1.2 In My Protection The episode starts with the killing of a toymaker. A fourteen year old boy carrying the dead man’s possessions is brought to the police by a group of vigilantes who seek justice for the streets of London. This group is lead by George Lusk, played by Michael Smiley who, as usual, does not fail to impress. Assuming the role as a voice of the people with lynch mob mentality and the kind with lack of attention to details, he stirs up tension among the public and openly taunts Detective Inspector Reid (Matthew Macfadyen), claiming that he and his force are ineffectual and his mob need to do his job for him. Lusk rallies them to court and seeks the ultimate punishment for the boy, who refuses to neither speak nor deny the charge and is sentenced to death. Enter Carmichael, played by the phenomenal Joe Gilgun of This is England and Misfits fame to stir things up as Whitechapel’s very own X-rated Fagin. Leading an army of orphan-criminals, he plays the perfect psychopath, demanding respect at all costs. And he’s not merely teaching them to pick a pocket or two. There’s something much darker going on with him. Meanwhile, our American friend Captain Jackson is once more prevailed upon to do work for Reid. First though, he has his own The Hangover-style puzzle to solve in order to retrieve a ring he drunkenly gambled away – a piece of evidence that links he and Susan to their shadowy past. Woefully underestimating Carmichael, things turn nasty for Susan and Jackson quite quickly. To save their rather attractive criminal hides, Jackson sells out the location of Reid and the boy: the local orphanage. Now this is where things get scary. Really scary. The thing with small children is that they can climb things easily, aren’t scared of falling over as much as adults and haven’t developed a full sense of conscience or consequence. They’re fearless, in other words. Especially when they’ve been trained to be that way. In a bravura piece of television, the orphanage essentially becomes a trap, with it being only a matter of time before the pesky little killers break in through roof windows and tiny spaces. Perhaps you might think these ultimate events are described in a somewhat too black and white manner at the end with strained hugging and weepy moments. You might, that is, unless you’ve been scarred by the antics of the killer kids. I won’t lie, I recently watched the film version of The Woman in Black, so I think I’ve got a lot of recovering to do. Sleep tight. Read Jamie-Lee’s review of the previous episode, I Need Light, here. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
