Line of Duty - what am I missing

[FreshJalapenos]

So many friends have nagged me to watch Line of Duty for ages, say it’s the best thing ever, and I finally cosied down this last week to watch it.

Finished season one

…Am I missing something?

It COULD be that I’m peri-menopausal and a bit tired and stressed lately, but I found it SO HARD to follow.

To clarify, I am an intelligent woman with a senior role in a scientific field. I also love a police drama so not new to a lot of terminology. I’ve never struggled to keep up with anything before

But I just did not know WTF was going on 🤣 it was SO fast paced I kept having to constantly rewind it to understand what was happening. I felt like I needed to start a spreadsheet of all the random stories - many of which are unresolved at the end of season one - and characters that kept popping up. The verbal diarrhoea of made up police lingo (“Twist it” - I’m sorry what?!?) and overly waffly declarations of “Arnott, that operation was not your fault, Fahrenheit is a tricky business which is why I wanted you to mosey on down and piggyback the twist operation here and nail this down before another man regrets his life choices and decides that the path he chooses has to impact public safety and terrorism. ARE YOU WITH ME ARNOTT”. Not to mention the overly complicated briefings “The murders at Greek Lane show a consistent finger stabbing aggression with what we’ve seen before - it’s a bluff operation, they have books that have words in and until we find a trace of the victim’s cousins dogs DNA, and visit the dodgy hairdresser, we’ll never crack this case.”

Then the twist at the end - well I think it was a twist, why can’t they just spell it out?! Im still confused.

The only courses of action is to:

1. rewatch season 1 and try to figure out what’s happening
2. Give up on it

Is it just me? I was hoping it would be as addictive as Happy Valley but it’s just added to my ever burdening mental load of figuring out WTF is going on 🤣

Normally I find these type of Series hard to follow but I have to say, I absolutely loved LOD! I found it easy to know what was going on as well. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it!

Yeah, I got to the end and still didn’t really understand who He was.

Um, WTF, women shouldn’t talk about menopause because some women haven’t had children yet?

So sorry that women around you aren’t talking about things that meet YOUR specific approval list(!) how selfish of them. But I can and will talk about perimenopause because we NEED to start talking about it more, for many many reasons. Don’t like it? Tough shit I’m afraid. The “ew gross I don’t wanna hear it” mentality is EXACTLY why menopause care is so shit so I’m afraid I’m prioritising me and other women on this one rather than an oversensitive rando who has told a woman to STFU about women’s health

For centuries women have been silenced about it. We’ll talk about it now when and where we want. One of the beautiful things about it is, you realise nobody gets to shut you up any more. The words you are looking for are “describing” and “explaining. We’re too hot and bothered to mine for anything, and couldn’t give a toss what is popular.

She’s a brilliant actress

You really can't ask people not to discuss menopause because the topic upsets you for your own personal reasons.

Unforgotten is soooo much better.

The thing about LOD is that there is a lot of detail and information. Not all of it is relevant. When you work out what is important, you've already been told the answers, but don't realise it. This will make sense if you persevere.

The series with Keeley Hawes is brilliant. She is so good at conveying so much about her character, Lindsey Denton.

Yes this is correct - the confusion is intentional. You have to just accept you don't know and then later that what you thought meant ABC in fact meant XYZ.

It's a jigsaw puzzle!

Season 3 is brilliant

I never thought a Line Of Duty thread would include a menopause bunfight. MN's a riot sometimes!

Anyway back to the topic in hand, I can barely remember S1 but I was obviously sufficiently intrigued to stick with it. S3 and the caddy and S4 with Steve in the lift (IYKYK) had me utterly gripped. IMO S5 was too weak and a waste of Stephen Graham and although not as good as the earlier series S6 was better.

Ever watched ‘Industry’, @FreshJalapenos? 😂😂😂

Don’t get distracted during that …

(I’m sorry LOD didn’t quite do it for you. It really is excellent, so may be worth revisiting when you’re less stressed.)

I love Line of Duty. And season 2 & 3 has Lindsay Denton (Keeley Hawes). Brilliant drama.

I agree she was great in that too, but still think her LOD performance was better! The icy glare, the pointed silences, the dangerously quiet menacing voice. She's like THAT teacher that everyone was petrified of at school lol.

Love Unforgotten but it’s completely different to LOD

I bloody love LoD. The first few seasons are excellent IMO. I’d probably rewatch if I were you.

The twist at the end is that DI Tony Gates died in the LINE OF DUTY. Is that the twist you mean?

I didn't stick with series 1 the first time round but loved series 2 and went back to series 1. Give series 2 a go - as others have said, 2 and 3 are the best ones.

Right, decision made, I am getting a grip and watching season 2 from tonight when the kids are in bed so no distractions

No that “Dot” was bent, and in the pocket of golfing Scottish scary Tommy

The DCI Gates story was sad I thought. Is it bad that I fancied him so wanted him to get away with it all 🤣

It gets SO much better. We started around series 3 then went back to watch 1 & 2 later. I remember being shocked at how ‘basic’ series 1 was, it doesn’t stay like that.

I didn't really enjoy series one but I love Keeley Hawes so I stuck it out till series 2 and it gets so much better!

Yeah, you can. You can ask anyone anything. And they don't have to comply on a forum but in the real world, it works differently.

Yeah, of course talk about it "when appropriate". We were silenced about sex too. Not appropriate for a woman to enjoy sex etc. But it isn't appropriate in a team meeting to suddenly bring up how exhausted you are from all the great sex you had last night.

Time and a place. This wasn't it.

You didn't understand my comments. No one said not to talk about your medical issues "when appropriate" and "with people you know are happy to hear about it". Would you bring up cancer every chance you got, with strangers, and for no reason i.e. when no relevance to the topic? You could be triggering anyone. But yeah, sounds like you just want to do whatever you want, whenever you want. Never mind anyone else.