‘LUTHER’ RETURNS ... BAD AND BRILLIANT
Early in the four-episode “Luther” season, Golden Globe-winner Idris Elba’s moody, broody British detective behaves a bit oddly. He ... smiles. He gets a little flirty. He seems ... on the verge of being happy.
Take that as a warning.
Bad things happen in this third go-round of the acclaimed BBC America series about a detective dogged by personal demons and willing to bend the rules to nab the most unhinged killers.
Soon everyone around him will be challenged, damaged or dead.
And after watching tonight, you’ll check under the bed before slipping under the covers.
John Luther’s career and reputation will be left in tatters. His freedom and his life will be in jeopardy.
His onetime junior colleague, Erin Gray (Nikki Amuka-Bird), teams with determined investigator George Stark (David O’Hara, “The Tudors”) to prove that Luther is corrupt, and to do that, they need to break his righthand man Justin Ripley (Warren Brown).
Meanwhile, Luther is distracted by a series of murders that seem to be the work of someone with a sadomasochistic fetish. The motive for the murders, he deduces, stretches back decades.
Even though two long years have passed since the last “Luther,” Elba, who also serves as an associate producer, wears the detective’s trademark dark coat as if he never took it off. Luther remains brilliant but fallible.
If you’ve ever wondered what might happen if Batman and the Joker joined forces, wait until obsessed killer Alice Morgan (Ruth Wilson) pops up. Her insights into John’s future are downright cutting.
“Your conscience has killed more people than I have,” she says.
While each night delivers some terrifically tense scenes, series creator Neil Cross’ scripts for nights three and four suffer from some flimsy foreshadowing and serve up slight characterizations of Luther’s antagonists. Stark only works as a threat because of O’Hara’s pure ferociousness.
While this season might conclude the story of “Luther” (or not — you’ll have to judge for yourself), Cross and Elba are prepping a bigscreen prequel and hope to begin filming next year.