‘Line of Duty’ returned to our screens last night, and within seconds of the opening credits, it was clear than writer Jed Mercurio, who also directs the show, had lost none of his talent to shock, titillate and horrify the huge number of fans of the show.
SPOILERS! SPOILERS!
The opening scenes saw a young lady brutally abducted, her earrings removed the quick way and then rescued from a burning house through the quick actions of the attending supervising officer, Roz Huntley (Thandie Newton), who swiftly became the subject of one of AC-12’s intense investigations.
The hour passed speedily by, before the episode finished on a cliff-hanger to compete with the most memorable of TV crime dramas on either side of the Atlantic.
Roz Huntley had two thorns in her side by now. One was the hand on her shoulder of AC-12. The other came from closer to hand, forensics coordinator Tim Ifield sniffing around and questioning the veracity of the evidence she used to charge her main suspect.
It was their final encounter, when Roz paid him an unexpected call at home to confront him, that went macabrely wrong. After Tim accidentally struck his boss to the floor, he made the bonkers decision to don a balaclava, buy some house-n-home tools from the local DIY store and set about… chopping her up. As you do. Then, just as he was about to start, she opened her eyes. And a nation recoiled.
Some of the very best responses...
And that was just the first episode. How are we going to get through this, people?
By the way, here’s our thoughtful, well-reasoned list of the 15 burning questions we have already, following Sunday evening’s debut episode. Any theories, please do share. To quote Kelly McGillis in ‘Top Gun’, it’s going to be complicated.