1.3 The King Came Calling The King Came Calling starts off with some religious preaching from a vicar in the City, with the camera focusing on London folk going about their day-to-day activities around a water pump – the Victorian equivalent of a water cooler, no doubt. Then in comes a portly fellow who looks as though he’s been down the ale house for one too many. Swaying not so gently, he then proceeds to projectile vomit in the street à la Linda Blair from The Exorcist. As he falls to the ground, the scene is juxtaposed with images of a pig carcass being butchered. Ultimately, the two pieces of meat end up having the same fate; being sliced on a slab. We learn that the pig is used for one of Inspector Reid’s (Macfadyen) clever experiments to help try and solve a recent and unrelated brutal murder, tying him to the City police which is headed by the pompous Inspector Ressler (played by Patrick Baladi), who believes the victim to be that of the Ripper. Believing it not to be the case, Reid warns him to “want no part of this parade”. He also shows off his scarred torso in perhaps an unnecessary shirt change, and begins the slow destruction of his colleague in a Victorian version of ‘Get Yer Appendage Out, Sir’. The two characters take centre stage in this week’s episode in a verbal fisticuffs not too dissimilar to West Side Story, Sharks versus Jets cockney style; jazz hands and sneers over your moustache. ‘Tis murder that connects them of course. It turns out that the body laying in Jackson’s post-mortem room in Whitechapel hails from the City. Falling on deaf ears, Ressler warns Reid to “keep your men off my manor” (my favourite bit). However, in the way that so often happens, the two inspectors eventually have to put aside their differences and work together as more bodies pile up and dozens fall ill. Sergeant Drake (Flynn) again takes a back-seat role this week but kindly reminds us that the illness includes puking and shitting yourself to death. He has a few comedy lines in this week’s episode, all grim, but also reveals his tender and courteous side by taking off his hat when addressing a lady in the street, stopping by to check on the officers’ wives on the way home and once again alluding to Sudan when discussing how he missed the last outbreak of cholera. Jackson also chips in to explain how bad an outbreak can get with something like “’75, New Orleans. You weren’t there man…”. This episode also gives way to letting one of the female leads, Emily Reid, take a prominent role. Played by the excellent Amanda Hale, she stars as the grieving, afflicted and long-suffering wife of Detective Inspector Reid, seeking refuge in a city plagued by crime and injustice. With some clever writing from Richard Warlow, she is woven into the main storyline in various ways through her charity work, which involves her seeking sponsors to house working girls who have fallen in with the wrong pimps, and visiting victims of abuse. She too falls ill and Reid pulls out the full broodiness as his mechanism for coping. He promises to tell her why he is the way he is if she’ll live, making the audience scream “Live woman, LIVE!!!”. Why is he scarred? Why is he so goddamn broody? And then? Well, he gets all mardy and stroppy when she becomes a strong woman again. Tsk. Read Jamie-Lee’s review of the previous episode, In My Protection, here. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
