Line of Duty Thread 8: All aboard the wee donkey for the final episode - no spoilers, the wee donkey bites!

[Furries]

Hope you all don’t mind, getting near the end of thread 7, so thought I’d trot this one out!

Dot said on the telly this morning that the three main charecters would not be as we know them so maybe Ted does go and nothing has been made of Steves drug taking yet

Vicky McClure said in a magazine interview that she is hopeful there's another series so I don't think it's going to end just yet.

My guess would be that they all know very well what will be happening next but aren’t going to tell the world that. Let’s face it, if Jed M WANTS another series, he’s got it, because the viewing figures are through the roof.

I don't buy the three endings either. Nor the addition to the latest trailer from the BBC. Looks like a shot from last season judging by the sweatshirt.

Carmichael interview at 37.25. Image 47, Gail Vella's computer. Three pen taps. Mercurio nod to Dot's dying confession in series 5?

dot dot dot - S in morse code.
... - Ellipsis - Leave out.

OCG/Police undercover handler signal to 'leave out' Steve, Sandview, or Steph Corbett information?

AMM sublime in every scene. Hoping Hastings isn't bent, and nabs H/S before 30 year retirement carriage clock gift usual end of series screen update.

On re-watch, Carmichael pen taps 4 times. H in morse code. Leave out H.

AMM was asked about that in an interview - she said it was unscripted and she hadn't realised.

I got the feeling Carmichael was giving out a code in the interview.

She definitely gave Jo a look to say "shut up" at one point, well that was my take on it.

M*therOfGodWeeFella

I'm as bemused and befuddled as any on here in regard to who's the real bent copper/s. Interesting to hear AMM say her en pointe penmanship mid scene was unscripted (if it really was....) Just goes to demonstrate her consummate acting skills if so. Kelly MacDonald said it was difficult to perform opposite AMM as she was so mesmerising. Hope Sunday doesn't disappoint the thread profilers. See you next year for series 7?

I’ve only just realised that Ted isn’t a detective, and neither was Hargreaves - isn’t that a bit weird? Wouldn’t they have detectives in those jobs? (Clueless about the police, but it just occurred to me that Buckells was a detective superintendent and now Jo is an acting one)

Sorry if anybody has already said this, but I'm worried H might be Steve. OK it's far fetched, and the better money is probably on my friend L's theory that it is still Ted. It's more plausible, and the whole 'we think he's H, my God he IS...oh no he's not...' was a fantastic ruse to play down that fear.

But hear me out a moment on Steve: H would be a clever reference to the fact that he's Steven without an H. His team could have been set up on that raid in S1Ep1, knowing they'd do a cover-up, and when he told the truth that he'd be taken in by Father Ted. It was the very best way to set him up as clean forever. Plus, and I might be embarrassing myself awfully here but I don't remember what I fed the kids for tea tonight so I def don't remember this....my impression of Steve is that we know nothing at all about his background: he certainly doesn't seem to have any family visibly supporting him, or even as props. Anyway, I have to get that out of my system. It SURELY can't be Carmichael/the cringey police chief/etc.. Oh, and if it is Steve I'm never watching a Jed Mercurio series ever again. Ever. Until Episode 2 anyway. I want to be Steve's mum, or his girlfriend: I can't quite decide.

So it must be Ted then.

NOTE to HQ this can't be a spoiler as it's totally unfounded guessing to fill time between searching for podcasts or radio interviews. I even listened to Vicky McClure's 'My life as a mix tape' on R1.

Er - Steve was in a relationship right back at the beginning but the stress of the court case for the shooting of the wrong guy and then his obsessive devotion to AC-12 which got him tortured by the OCG put paid to it.

Please do not post any info gained from anywhere except the actual episodes aired so far. This is a SPOILER FREE thread.
Stick to the letter of the law, the letter I tell you!
As you were, fellas

@TedisnotH

Please do not post any info gained from anywhere except the actual episodes aired so far. This is a SPOILER FREE thread. Stick to the letter of the law, the letter I tell you! As you were, fellas

You are after bent posters?

Not bent your honour

If the whole story is going to arc back to the beginning of series 1 then I reckon the flat number had been previously altered on purpose (as a cover up) so the original target would not be taken down (as an OCG member) Then the cover story would be due to the flat number being upside down then that's why unfortunately the wrong man got shot thus allowing the wanted man to go free.

And I love the idea of Terry Boyle being the person who accidentally wraps everything up with his obsession of taking notes & photos.
A favourite of MN & others is the Occam's Razor thing that the simplest explanation is most likely the truth & also we miss what is staring us in the face as it's too simple.

I'm too complicated too work out the answer yet 🤣

Did we ever find out what the bent lawyer said to Steve when they were in the van together??

Steve does have family props - his parents turned up briefly when he was in hospital and Ted spoke to them. They looked suitably boring and prop-like.

@BanditoShipman

Did we ever find out what the bent lawyer said to Steve when they were in the van together??

Yes, he revealed that the investigation Vella was doing was into the death of Christopher Lawrence

I still think there's something going on with Ted getting rid of his laptop. Just because of some porn? Unless it involved the wee donkey!

Oh mother of God please don't let this finale be a disappointment. I can't wait for Sunday...by Christ let's hope Ted isn't a disgrace to the uniform

Yes I WILL go after bent posters, I tell ya bent posters, if they continue to post spoilers. Reported for breaking the regs.
A Reg 15 will be issued if there is any more spoilering

I've been puzzling over H constantly. I mean why are they called H? If it were Osborne, Thurwell or Fairbanks why the H? But of course it would be too obvious to have someone whose name begins with H.... Is it Sunday yet?

They’re not called H. The code name H came from Dot’s dying declaration but at the end of season 5 they decided he actually meant H in morse code which is 4 dots - Steve says something like “four dots, four caddies, four corrupt officers. Hilton, Gill, Hargreaves and one more”

Which is completely bloody stupid, but that’s what the plot says. Also Gill wasn’t a police officer so it doesn’t actually work, and it’s weird that he referred to them as “four caddies”, since none of the people uncovered had anything like Dot’s role. Hargreaves was blackmailed, I think they had something over Hilton too (can’t remember if this was confirmed?) and with Gill Ted said that her retainers must have come with strings, and that she was seduced by the glamour 🙄

But yeah, that’s where we are with “the fourth man”.

I’m trying to remember how Corbett and McQueen came to use the name H - was it Steve that mentioned it first? Or maybe Gill told him in their pre-recruitment chat?

@lolacola77

I still think there's something going on with Ted getting rid of his laptop. Just because of some porn? Unless it involved the wee donkey!

Oh mother of God please don't let this finale be a disappointment. I can't wait for Sunday...by Christ let's hope Ted isn't a disgrace to the uniform

I don’t think it can be Ted - if he were the one communicating with Lisa by computer he wouldn’t have needed to go to Blackthorn to tell Lee Banks about the rat.

The laptop thing really pisses me off too. He literally rushed into his room, packed it up and got a taxi to a disposal place and binned a perfectly good laptop when he’s skint. For some porn he viewed previously? Obvious bollocks. But it seems we are supposed to have accepted this. That laptop is up there with the morse code for this show’s sins. Oh, and AC-12 never wondering why someone in the OCG was going around murdering prostitutes for seemingly no reason, and taking trophies - Michael Farmer was obviously a convenient frame but the murders obviously weren’t committed to frame him. And then after doing a good enough job of framing him, they wrecked all that by dumping body parts after he was in custody, and not even with their usual MO of planting DNA on it to frame someone else. Why? They have a freezer full of semen apparently, they could have kept those body parts and used them to frame anyone they wanted to in future.

And while I’m at it, how the hell did Prasad get immunity? They keep saying you can’t get it if you have committed the most serious crimes yet they knew he murdered Cole, and the girl who was supposed to be Carly Kirk.

And what information did Gill give them to secure her immunity? There hasn’t been a single OCG related enquiry this season that hasn’t been part of the Vella case so clearly she told them bugger all.

TL;DR I love this show but there have been some shockers, and the more you rewatch it, the more you notice!

@CheekyWeeShite

Steve does have family props - his parents turned up briefly when he was in hospital and Ted spoke to them. They looked suitably boring and prop-like.

That's what they wanted Ted to believe