Getting back on schedule and settling down yesterday evening for this week’s show, I was asked by my loving partner if I felt this series was a lot darker and nastier than its pre-cursor Life on Mars, which is something I have covered a great deal in my reviews. I agreed with her completely – that, really, for all its jokes and poking fun at the 1980s, this really is a lot more mature series, dealing with some pretty hard-hitting crimes and social issues which are highlighted by the plot this week that deals with drugs, gun dealing and the perception of the underground gay culture in the 1980s.
So with this new status quo (sorry, that’s three music references in as many sentences) of boys liking boys, Gene and the rest of his department are well and truly out of their depth with a serious case of homophobia permeating the entire department. It is only the very open-minded Shaz who takes these ‘new’ ideas in her stride and it is up to Alex to quite forcefully point out that being gay is not a crime and has little or nothing to do with the case they are dealing with. Now I must admit that I am beginning to have a major crush on Alex Drake and that the lovely Keeley Hawes is becoming a new pin-up (from what I can tell for blokes and for ladies also). There is one little line by Alex this episode that made me spill my cuppa in shock and also at the same times created a very funny feeling in the whole trouser department. (Ahem.)
Anyway, with a plot that revolves around the growth of guns in London and the growth in violent crime, this episode was a superb commentary on the upping of stakes in the ‘war against crime’. With Alex’s prior knowledge and having first-hand experience in the escalation of gun crime she forcefully gets the rest of the team (by fair means and foul) to get to her way of thinking. Which proves difficult, what with football and beer being a huge distraction to one and all.
We also get to see Alex putting some of her psychological profiling skills to good use, using the main gun-runner’s boyfriend as an informant – a scenario that Gene is not too happy about as Alex’s prior interference has disrupted his old school policing techniques and indirectly caused his ‘snitch’ to be executed in a very gruesome way. However it’s not just Alex who takes all the glory for this episode as it is once again time for Ray to shine. He manages (a little too well) a bit of role-play to soften up … (or rather the other way around) the main protagonist and uses all his manly bear-like charms to quite literally kiss a near-confession out of him.
While I profess that my knowledge of the gay culture of the 1980s is somewhat limited, the exploration and writing of this was done very well as it would have been very easy to pop in every YMCA and Blue Oyster stereotype going. And while Gene and the others are very happy to run off the dictionary of derogatory gay terms, the lifestyle and personal issues (such as talking to your parents) were done in a well-written, thought provoking and realistic manner. I felt that there was one issue that was a little shoe-horned in at the end that involved the need to see a doctor which probably didn’t need to be there, but that’s just me being picky about yet another well-written and played episode.
