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Line of duty

103 replies

stainesmassif · 06/07/2012 06:39

Is this the best drama on bbc since state of play?

I have to admit to being partial to Lennon James, but I think they're all great, even including Neil morrissey.
I just hope they don't cop out over the remaining episodes as bbc dramas often seem to.
Anyone?

OP posts:
cocolepew · 19/07/2012 11:35

At the end the young lad was trying to chop his fingers off, but it wasnt happening!

Collaborate · 19/07/2012 11:46

I had a sneak peek at next weeks freeview listing. It's a spoiler. Do avoid it if you want to maintain the suspense.

gazzalw · 19/07/2012 11:49

DW and I personally think there's going to be a real twist to this - probably the one we least expect will be the dodgy cop rather than Gates - is all bluff and counter bluff. Seems impossible to unravel at the moment but hope it does so in a "well I never guessed that" but plausible way...

diddl · 19/07/2012 11:50

Well Gates is dodgy-but you think the guy phoning him might also be a cop?

gazzalw · 19/07/2012 11:58

Nothing is quite as it seems in this type of drama so fully expecting for the truly bad guys being outed to be a real surprise!

gazzalw · 19/07/2012 11:59

Or we may all very disappointed!

diddl · 19/07/2012 12:14

Yup, it´ll go one way or the other!

I don´t think anything would surprise me tbh!

Maybe it´s someone one of the main characters knows/is related to?

(hope it´s not Adrian Dunbar´s character as that would be too predictable)

Did we ever know who Jackie´s husband was/is?

limitedperiodonly · 19/07/2012 12:47

Maybe the baddies ( I sound about 5!) didn't trust Jackie if they knew she was carrying on with a senior police officer.

Coco you've gone from 5 to 80 in one post. My mum says: 'carrying on.'

donnie · 24/07/2012 18:42

Great thread, last episode tonight!
Dh and I watched all 4 previous episodes over the weekend having recorded them....excellent stuff.

I agree there is going to be a massive twist; I personally think it's Kate Fleming who will turn out to be in cahoots with Tommy the disembodied telephone Scottish drugs overlord......you have been warned...!!!!

gazzalw · 24/07/2012 18:58

Well it's always the one you least suspect and by that reckoning it probably will be Kate Fleming!

SinisterBuggyMonth · 24/07/2012 22:18

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

cocolepew · 24/07/2012 22:38

Very well done slarty, you were right

slartybartfast · 24/07/2012 23:08

oh yes, Blush

wow at me.

so they are all corrupt in the end

northender · 25/07/2012 00:04

Jeez....I think I enjoyed that, but when dh came in to see the last 5 minutes and asked me what was going on, confused doesn't even come close Grin.

gazzalw · 25/07/2012 08:07

Are you saying they're all corrupt because Arnott and Fleming 'covered up' the manner in which Gates died too? I couldn't really get my head round why the one who turned out to be in cahoots with Tommy managed to wangle a couple of minutes conversation with him - surely that would have been regarded as suspicious - or is that why you're saying they're all corrupt - because everyone else would have known that he was having a quiet word with him about the case!

Anyway, very much enjoyed but it was a bit full on at the end!

donnie · 25/07/2012 08:21

I found it very sad when Gates committed suicide. His performance throughout was fantastic, sooo good at playing a man on the edge, torn between doing the right thing and trying to cover the bad stuff up. I wouldn't want another series if he isn't in it!

In the end they were all a bit dishonest weren't they? I supose the point the programme was making was that there is a lot of blurring of lines in police work; the only way they could get to Tommy was through illegal means. Does that mean they should not get to Tommy?

Also the shooting of the suspected Al Q'aeda man at the beginning of the 1st episode; surely that was based on the whole Jean Charles de Menezez thing? those police officers shot the wrong man but it wasn't their fault - it was their superiors. IIRR the de Menezes enquiry concluded with no blame attached to anyone and no convictions of any kind. Cressida Dick said there had been "no mistakes made". Which is kinda weird considering an innocent blike was shot to death on a bloody tube train .

Anyway, it was a good programme with lots to think about!

donnie · 25/07/2012 08:22

'bloke', obv!

diddl · 25/07/2012 14:43

How disappointing that it was all for nothing-nothing got resolved.

Did Tommy really have Jackie killed just so that he could have Gates "onside"?

Was Tommy anyone that we knew?

No surprises that Dot was corrupt, was there?

And why all the hatred for Fleming & Arnott after Gates led Arnott to torture??!!

So Gates ended up a hero...Hmm

Was thinking it would point to the commissioner-or that Arnotts evidence would at least show his part in the coverup.

limitedperiodonly · 25/07/2012 21:28

I liked the fact that the arse-coverers triumphed to inadvertently leave the way clear for the truly corrupt. Well, I didn't like it, but I found it realistic.

Dot was the archetypal corrupt cop: greedy, stupid and mindlessly loyal to anyone who could dig him out of a hole.

And they would hate Fleming and Arnott because many jobs like the police, military, medicine etc are tribal (not judging good people in those careers but it is difficult to make a stand when you share so much).

I think Tommy was opportunistic and had an eye for talent. Like recruiting Doc as a teenage caddy at the golf course.

diddl · 26/07/2012 07:29

Dot wasn´t stupid though-as he wasn´t suspected at all, was he?

Even when he left early he said it was due to overtime restrictions & then outrightly blamed Gates when it was clear that he would be believed.

The Neil Morrissy character was downright nasty.

Why was he even still there after attacking Fleming?

Sad that no one was to blame for the wrong shooting-I had hoped that that would be resolved.

Only thing that upset me was the dog.

Was glad Gates died & pleased Arnott & Fleming took the decision that his wife & kids wouldn´t suffer by knowing he´d killed himself.

limitedperiodonly · 26/07/2012 09:17

I thought Dot had that selfish cunning that lots of stupid people have but not enough imagination to think one day he might end up dead.

I think he was in the right place at the right time.

I'm trying not to buy into the idea that he and Tommy planned this all along and Tommy recruited him as teenage sleeper and all these things would fall into place because it's too far-fetched and I want to like Line of Duty.

Mind you, that idea worked for Homeland Wink

The idea that no one would be punished for the botched terror raid was very realistic. It's happened a lot. Juries are very reluctant to convict officers who hurt people in the course of duty.

I don't understand how Neil Morrissey escaped dismissal for clouting Fleming either. And in the real world he'd have taken early retirement on medical grounds years before and been happily limping around a Spanish golf course.

diddl · 26/07/2012 09:40

"The idea that no one would be punished for the botched terror raid was very realistic"

Well I can see how the guy who shot him thought it was a terrorist with a bomb-going on the info he had.

But the wrong flat because the number was hanging down-I mean really?

diddl · 26/07/2012 09:42

And an with the Neil Morrissy character-was he pissed off with Fleming because they were looking into Gates or because he thought Gates & Fleming were having an affair?

(Because of course that would be all her faultHmm)

limitedperiodonly · 26/07/2012 10:44

I did think Nige had a bit of an unrequited crush on Gates. Maybe it was the scriptwriters' way of letting us know they'd studied Othello.

Or maybe it was another thing they didn't tie up like why Gates didn't just throw that glass out of car window and how you manage to slit someone's throat, drag her body out and not leave the room looking like an abattoir.

And how you manage to whack someone in the face with a big stick and leave them without so much as a bruise. And how you make it look like someone has cut someone's throat without studying the angle of the cut (I've seen Dexter, you know). And why those bloody boltcroppers didn't work.

I still liked it

donnie · 26/07/2012 18:56

diddl - it's no more or less realistic than the way Jean Charles de Menezes was shot in the head several times in a public place by police officers acting on information that he was a suicide bomber.

YY to the reluctance to convict police officers who cause injury/kill - Ian Tomlinson anyone?

I also noted the absence of a head wound after Gates had been whacked with a baseball bat but I thought his performance was so terrific I didn't care Grin !

I liked Arnott as well. But the message being promoted IMO was that trying to abide by one's principles and doing the right thing is a lost cause which is profoundly cynical and depressing.

As for the scene when Nige spat in Kate's hair, having whacked her in the face in the previous episode - why the hell did nothing get done about that ? I can't believe anyone could possibly get away with such overt aggression and bullying in the workplace.