Line of Duty thread 7: do bent coppers get their comeuppance? This is a spoiler free zone fella!

[MotherOfGodWeeFella]

Thread prepped and ready to go Boss.

Oh and did anyone else think it was bloody lucky that Amy from IT spoke fluent Spanish? I think it was her translating the directions to the armed team in Spain.

Yes a happy coincidence that Amy was a Spanish speaker.

There's no reason at all to think Nigel is in Spain. It's something that these threads came up with when Spain was mentioned in Series 5, and seems to have become accepted wisdom! But we last saw him happily mowing a large, not remotely Spanish, lawn.

Was she not there because she could speak Spanish? They will have known they needed a Spanish speaker.

Amanda not Amy I think.
It’s lucky but not completely implausible that she’d happen to speak Spanish - the actress’s name is Rosa Escoda suggesting a Spanish parent, so they’ve just given the character the same background as her. It simultaneously saves costs and makes a background character a bit more 3 dimensional in the random
way that only real life can provide.

Some random thoughts: James Nesbit feels shoehorned in to me - almost like an in-joke after saying he wanted a part in LOD. Fuzzy filming of his death leaves uncertain that it was even him. If tipped off, he could have faked his own death - and if he was up to doing that and he is indeed Jo's "father" then maybe he faked her mother's suicide as well. I think ultimately he will be a red herring. Personally I'm leaning more towards Sindwahni (I'm not even sure what his rank is) as I've long suspected him, he always looks dodgy and I think his sudden resignation is to throw us off the scent.
I'm not sure why there was a need to bring Steph back into this series. I thought it was a nice touch at the end of the last one with Hastings giving her the missing £500,000 to assuage his conscience when he realised what he'd done, but why revisit that now if it's not significant?
I can't believe there won't be a moment when the tables are turned literally and we hear the words "Patricia Carmichael you do not have to say anything..." and find her sitting on the other side of the glass box. It would just be too enjoyable to see that happen for it not to happen iyswim.

@LillianGish

Some random thoughts: James Nesbit feels shoehorned in to me - almost like an in-joke after saying he wanted a part in LOD. Fuzzy filming of his death leaves uncertain that it was even him. If tipped off, he could have faked his own death - and if he was up to doing that and he is indeed Jo's "father" then maybe he faked her mother's suicide as well. I think ultimately he will be a red herring. Personally I'm leaning more towards Sindwahni (I'm not even sure what his rank is) as I've long suspected him, he always looks dodgy and I think his sudden resignation is to throw us off the scent. I'm not sure why there was a need to bring Steph back into this series. I thought it was a nice touch at the end of the last one with Hastings giving her the missing £500,000 to assuage his conscience when he realised what he'd done, but why revisit that now if it's not significant? I can't believe there won't be a moment when the tables are turned literally and we hear the words "Patricia Carmichael you do not have to say anything..." and find her sitting on the other side of the glass box. It would just be too enjoyable to see that happen for it not to happen iyswim.

Sindwhani was the Policing and Crime Commissioner, an elected role. We don't know what his history is (PCCs don't come from an operational police background) but he's unlikely to have been involved in any capacity for long enough to count as an insider for OCG purposes.

@Bluntness100

Was she not there because she could speak Spanish? They will have known they needed a Spanish speaker.

It was the fact it was a character we have seen before, not just a Spanish translator shipped in.

It was £50k Ted gave Steph, not £500k.

I stand corrected - Amanda, not Amy was giving the orders in Spanish.

I’m disappointed that Ryan didn’t get an interview but maybe he would just revert to yelling bent bastard and being a belligerent little shit so they wouldn’t actually get much out of him. Although I would’ve loved to get more of his backstory too.

I’ve been holding out for Jo to be a bit more emotional in the interview TBH. When she found out the truth about Tommy I was expecting a reaction more like when Joe (? The other sandsview victim) saw Fairbanks’ photo in series 3.

I had an LOD dream last night. Jo turned out to be pregnant (or had been in the past, not sure) and somehow they found out it was due to being abused herself by Tommy 😫

I don’t get the Ryan love, I thought he was a very two dimensional party villain type character.

They have very clean deaths in LOD don't they? Not a drop of blood on Ryan despite two shots to the chest, where there's an awful lot of very large blood vessels. Same with the OCG chaps last week.

Carmichael has two facial expressions. Smirk & Not Smirk. I'd happily do a running gallop to smash her face in with half a brick in a sock.

I am steering towards him or Wise being the puppet masters

I said so earlier. Steve's waistcoats are H:

AC IS TOAST - W

See? Obvious!

I seem to be the only one who enjoyed it last night - my fingernails are down to the quick!

@Buggerthebotox

I also got the impression that Jo was scared to talk in front of Carmichael.

So did I! She was terrified.

Carmichael was shutting down any line of enquiry that even suggested it might touch on police corruption.

@SchadenfreudePersonified I did too! I always prefer the interview stages to the build up. There was a lot in there to get excited about last night!

I can't believe there won't be a moment when the tables are turned literally and we hear the words "Patricia Carmichael you do not have to say anything..." and find her sitting on the other side of the glass box. It would just be too enjoyable to see that happen for it not to happen iyswim

@LillianGish if this doesn’t happen I’ll boot the telly. And it needs to be Ted.

@jugglingeverything

So many people seem to think Jo's mum not dead. My initial reaction was that she's dead but murdered and made to look like suicude. Like so many other characters. Perhaps she threatened to take Jo away or was going to tell her the truth about Tommy. If he is capable of raping his sister then he is capable of murdering her too. Not sure how they would ever find this out mind, but if they put it to Jo as a theory perhaps that would be what finally makes her give everyone up. I also think she beleived Thirwell to be her father. That interview must have been so hard for her.

Murder was my first thought when they said suicide too! Jo’s face looked odd when they said that. I got distracted by the faked death/Spain idea, but the murder cover up is still plausible I reckon

I loved last night's episode - lots of unexpected stuff to keep you thinking!

Going to back to what some of us thought and that's that Jo was protecting someone by acting for the OCG - it would make sense if her mother was alive and living abroad under an assumed identity. Or she had found out the mother she believed was dead was actually still alive and the OCG had said to Jo they would tell her where she was if she did a job for them.

I enjoyed last night's episode too, it was definately a penultimate episode setting things up for grand finale.
I think that Carmichael is less likely to be OGC and more likely to be about advancing her own career - she was shutting Ted down so he couldn't save the day and avoid retirement. Plus I think Osborne has promised her a big promotion if she closes it down without any negative impact on the police.

D'oh! OCG not OGC

@Constantcrayfish

There's no reason at all to think Nigel is in Spain. It's something that these threads came up with when Spain was mentioned in Series 5, and seems to have become accepted wisdom! But we last saw him happily mowing a large, not remotely Spanish, lawn.

I do love the Mandela effect of the Nige/Spain fallacy!

Or maybe she has twigged her mother was murdered and the OCG being split into factions means one member is prepared to rat on another for supremacy and tell her who killed her mother in return for her doing a job for them.

Urgent exit required!

Urgent exit required!!

Ta da