by Jan Moir
AfTeR four series, 22 episodes and many, many fraught evenings spent gripped by one of the most nail-biting police dramas ever seen on British television, tomorrow’s Line of Duty finale on BBC1 all boils down to one simple question: who the heck is Balaclava Man?
No, make that two questions. Who is Balaclava Man, and what the heck is going on? No, let’s go for three questions: who is Balaclava Man, what is going on and who the heck is H, the mysterious high-ranking cop who is part of a clandestine network of corrupt officers in league with organised crime?
If you’re feeling befuddled, bear with me. These are just some of the lines of inquiry that concern AC-12, the dogged police anticorruption unit at the heart of Line Of Duty.
Their job is to root out wrongdoing within the force, under the command of Superintendent Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar), undoubtedly the best cop on television. everyone loves the craggy crusader for his moral probity and his status as unimpeachable king pippin in the barrel of bad apples.
Super Ted crushes guilty parties to a cidery pulp and has just one thing on his mind — identifying and punishing crooked cops.
He does this by crashing around in his policeissue blouson jacket, narrowing his eyes like a Northern Irish anaconda and shouting things such as ‘Mother of God!’ And don’t you dare criticise his team, fella. ‘My officers conduct themselves to the letter of the law, Sir, the letter!’ he will cry.
His key squad members are DS Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) and DS Kate fleming (Vicky McClure). Steve is in a wheelchair after being beaten up by the aforementioned Balaclava Man, and is so upset he’s stopped wearing the waistcoat of his three-piece suits.
Kate has just been unmasked as the world’s worst undercover officer, with a technique that involves standing up at her desk à la meerkat, then gasping when she spots suspicious behaviour.
EACH series of Line Of Duty follows AC-12 through a new investigation into dark deeds by their fellow police officers. This time around, they’re still searching for the mysterious crooked officer ‘H’, but they are also looking into the terrifying DCI Roz Huntley (Thandie Newton).
Huntley is in charge of finding a rapist and murderer known only as Balaclava Man — but seems to be bent on framing the wrong guy for the crimes.
She has also just had her left hand amputated (don’t ask), and was last seen one-handedly taking a hairbrush from a sealed bag and rubbing it into her husband’s jumper, presumably to impregnate his pullover with some Balaclava-related evidence. We don’t know why.
Neither do we know what motivates creepy Assistant Chief Constable Derek Hilton (Paul Higgins), the tough boss who is always trying to seduce Huntley and seems hell-bent on destroying AC-12. Hang on a minute, Dr Watson — could Hilton be the corrupt H? Or is it Roz Huntley — or even the admirable Ted Hastings himself?
The idea that Super Ted might be as bent as a broken truncheon could be a plot twist too far for Line Of Duty fans. But this latest series — dense, complex, shocking, tremendous — has taken us to the darkest side of the thin blue line.
Here, person or persons unknown are plotting to pervert the course of justice in the most complicated and obscure ways possible. It is so confusing.
As we approach the climax of the series, Balaclava Man is still at large, H has yet to be unmasked, everyone is behaving like a lunatic and the suspects are forming a disorderly queue down at the murder hit ’n’ kit shop. Haven’t a clue? Me neither.
Let’s try to make sense of it all with my criminal ABC of Line Of Duty 2017 . . .