Line of Duty season four episode one talking points recap: is Thandie Newton's Huntley really corrupt?
Police corruption nail-biter Line Of Duty was back with a bang, a homecoming Hollywood actress and more twists than Douglas Carswell’s party political career. The acclaimed thriller had also been promoted from BBC Two to BBC One for this fourth series. Here’s all the talking points from episode one…
Has another Line Of Duty star died already?
It happened in the previous two series, when Jessica Raine and Daniel Mays - both billed as stars of the run - kicked the bucket before the credits rolled on their first episode. Line Of Duty’s never been afraid to kill off its headline names to subvert viewers’ expectations and keep us on our toes. So has Thandie Newton’s DCI Roz Huntley suffered the same fate?
During a pushy-shovey tussle with geeky forensic co-ordinator Tim Ifield (Jason Watkins), Huntley fell and smacked her heard on the edge of his granite kitchen worktop (cue telltale bloodstain). It looked to be game over - until that final frame when she suddenly opened her eyes as Ifield’s electric saw edged perilously close to her head. If Huntley wasn’t dead, surely she’s about to be? No, not the face! Not my beautiful face!
Huntley seemed pressurised rather than corrupt
She’s currently anti-corruption squad AC-12’s main target but is Huntley really a bent copper? As leader of Operation Trapdoor, she was under intense pressure to catch a balaclava-clad serial killer and prove herself to her superiors. Huntley consequently appeared to fudge a few forensics and leave evidential threads dangling in her desperation to wrap up this high-profile, potentially career-defining case.
However, she was also hard to warm to: condescending to Ifield, snappy with undercover DS Kate Fleming (Vicky McClure), frequently pulling rank and all-round frosty. Not terribly likeable, then, but thus far there’s little to suggest she’s actually corrupt.
On her ascent up the ranks, Huntley has clearly battled sexism, possibly racism too, and was highly courageous when rescuing hostage Hana (Dutch actress Gaite Jansen) from the burning house. As ever, Line Of Duty deals in moral murk, complex characters and shades of grey.
Who's who in Line of Duty season 4? A guide to the cast and characters
Suspected killer didn’t seem capable
Writer Jed Mercurio drew on the real-life cases of Barry George and Stefan Kisko, both wrongfully convicted of murder, when creating the character of Michael Farmer (Scott Reid) - a known sex offender with severe learning difficulties who was arrested for the murder of two women and the kidnap of a third.
Is Farmer guilty or just a convenient scapegoat? As Fleming said, he didn’t seem capable of stealing and driving a car, let alone committing multiple crimes and concealing them for months on end. There was also the small matter of those crucial forensic anomalies: a lack of fibre transfer between Farmer’s clothing, his house and the “trophies” he took from victims, a lack of his DNA on those items, plus the fact that he seemed smaller than the CCTV images of “balaclava man”. And don’t forget that unidentified size-10 footprint in his house. Is Farmer being framed? If so, is it by police or the real killer?
He might be a sex offender but it was hard not to feel sorry for the bruised, bewildered little boy lost in custody, desperate to please police but incapable of answering their questions. That half-asleep, incompetent solicitor, who was like something out of a Dickens novel, didn’t help either.
Is Jason Watkins the series antagonist instead?
Forensic investigator Tim Ifield (Jason Watkins) clashed with Huntley after raising concerns about Farmer’s guilt and questioning her handling of evidence. “You made sure an innocent man is charged!” he snapped. But is this self-righteous whistle-blower concealing skeletons in his own closet? Did he have previous beef with Huntley? And what’s he so chippy about, apart from being called a “sad little w***er”?
Ifield lives in a high-tech flat with computerised oven and CCTV system - not to mention a sinister rucksack full of evidence bags and even a black balaclava. The killing (or not) of Huntley might have been an accident but rather than calling the cops and trusting his colleagues, Ifield immediately went into full murderer mode. Was he trying to get caught on camera to throw suspicion onto “balaclava man”? Why was he stalking kidnap survivor Hana and sneakily taking her fingerprints?
We somehow doubt Ifield’s the real serial killer but there’s certainly something sinister about this furtive, creepy character. And now he’s in something of a sticky spot. We doubt a lucrative Black & Decker endorsement deal will be forthcoming for actor Watkins.
Husband could have bigger role to play
As Huntley’s husband Nick, the excellent Lee Ingleby seems too big an actor to be relegated to plus-one duties. His job in this opener was “look after the kids while I solve crimes” and “comfort me when I look a bit moody”.
However, with his well-appointed home, flash car, locked briefcase and mysterious “meetings”, don’t be surprised if Nick has a bigger role to play. Might he be the shady one, rather than his wife? Roz seemed to have been tailed to Ifield’s flat. Was it by AC-12 or her own husband?
Rare friction between high-flying Fleming and jealous Arnott
AC-12’s dream duo of undercover specialist Fleming and dogged DS Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) has been a constant throughout the previous three series, with a friendship forged in adversity. For once, though, there was tension between the pair.
Fleming’s commendation for bravery and promotion to Detective Sergeant in the series three finale has put her ever-competitive colleague’s nose out of joint. Arnott has been a DS for five years and is now desperate for DI status to stay ahead of his mate-cum-rival.
They were niggly exchanges throughout this opener - rolling their eyes in meetings, making passive-aggressive digs dressed up as “banter”, keeping a suspicious eye on each other. Let’s hope they soon sort out their differences and resume their familiar double act. It was much more lie it when Arnott muttered: “You push from the inside, I’ll push from the outside - she’ll crack.”
Shifty bigwig Hilton was a panto baddie
As DCI Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar) joked: "How do you know when an executive officer is telling lies? His lips move." Backside-covering boss ACC Derek Hilton (Paul Higgins) - who first appeared way back in series one - was a slippery customer, looking at his computer screen rather than meet Huntley’s eye, spouting management babble and repeating his manipulative refrain of “I have every confidence in you”.
“They’ve been killing us on Twitter,” he whined, in a dispiriting sign of the times for law enforcement. He suggested that “all those years out being a full-time mum” had somehow diminished Huntley’s worth - a throwaway yet revealing line which would have had feminists snarling. Besides, nobody respects a man who orders “seabass and no vino” in a steak restaurant.
He lapped up the attention of TV cameras when Farmer was charged - “his Crimewatch audition”, AC-12 called it. There was also a pleasingly playful hint of the Trump administration about Hilton as he pronounced: “There’s facts and then there’s the truth.” Fake news, anyone? Post-truth? Alternative facts?
Series upped the ante but not wholly successfully
After three hit series on BBC Two, Line Of Duty has been promoted to BBC One for this fourth run - and in the high-profile Sundays-at-9pm slot, too. Would it grab its million or two new viewers by raising the stakes? It certainly began with a bang: an abduction, an explosion, a chaotic chase and an arrest, all while the opening credits were still rolling.
Yet there were elements that didn’t entirely convince. Would a forensics nerd like Ifield really fail to properly confirm that Huntley was dead? The subsequent scene, as he laid out his tools for disposing of her body, was “a bit Dexter”. Their scuffle was weakly choreographed and Huntley’s climactic rise from the dead was straight out of a schlocky Hollywood thriller.
This curtain-raiser was still compellingly constructed, classily atmospheric and knuckle-gnawingly tense - all things we’ve come to expect from this superlative show. Let’s just hope Mercurio hasn’t sacrificed credibility in a bid to ramp up the drama.
The best British TV shows of all time
