coe

This ep marks the end of an era, with it being the last of the original run of 1 hour eps as well as the last appearance of DI Roy Galloway. (We also lose Kite and Shaw, though their absences aren't felt the same way)

This is one of only two eps from 1-3 on the list, which I kind of feel bad about, but similar to the PM era eps a lot of them deal with multiple concurrent stroylines alongside each other, so while there's stand out scenes in many of them, as eps they're harder to pin down.

The format serves this one well though. There's a lot of low stakes plotlines running through, with the relief investigating various crimes while working on a pool match between CID and uniform - meanwhile Tom Penny has gone missing, having been shot by a booby trap, and while his abscence is noted, everyone's a bit too busy or distracted for the alarm bells to really kick in at first, not helped by the fact that it's Tom, so no one's especially bothered about him not being in their immediate vicinity. It's a very good contrast, with Tom facing a life or death situation on his own while constantly cutting back to the mundane day to day of everyone else.

This episode is the capstone of an ongoing, albeit brief, storyline in which an operational decision of Frank's led to the death of a key witness, leading to the Serious Crime Squad stomping into Sun Hill and ruffling a lot of feathers. A couple of ongoing threads come to a head here, all involving the chain of command in Sun Hill CID;

Kim Reid's integration into the team and how respected she is as a guvnor.

Frank's management style, attitude to the job and willingness to change with the shifting nature of things.

The, ah.... tempestuous working relationship between Frank and Ted.

The previous episode saw Frank's management and career being called into question, and his nose is still put very much out of joint this episode, to the point where he is willing to pretty much completely disengage from the investigation and leave it to SCS. It almost seems out of character for someone as bullish as Frank, but it's something we see a lot of over the years - Frank does not like losing and will not put himself in a situation where he doesn't believe he'll come out on top.

On the other hand, Kim has points to prove, both up and down the ladder. She does fantastically with it as well - using the yard connections others have mocked her for to snatch the result away from SCS and to protect her team and boost their morale after their treatment in the previous episode. She also pairs Frank and Ted off, forcing them to confront their current falling out, while protecting her sting from their interefence while also keeping their hands clean by leaving them out of it. It's a very smartly handled move (and it's not her fault Frank and Ted still manage to stumble into the middle of it) and it's clear she's earned the respect of all her team by the end of it.

Unsurprisingly I love the scenes between Frank and Ted. Frank offers Ted an absolute non-apology, but it is still about sincere as Frank gets, and so Ted accepts after getting a chance to speak his piece. And then they go drinking.