Line of Duty, series 4, episode 4 recap: Huntley turns nasty, but could her wrist wound prove fatal?
Warning: contains spoilers
This series just got serious. Police procedural drama Line of Duty passed its halfway point with slaps in the face (both literal and metaphorical), surprise plot twists and several characters at last showing their true colours. Here’s all the talking points from episode four…
Miraculously, Arnott is alive
Huge sighs of relief and celebratory waistcoat-wearing all round. After cosy-eared superhero Balaclava Man threw the badly-beaten DS Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) down three flights of stairs in last week’s cliffhanger, we feared the worst. After all, Line of Duty creator Jed Mercurio has never been shy about killing off major characters.
Instead, “DS Arnold, sorry, Arnott” is lying in intensive care, broken and bloodied but unbowed. He sustained fractures of his right leg, pelvis and vertebrae, a fractured skull and several busted ribs – plus a spot of amnesia for good measure - but looks set to make a full recovery.
Arnott’s miraculous comeback from the brink echoes that of his adversary DCI Roz Huntley (Thandie Newton) at the start of the series. Was this an implausible plot point too far? Since the dogged detective is arguably this show’s central protagonist, I personally found myself feeling relieved rather than annoyed by it, but would understand if other viewers’ eyebrows raise at Mercurio’s latest twist.
We even briefly met Arnott’s parents, anxiously waiting in the hospital. They were endearingly normal-looking, while Steve has certainly inherited their “compact” stature. Let’s hope he’s up, about and wearing a surgical support waistcoat soon. AC-12 are going to need their terrier-in-chief.
Huntley’s villainy suddenly went off the scale
Thandie Newton’s DCI Roz Huntley has been something of a blank slate so far – manipulative and ruthless, but also coldly inscrutable. As the series entered its home stretch, she started to show her hand. And what a monstrous one it was.
First came her abuse of hapless husband Nick (Lee Ingleby). He’d only tailed his wife because he suspected an affair – which Roz ended up falsely confessing, just to throw him off the murder scent. Furious that he’d bumbled into trouble and complicated her cover-up, Huntley became aggressively sarcastic, parroting Nick’s panicked account of his chat with Arnott (“He pressured me! He was staying stuff!”) like a playground bully.
Worse was to come when she slapped him twice without even blinking, her face an emotionless mask (echoes of Newton’s recent turn as robot brothel madam in HBO’s Westworld). She callously humiliated Nick to the point of tears - a gender reversal of the domestic violence usually portrayed on-screen. “This is real crime and I do this for a living,” she snapped - a line which might turn out to have a double meaning.
Gulping down painkillers and appearing to unravel, Huntley was more in control than it appeared. She twisted her boss ACC Derek Hilton (Paul Higgins) around her little finger - and then came her bravura performance at AC-12. More on that in a moment. Huntley still found time for a dig at DS Kate Fleming (Vicky McClure) for being a bad mother. So much for her self-proclaimed feminism.
This episode saw handy Thandie/nasty Newton (delete according to nickname taste) ascend to the ranks of all-time great Line Of Duty villains. So what might be her downfall, if it comes? The “KRG-13/KRG-30” mix-up seems to have been successfully waved away, so maybe it will be that non-healing wrist injury. Ouch, it looked painful when Huntley finally sought medical attention – but the doctor made a point of taking a swab. Could incriminating DNA from forensic boffin Tim Ifield (Jason Watkins) be lingering in the wound?
Interview scene was Line of Duty’s best yet
The six-minute interrogation of Nick Huntley early in this episode turned out to be merely a warm-up. The centrepiece of this episode was Roz’s own conference room showdown – a 22-minute masterclass of procedural detail, swinging momentum and barbed back-and-forth dialogue
At first, AC-12 had her on the ropes. With Supt Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar) being fed information from the watching Fleming, he painstakingly picked apart Huntley’s Balaclava Man theories, the lack of evidence for Hana Reznikova killing Tim Ifield and Huntley’s conflict of interest, with her husband now a suspect. He pressed her over potential planting of evidence, all but accused her of murdering Ifield to silence him and recommended Huntley’s immediate suspension from duty.
Huntley looked lost for words and her police federation rep requested a break - before, at the scene’s midway point, Roz dramatically turned the tables. “Anything to add?” asked Hastings. “I do,” replied Huntley, calmly fishing a file from her briefcase and going to town on AC-12 themselves. Who polices the police? They do. But who polices the police who police the police?
We saw a sexism storyline coming a fortnight ago and so it proved, as Huntley summoned up stats about AC-12 investigating a disproportionate percentage of female officers and Hastings failing to promote women within the unit. She took him to task for calling her “darling” and even, in a callback to series three, quizzed him about his membership of the Masons (“a mafia of the mediocre that excludes women”).
Armed with surprise insider information, Huntley built a case for Hastings conducting a witch-hunt against female officers. Now it was his turn to be on the back foot. Yet still Huntley kept coming: making DC Jamie Desford (Royce Pierreson) keep the tape running, telling the indignant Hastings to sit back down, smugly noting their agitated tone, exposing Fleming as an undercover AC-12 officer, and accusing her of tampering with evidence and coaching witnesses
She even name-dropped DI Lindsay Denton (steely Keeley Hawes’ anti-heroine from series two and three). Huntley did indeed recall Denton in her pomp as she cunningly counterattacked. Claiming a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, she finally slapped down written authority from Hilton to halt AC-12’s investigation. Our heroes have never faced a foe quite like this.
Please let Maneet not be a baddie
As if all Huntley’s shenanigans weren’t shocking enough, Mercurio had one more surprise up his sleeve. WPC Maneet Bindra (Maya Sondhi) has become a cult favourite since joining AC-12 last series - the team’s unsung heroine who switches between sarky one-liners and uncovering crucial evidence, thanks to her mastery of paper trails and traffic cameras.
Her dodgy rendezvous with Hilton in a dark alleyway, then, was a hammer blow. As she handed him a file, it appeared Maneet was the one feeding Hilton the ammunition to pass onto Huntley. Does the slippery bigwig have leverage on her? Pregnant Maneet is soon off on maternity leave, echoing Roz Huntley’s career break. Surely she and Hilton won’t become “special friends” too?
So who is Balaclava Man?
It can’t be the deceased Ifield or the incarcerated Michael Farmer (Scott Reid). It’s surely not Nick Huntley, who simply doesn’t seem capable – and also has an alibi for the night of that oft-cited CCTV image, having been at a work function in Northampton (which sounded amusingly tedious).
So could it be Jimmy Wakewell (played by Patrick Baladi, aka Neil from The Office – a Mercurio favourite who also starred in the writer’s underrated Noughties medical series Bodies)? Somebody tipped Balaclava Man off that Arnott was in Nick Huntley’s office building - and Huntley only made one phone call, to his drinking buddy, former colleague and now criminal lawyer.
When we finally met the mysterious Wakewell, he immediately rubbed Hastings up the wrong way by requesting he “dial down the Ian Paisley”. He also appeared thick-set and aggressive enough to handle himself. As Balaclava Man fled the scene after the Arnott attack, he wasn’t carrying his baseball bat. Perhaps it will be found and provide a clue.
Who's who in Line of Duty season 4? A guide to the cast and characters
Hastings took centre-stage - but is he sexist?
AC-12 boss Supt Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar) usually restricts his role to interrogations, avuncular office chats, pub pints and the odd visit to senior coppers. Due to the attack on Arnott, however, he was forced to be hands-on.
Seizing control of the crime scene, he barked “Save it, fella” at the jibbering Nick Huntley. He visited Arnott in hospital (“How are you feeling, son?” “Awful” “That’s the spirit”) before leading the grilling of both Nick and Roz Huntley - with, let’s say, mixed success.
Hastings was left reeling when Roz launched her attack, accusing him of misogyny. Surely not our Ted? He’s old-school, admittedly, but Hastings seems clumsy, a man’s man, rather than deliberately discriminatory. He has often been the moral compass of the team. This was a reminder that nobody is beyond reproach and we’re dealing with moral shades of grey.
Huntley ran rings around sleazy Hilton
ACC Derek Hilton (Paul Higgins) went into full sex-pest mode during those clandestine meetings on the red leather Chesterfields of his member’s club. “We’re off-duty, no need to call me sir,” he smarmed to Roz. “Just two old friends having a drink.” Shudder. We need a shower.
His hands kept “casually” resting on her arm or knee. He gave her his second mobile number to be more “discreet” and eventually suggested they retire to his room upstairs. Huntley promptly knocked him back and left Hilton to realise that he’d been played. If the duo weren't as awful as each other, we would have cheered her.
A bad week for Jamie. Or is it James?
AC-12’s new recruit DC Jamie Desford stepped up in Arnott’s absence. Sadly, his paperwork fumbles and Powerpoint stumbles saw Hastings impatiently sighing and missing his beloved Steve even more. “You wanna sharpen up your act there, James,” he told Desford, witheringly.
Hastings’ stubborn refusal to learn his underling’s name became a running theme. “Can you find a way of telling the gaffer my name’s not James?” Desford pleaded with Maneet, who deadpanned: “Easier to turn a supertanker.”
When the tape was still running after Roz Huntley’s triumphant exit, Hastings ordered: “Turn that bloody thing off, James.” It was the wrong time for Jamie to correct him. “Frankly right now, son, I couldn’t give a shit,” muttered the beleaguered boss. A rare moment of levity in an intense episode.
It was also a bad week for AC-12 stalwart DS Kate Fleming (Vicky McClure), who had her cover blown after Huntley’s speccy sidekick, DC Jodie Taylor (Claudia Jessie), snapped “Flynn” talking to forensics man Kevin and snooping around the evidence room. When Kate defended her conduct, Huntley cruelly sneered: “You’ve got a son you never see.”
Fleming looked devastated but we predict revenge. As anyone who watched BBC One stablemate The Replacement knows, you mess with McCure at your peril.
