Hyperbole’s par for the course in this business, but honestly, if you know someone who didn’t just watch the opener to Line of Duty 3 you should probably rectify that as soon as possible.
Maybe use some Jelly Babies to lure them to any rectangle that will display iPlayer, or trick them toward your TV by banging on it and pretending to complain about the aerial. Handcuff them to a screen for an hour if you absolutely have to.
However you get them to watch it, just don’t do it at gunpoint.
You know what the best thing about this opener is? It isn’t Daniel Mays’ measured performance. It isn’t those every-word-compelling interrogation scenes. It isn’t even Adrian Dunbar delivering a withering put down that ends with ‘son’ (god, I’ve missed you, Ted Hastings).
It’s that before even a shot (or in this case several) has been fired, it makes you feel the mental weight of a gun in your hand. When it’s fired, the drama is all the greater. It’s Chekhov’s Gun with a conscience and forms signed in triplicate.
With incredible efficiency, writer/creator Jed Mercurio informs you that, for a UK police officer, firing a gun at another human being is no easy or uninformed task. There’s paperwork for every weapon, for every bullet, even. Forms have to be signed, regulations recited. It’s a mantra that reinforces what they’re carrying isn’t a fetishistic object of a gung-ho hero. Within only a few minutes you’re reminded a gun is a tool, and using it is really the last thing you want to be doing.
So it’s all the more shocking when Daniel Mays’ firearms officer, Sgt. Danny Waldron, coldly guns down the disarmed baddie and methodically proceeds to pull his co-workers into a conspiracy of his own. Even if you’ve been watching this show from the start it’s enough to catch you off balance.
Then anti-corruption sheriffs DI Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) and Superintendent Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar) appear on the scene, and suddenly everything feels a bit more comfortable and ordered to the long-time Line of Duty viewer. Or as ordered as things ever can feel in this, a show which blurs the line between good and bad until it’s a smudge on the pavement.
Devotees will surely have writhed at the cognitive-dissonance of AC-12’s most corrupt copper, DS Matthew ‘Dot’ Cotton (Craig Parkinson) sitting in on Danny Waldron’s anti-corruption grilling.
Unlike last season’s ‘Is Lindsay Denton guilty?’ quandary, we know immediately that Danny has broken the rules and deserves to be put through the Anti-Corruption ringer and then jailed. That’s how it seems, until our certainty is undermined by the tiny moments, between Danny and other members of his team,
Just as with the first two seasons, we’re only at the beginning of a labyrinthine exploration of motives. No doubt it’ll lead us to understand – even sympathise with – the unpleasant and emotionally unstable mess that is Danny Waldron.
Jed Mercurio is the master of forming a relatable character from the shades of grey, and through his script Daniel Mays articulates Danny Waldron as a complex mess of cordite-stained testosterone and insecurity. It’s impossible to see his incessant running as anything but a metaphor.
Perhaps the real case isn’t with Danny, but with the rest of his arms team, and their conflicting mysterious backstories. One of the grievances is clearly sexual; between PC Rod Kennedy (Will Mellor) and WPC Jackie Brickford (Leanne Best). Another, involving PC Hari Bains (Arsher Ali), seems far more complicated, especially when a burner phone is delivered to his doorstep and Danny Waldron later nearly pulls a gun on him.
We know that Vicky McClure’s DC Kate Fleming is a level-headed undercover officer, but inserted into this mess she’s a fish out of water. She’s the avatar of the audience down the sights of a semi-automatic.
And just like her, we feel the shock when we hear the shot and see Danny bleeding out of his neck.
It shouldn’t be such a surprise to Line of Duty fans. This is the show that hired Jessica Raine and then defenestrated her in Season 2’s opener. I’ve no idea if Danny will survive to next week but I suspect he’s either dead or mute in a hospital bed for a while (at the time of writing screeners for the next episode weren’t available and the synopses for them were more carefully worded than an Ibsen play).
If he is dead, then this has been the boldest opener to the show to date, and a brilliant exercise in audience manipulation.
Either way, what will come next promises to be even more twisty, deceptive, and intriguing than we initially expected. Look forward to Ted Hastings putting his hands on his hips and calling people ‘son’. I am.
Uncompromising, unpredictable, and as far as the weathered old dramatic truncheon of police drama is concerned, unparalleled, Line of Duty 3‘s opener is both a fanfare return for the show and proof that even in a catch-up age, ‘event drama’ still exists.
Get to a screen next Thursday. You’re not the only one who’s dying to find out what happens next.
Aired at 9pm on Thursday 24 March 2016 on BBC Two.
> Buy Season 3 on DVD on Amazon.
> Buy the complete Season 1-3 box set on Amazon.
What did you think of this week’s episode? Let us know below…