Line of Duty Thread 9, no spoilers! Watch along as we find out (?) wtf is going on!

[TedisnotH]

Reporting in, fellas. Let's fill up Thread 8 first though, ok?

Also, pretty sure Buckells wasn't AS incompetent as generally assumed. I thought some of the incompetence was smokescreen for corruption.

@CheekyWeeShite

Also very feasible that Jo was unaware she was talking to Buckells just like Baines didn’t know he was talking to Dot. The less you know, the less you can tell.

Jo shopped Buckells to AC12 earlier in the series. Unless there's a major plot hole then she can't have known.

Hastings made the point last night that Jo shopped Buckells not realising that he was the one pulling her strings!

@Buggerthebotox

Also finding it odd, like a PP, that if Jo knew Buckells was H, why all the communication via laptop?

It was made explicit that she didn’t know it was him: Ted pointed out in the interview that Jo had tried to frame Buckells without knowing that he was in fact the one “pulling her strings.”

Which again raises the question of what info she actually provided in order to qualify for witness protection.

Maybe a retired Ted could stand for the now vacant post of Police Commissioner...

The scene in the lift with the 3 main characters pulling "Zoolander" type faces was hilarious. Much as I like Ted is was all a bit crap.

@DinosaurDiana

I’ve just rewatched part where they find out who spelled definitely wrong. Ted says ‘let’s see what Carmichael has got to say now’, so I assumed it was her that had written it.

I think that was because she had been insisting that Buckles was innocent and should be released when in actual fact they had just found out he’s very much involved. So he’s talking about getting her reaction to that news

Maybe I've been watching this for too long but I found the addition of a cute dog in Jo's new life a touch sinister, knowing what happened to Tony Gates's similarly lovely fluffy dog. She might have the Brora jumper and the rural cottage, but the OCG have ways of finding you and harming the things you love...

@vjg13

The scene in the lift with the 3 main characters pulling "Zoolander" type faces was hilarious. Much as I like Ted is was all a bit crap.

It was like The Avengers or something.

The series has always been far fetched but well told with good characters. It's got too gimmicky. That scene, Buckells dragged in but the camera holds off from showing his face to prolong the suspense, the long stares and camera close ups to throw off the audience.

I guess some people enjoy all that, but it loses its authenticity.

Because it's cold and pouring with rain, I'm spending this afternoon re-watching series 3. It's in a different league - so much better. The difference after watching series 6 so recently just shows how much better it was.

I'm wondering if a future series might involve the three main protagonists moving from the police to the security services, as happened in Between The Lines.

I've just watched the last episode for the 3rd time (I was pissed the first time round 😂). I understand the ending. It makes perfect sense now. There's a underlying commentary about how hard it is to fight corruption and how it sits in plain sight with minimal public outrage. I feel Carmichael is a bit of a Dominic Cummings character. Knows enough to bring everything down at their choosing. Buckles being the 4th man promoted beyond his wit and intelligence feels very Johnson to me. I'm not making direct comparisons but I think JM is using this episode to say more than is first apparent. I also think there will be a series 7 but hasting the wee donkey, Kate mate and Steve pills will be fighting from within as outsiders more than they ever have. The Lawrence Christopher murder has plenty scope and it's not accidental that the ending credits say osbourne has put people close to him in senior anti corruption positions. There is more potential for series 7 and I hope JM doesn't throw the towel in because the ending didn't set everyone's knickers on fire!

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tv series shoot it’s self in the foot like this. It was so so popular. Everyone waiting to find out who it was. Nearly 13 million people tuning in to find out, and the overwhelming majority of them now going “wtf how can that bumbling idiot be capable of being the mastermind doing all these things”.

Osbourne, Carmichael, Hastings, Kate even, any of them would have been more believable than the dim witted incompetent buckells.

@User135644

Simply everyone thought h would be someone powerful, clever, significant. That they were cracking something major. Instead it’s a small inept character who looks like he’d struggle to make his own cup of coffee in the morning.

Was Jed just trying too hard with the twist. Going all Usual Suspects and trying to shock with the big reveal being the bad guy all along was some weak and weedy fool who nobody took seriously.

That could have worked if they made Buckells look like it was all an act

@Bluntness100

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tv series shoot it’s self in the foot like this. It was so so popular. Everyone waiting to find out who it was. Nearly 13 million people tuning in to find out, and the overwhelming majority of them now going “wtf how can that bumbling idiot be capable of being the mastermind doing all these things”.

Osbourne, Carmichael, Hastings, Kate even, any of them would have been more believable than the dim witted incompetent buckells.

Agreed. I actually find it rather insulting to be honest.

'That could have worked if they made Buckells look like it was all an act'

Yes it could've been a brilliant ending if his whole bumbling demeanour changed to show an evil, calculating side.

Agree that Buckells' incompetence masked his corruption.

I think once you accept Buckells was just the 4th man passing messages and not the criminal mastermind then it works as an ending. It's just disappointing that the big criminal mastermind was never caught, particularly as so much significance was placed on catching the person in charge.

@Bluntness100 surely that's the point though. We were cleverly led away from Buckells while he was there in plain sight all the time. We theorised madly but few of us thought it would be him at the end of the laptop. Maybe that's why some of us feel we've been done over.

Yes, Buckells as 4th man works if we accept that the big cheese got away.

Where does the consensus that it was the show's finale come from anyway?
She probably just meant the finale of this series. It's a commonly used phrase.

'That could have worked if they made Buckells look like it was all an act'
Yes it could've been a brilliant ending if his whole bumbling demeanour changed to show an evil, calculating side.
He did briefly look smarter and speak with more confidence, even arrogance, but then realised he'd been outsmarted (or, rather, just hadn't been clever enough to foresee all the consequences).

Bluntness100

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tv series shoot it’s self in the foot like this. It was so so popular. Everyone waiting to find out who it was. Nearly 13 million people tuning in to find out, and the overwhelming majority of them now going “wtf how can that bumbling idiot be capable of being the mastermind doing all these things”

A could new a few game of throne rushed the ending of a built up popular series, Dexter fail was another one although they realised and have made a new series.

It was utter crap anti climatic.

He was never the master mind - I’m starting to feel like I’ve been watching a different programme.

They were hunting down someone they thought was the key to the whole thing and actually it was dead end that changed nothing. I like it as an ending but think the execution could have been better.

'He was never the master mind - I’m starting to feel like I’ve been watching a different programme.They were hunting down someone they thought was the key to the whole thing and actually it was dead end that changed nothing'

Yes, Mercurio led everyone on a wild goose chase including crap like Dot's dying declaration finger twitching clues/not clues. He kind of pointed everyone in one direction and then just went 'meh' at the end.

@EsmaCannonball

Davidson has been doomed to live in an eternal Matalan Autumn/Winter advert. That cottage looked lovely but Denise van Outen lives next door and she's always popping in for coffee.

brilliant!

@JaniieJones

'That could have worked if they made Buckells look like it was all an act'

Yes it could've been a brilliant ending if his whole bumbling demeanour changed to show an evil, calculating side.

Now THAT I would have gone for. He didn't need to be the actual king pin, he just needed to not be a 'right place, right time, right questionable morals' muppet.