One Sentence Review

One of the best episodes of the series to date

Episode Synopsis

Read it here

Thoughts and Analysis

With Alex now firmly back in the 1980’s and the main antagonist for the final series introduced this episode seemed to me to be setting the tone for the rest of the series to come, with Keats trying to turn the team away from Gene starting with Shaz.

The focus of the episode was firmly on Shaz with her showing signs of stress from the beginning of the episode with her overreacting to a screwdriver left on her desk. Her reaction was odd since even though she was stabbed in the first series (possibly by a screwdriver) there was no reason for her to act that way and even Alex thinks her behaviour was odd. This is made stranger by the ending of the episode where Shaz stabs the killer with the same screwdriver which she probably brought with her.

Her talk with Keats also suggests that Keats attempt to break up Gene’s Kingdom will be to approach people when they are at their weakest and try to convince them to leave or switch sides by turning them against Gene in some way. Keats’ nature is also up for question as he seemed to recognise the name Jeffrey Dahmer, despite him not being known about until the 1990’s, though this could easily just be Keats trying to appear to know what Alex is talking about.

Going back to Shaz, the biggest surprise with her came right at the end of the episode when “Life on Mars” started to play (specifically the line “Girl with the Mousy Hair”) with what appeared to be Nelson (bartender from Life on Mars) at the end saying welcome and laughing, when she agreed to stay with the force. This suggests that whatever the nature of the world Alex is in, Shaz has made her choice to stay their with Gene. It will probably not be until the final episode when the true significance of this will be revealed however.

On the Sam Tyler investigation front, it appears that both Keats and Gene now know that Alex is investigating the case and Gene is not happy about it. Alex’s talk with Chris also suggests that whatever is really going on Chris is in on it in some way as his denials about being where Sams car was found seemed fairly hollow.

One curious thing about the episode though was that aside from at the very end there was no link to the “present” as Alex’s TV visions where both Shaz related (perhaps a warning to Alex to protect her), and there was no update on Alex’s condition at all just a vision of the policeman. Given the faded nature of the radio message last week its possible that Alex is in a even deeper coma in the present and as the intro says its possible that time is running out for her, at least in being able to get back to the “real world”

In terms of the episode as a whole I found it to be one of the better episodes of the series with a tight plot which despite its dark tone still had time for unforced humour, the speed dating and the “exposure” of Ray were particularly enjoyable. The only thing I did not like about this episode was that Shaz seemed to go along with the killer a little too easily and I was not certain where the screwdriver she used to defend herself came from. These for me though are minor flaws in an otherwise superb episode.

Episode Rating

9/10