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

Tom D: I'm not generally into these long series either - I can't keep up with them. Have just made a few exceptions: this, MAD MEN, THE BRIDGE.

last night's ep was as comparatively bad as the Mel Gibson starring Edge Of Darkness movie. It made think of what Bart once said: I didn't think this was possible, but this both sucks and blows.

10 years on from the current LoD as public tv event hysteria will be interesting. Somethings that have this level of media/public interest stand the test of time (I’d guess I May Destroy You, Fleabag will do probably ), somethings make you wonder what you ever saw in it (eg This Life)

I never liked THIS LIFE much. Bizarre how it rose from obscurity (1995?) to become iconic in about 1997!

FLEABAG I think pretty outstanding.

But my own interest in LoD isn't much to do with public event TV. I just like it for itself.

You could say that all TV will look different over time - BLACKSTUFF for instance most of us agree is special and important, but in production values, style, film stock or whatever it looks dated now - surely that needs to be priced in. LoD will presumably suffer that fate in say 20 years, if there's still anyone around to watch.

"Nice one mate" says Steve when he gets handed a pint. "Nice one mate" says Kate because Mercurio has thought fuck it, there's only 10 minutes to go.

I'm not disagreeing with the overall point that the dialogue in this programme is not good. In fact, it reminds me of Downton Abbey, where every character just says what needs to be said in order to get the exposition out and move the scene along. Apart from Ted, obviously. It's placeholder dialogue where nobody has gone back and filled in the nuance. But "nice one, mate" is Kate and Steve's shorthand. What more do they need to say?

I had a text from a friend today that said "it would be fine if we weren't in the middle of a pandemic with little else to do than hang all our hopes on the excitement of a huge nail-biting finale", and I think that sums it up to an extent. This programme has pulled off Dan Brown levels of getting you to turn the page week after week, some of which is due to the important-seeming and theme-tune free recaps at the beginning to the fantastic way the theme tune builds up in the background at the end of every episode and leaves you on a high for next week. There's no way the reality of the content could have lived up to the expectation that has built up in recent weeks.

I'm not saying it was brilliant, and I definitely think season five was shonky af, but I don't get people being let down by the ending.

I was very confused for a bit there, because I thought I remembered James Nesbitt actually having been in it, but then I realized I was mixing it up with Babylon.

I think people may be let down because over the last few series it really build up an atmosphere of highly organised, high level institutionalised corruption with extraordinary capabilities and reach. The reveal of a bumbling selfish idiot who did it for a timeshare and nice house stretches credibility (even if Mercurio does want to place big messages about incompetence and greed being the problem)

The whole focus on H made the series weaker I think, and it increasingly lost what was good about series 1 and 2. X-files conspiracy syndrome.

mark s needs to provide his post-show analysis.

I thought he was bang on with "biffa bacon lookin mfers" tbf.

The whole focus on H made the series weaker I think

Sorry, bit rambling but posting on the fly. Obviously people are going to be thinking of the flashes of craziness - people being thrown down stairs, out of windows, gun fights, ambushes etc- I think people remember those more than the document forging, tricking people (Biggalow), weaselling out of stuff, which was also central to the plot and characters.

I don't think Buckells is bumbling and clearly isn't supposed to be. In fact, just the opposite because the insinuation that he is (repeatedly) is what shocks him out of repeated No Comments. It's just the character he plays, because ignorance is the best form of denial, and even then it's not as if what he does is any more than have a less than 100% clear up rate.

I mean, it's not as if he spent a decade chasing a crime boss including working with him three times in that period before only putting the pieces together via a spelling mistake.

Buckells prison scene when Jimmy Lakewell is bothering me. Who was he playing overly nervous for except us, the viewers? If he had the laptop in his cell then it can't have been anyone OCG-related in the prison, who were the only others present.

Jimmy Lakewell is *executed* is bothering me

Maybe Buckells hadn't actually seen someone brutally murdered in front of him before? Plus he was in a cell with him, he's relying on Banks to be efficient - could've gotten out of hand.

I think Buckells in the cell was genuinely scared because he doesn’t normally actually end up in a room with these people; he just messaged them. Seeing someone get strangled literally right in front of him was probably scary af; he wasn’t actually a big mean dead eyed villain. Just a greedy, unscrupulous motherfucker who said ‘yes’ every time someone asked him to make a couple of phone calls. The dirty work was always invisible and abstract to him.

btw hello scik, nice to see you and I agree with your posts (mate)

I thought the resolution was pretty great. To be honest it's been openly flagged through the whole series - the withdrawal of surveillance from the flat, the new fake witness framing Terry Boyle, Pilkington moving to the Hill, closing the investigation on the 'race claim' case - that's been pretty much ignored by everyone who thought they were playing by TV 'everything bigger than the last time' rules rather than real life rules, where sometimes shit is just mundane.

But that Buckells version makes no sense either because then who orders the hit? He does (to stop Lakewell exposing him) and then puts himself in the cell to scare himself? The hit on Lakewell playing out as it did confirms there are other Hs in play which is fine - as the end sequences more or less confirm - but it can't work if he really is the guy putting these specific gangs together.

Also the interview confirms Buckells just views all the deaths as collateral in the pursuit of his money and he feels no attachment to them. It'd be weird if seeing someone executed in front of him shit him up to the point of doubling down on his previously held belief that they didn't matter.

afaik Lakewell wouldn't have necessarily known Buckells was involved - what was it he told Steve in the van, to look into Hargreaves?
The hit would've come from the OCG (via prison guards) - they wouldn't have needed an actual cop would they?

Right

As it turned out, it didn’t matter that Lakewell ratted out Hargreaves because the latter had lost his marbles or was very good at pretending he had. Gotta send a message though. The people sending messages were the OCG - not see-no-evil fixer Buckells.

I buy the Safe Of All The Evidences as an insurance policy for the OCG but it was a little hard to access no??

bit confused as to why davidson was given witness protection in the end. who was out to get her?

I'm also a bit confused by this. It's great that she gets to live "the life she should have had" in such luxury, but what's the justification?

Buckells should bring in a philosopher to argue the catch 22 that apparently makes him ineligible for the same outcome.

I meant Fairbank not Hargreaves btw!

This confusion is why we need a forensic mark s analysis - preferably using mastermind board game graphics.

Lol sorry yes kinder you led me astray!

This gets us back to the single OCG fallacy, I think?

Does Witness Protection have a deal with Match.com to find you a compatible partner these days?

I was thinking about the way Steve’s drug test / back pain drama ended (is this the most famous back pain in British screen history?) and I thought it was very moving. It didn’t get wrapped up into leverage for Carmichael or whatever - it was just the gaffer finding a way to help Steve that Steve couldn’t wriggle out of. The relief when Steve realised that he wasn’t in trouble, and that he had an ally, was tremendously affecting.

On the subject of whether he’s boring or not - he definitely is, of course, and so is Kate and so is the gaffer. Part of that is the convention of cops in cop shows, that they have only the bare husk of a private life because they’re so wrapped up in the job. But I think it’s also that the actors playing these characters are, let’s put it charitably, limited. Dunbar can do a little scenery-chewing when called upon but for the most part these are cardboard TV characters who have about four different ways to look worried. And that’s kind of what makes the show so loveable to me. None of these guys are above their station. The show isn’t sexy or cool - like Bodyguard edged into - it’s “nice one, mate.” What’s unusual is the number of twists you get, and the spy vibes of corrupt cops pretending to be different things to different people. These dullards are in the thick of it - and actually hanging in there among actually clever baddies!

It’s the difference between a plot-based show and a character-based one imo. That’s why people liked Ted so much, he was the only one with a semblance of a personality to him.

Yeah otm.

I've never been that arsed about the daft as fuck labyrinth plotting in this show - more buzzing off the ambience when they bring in some fool for questioning.

Tracer Hand, I like your post - certainly agree that Kate Fleming qualifies as very naff, and all the rest, and Steve not much better - but I think you underrate Dunbar, who has done tons of other diverse acting and directing work. To me he brings the grain that makes it all worthwhile. Without him I think it would be down to 'complex plot and suspense'; with him it has texture and feeling.

I think Dunbar is excellent, everyone else who works for AC12 is Yozzer Hughes in a manner. "Gissa job - I could do that"

I think Compston’s good too, in a not-exactly-rewarding role. It’s a non-twerpy performance of a twerpy character. Admittedly he shouldn’t ever do cold turkey scenes again.

The acting reminds me a little of the non-Patrick Stewart acting in Star Trek TNG — iconic performances by limited performers, well-matched to their characters.

e.g. McClure’s wooden responses feels like the right fit for Kate Fleming, a tryhard who repeatedly struggles to make emotional connections

Yeah and it’s not quite fair to say Dunbar’s only difference is big set-piece scenery chewing. He’s regularly able to show some inner life - you can see the wheels turning. He’s good at finding little moments.

Chuck T: It's very amusing that every time Kate "goes undercover" (one of her special skills) she plays an identical character - a slightly more ingenuous version of herself, who repeatedly says "Boss ... I'm here if you ever want to talk" to suspects.

(Her other special skill is shooting people with guns.)

McClure largely acts on this show like she's fronting a corporate training video.

I thought the finale was good, actually, and the more I think about it the more I like it. People choosing now to complain about bad dialogue and weird pacing come across like they're just watching it for the first time. Plotwise and thematically it worked extremely well. H may have been found, but he was a symptom of the rot, not the cause. Meanwhile the chief constable may not have any direct connection to the OCGs, but is clearly corrupt as fuck in his own way and will never be held to account for it. And the three main AC-12ers had downbeat but satisfying conclusions to their arcs. I feel once some viewers get over their disappointment in the relative lack of obvious catharsis, they will re-evaluate the conclusion quite positively.

Also with the Jimmy Nesbitt photo they pulled off the ultimate "big name gets killed off straight away" move.

Yeah that was good.

I agree about the ending. The whole point of 'Institutionalised corruption' is complacency, collusion, a phone call here and there, no follow-up. If there was one big baddie inside the police pulling strings on behalf of an OCG - or even several OCGs - then the chief constable and Carmichael would be right - a few bad apples, weed them out, nothing to see.

Also a point about how easy is it is to succumb to corruption - Hastings breaking the rules for what he perceives as noble reasons, Jo doing so her whole life because she is coerced. They don't see themselves as bent, but the effect on the integrity of the system is the same, whatever the motives. It's not too big a leap from altruistically bunging a widow fifty grand to burying some evidence or whatever to help a mate out.

Episodes 6:5-6 strongly implied that Carmichael was corrupt, if only through her actions.

At the end that notion seemed to have vanished?

I think there is a slight weakness of LoD here, that it leans heavily on an idea then acts like it never happened.

In 6:7 it was noticeable, and a big relief, how much Carmichael allowed the AC-12 people to get on with solving the crime. Buckells stated that she wasn't participating in his interview so that she would avoid later flak for it - OK - but that doesn't really explain why, having interfered with them almost to the point of firing or imprisoning them, she then just stepped out of the way for almost the whole final episode, rather than eg: continuing to obstruct the investigation.

Yeah it was curious.

Yes agreed. I see it as another "fakeout" for suspense! drama! reasons but it's quite glaring. PLUS I refuse to believe RACE CLAIM + H wasn't anything, that's way better than the 4 dots nonsense!

I agree with chap. From people's reactions to the episode I was expecting Carmichael to come abseiling through a window with double machine guns or something equally ludicrous. (The guardian headline I glimpsed called it 'audacious and deranged'.)

I do wonder what kind of terrible 'anonymising' chat program they were using that left transcripts and traceable IP addresses all over the hard drive.

Sorry, do you mean 'internet protocol' addresses?

So, er, who ordered the murder of Gail Vella?

Oh yes, can't have been buckles!

Overall I don't think I understand the story. But I did love the programme.

IP possibly the only expanded acronym in the whole series

also what bad guys are still using 1996 laptops rather than burner Androids with Signal

Oh yes, can't have been buckles!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK5o3yRwhMQ