in a moral quandary but in the end did allow his team to arrest Dryden even though it means no promotion and no cruise to win back his wife.

And we saw a cameo return from Nige (Neil Morissey) and his cane from last series. He meets with Dot Cottan, who gets some information about Dryden out of him, while Dot also plants the seed with Nige that the ‘caddy’ (ie actually Dot) who Tommy the witness alludes to, is in fact the now conveniently dead Cole. Is Dot doing the ultimate long con in fact? It appears not, but I wonder now that Hastings may be disgraced if Dot will eventually become head of Anti Corruption unit 12, all the while being the ultimate corrupt copper?

Looking forward to next week, but wish this series went on longer.