Line Of Duty
BBC1, Sunday
Unforgotten
ITV, Monday
Rating: 
The sixth series of Line Of Duty kicked off last week, you may have noticed, and some are saying it’s too confounding now, too convoluted, too tangled, too complex and let’s turn over to Midsomer Murders.
Although be warned: someone died of bee stings in Midsomer this week and it wasn’t pretty.
You may have read ‘recaps’ of LOD and ‘explainers’ and guides to the acronyms, jargon and all of Ted ‘Mother of God’ Hastings’ sayings – ‘God give me strength!’ – to which we can now add a new one (‘Hold your whisht!’).
The latest series introduced us to a new character, DCI Jo Davidson (Kelly Macdonald, above with Vicky McClure) of MIT (Murder Investigation Team)
But you are still confused, particularly as we’re expected to remember what happened as far back as the first series in 2012, which is a stretch, but it’s all clear as a bell to me. So let me lay it out for you:
The latest series which, I would suggest, began after the most-watched final minute of Top Gear ever – Did you accidentally catch that final minute? Have you recovered from the trauma? – introduced us to a new character, DCI Jo Davidson (Kelly Macdonald) of MIT (Murder Investigation Team).
She is investigating the fatal shooting of a journalist, and MIT has ‘intel’ from a ‘CHIS’ (covert human intelligence source) that is ‘graded 1A on the matrix’ about a suspect.
The operation to apprehend him is on, but then it’s off, but then it’s on again and adrenaline pulses as the theme music pulses, and it’s the opening set-piece as armed police clamber into their blacked-out vans.
But on the way to apprehend the suspect – based on this ‘intel’ from the ‘CHIS’ that is ‘graded 1A on the matrix’ – Davidson diverts the convoy to an armed robbery that she spotted happening down a side street, even though she couldn’t have spotted it – or could she?
And so they’re delayed, but they get their man, they think, who turns out to be Terry Boyle, the boy with learning difficulties from season one who was exploited by the drug gang who hid Jackie Laverty’s body in his freezer, and maybe Ryan Pilkington, the psycho with the bolt-cutters, was involved, and isn’t he a copper now, set to become the new ‘Caddy’?
And Neil Morrissey, will he ever return, possibly crutch first… all clear so far? Are you with me?
But where’s AC-12? So one of Davidson’s team, PS Farida Jatri (Anneika Rose), contacts DS Steve Arnott (Martin Compston), who is still necking back the painkillers, having been thrown downstairs by Balaclava Man (from whatever past episode that was), to say Davidson deliberately delayed the convoy to let the real killer abscond.
Arnott wants to investigate but Hastings (Adrian Dunbar) says hold your whisht, son, that’s not enough intel and, as it happens, DI Kate Fleming (Vicky McClure) has left AC-12 and is working for Davidson, and maybe she’ll become their snitch, sorry, CHIS…
OK, it is a breathless head-wreck. And, yes, I didn’t know what was going on half the time. It’s like doing a jigsaw puzzle and you know the pieces are there somewhere but you can’t find them.
Farida, wasn’t she on DCI Roz Huntley’s team from series four? Davidson’s boss, was he the one brought in to run Roz Huntley’s team? Roz Huntley’s stinking severed arm – is it likely to make a comeback too?
As for Hastings, who was under suspicion last series, he is now being frozen out by his superiors, who say to him ‘Keep your head down, Ted’, but not ‘If your department worked at cases doggedly rather than in bursts every 18 months, wouldn’t you have uncovered “H” by now?’
This opener wasn’t one of Jed Mercurio’s best, because while there was a lot of running around, it had no gasp-out-loud twists – see: Daniel Mays’ early departure (from whatever season that was) – and also, all the acronyms have reached the point where they seem self-parodying.
When Arnott had to say ‘We can keep it on the DL only if we have a CHIS on the MIT’, a little something in me died. There was one big reveal, concerning Davidson’s private life, but that didn’t compare with, say, Jessica Raine being thrown out of a window (oh, mercy… season two?).
However, I am compelled to keep going. Is Davidson fishy? And also there are the overarching questions, not only the identity of ‘H’, but also I want to know: who is the mother of God? And will God ever give Hastings the strength he so craves?
And on to the non-kinetic, relative calm that is Unforgotten, or on to the non-kinetic, relative calm that is usually Unforgotten, because the ending of this penultimate episode!
As for the best moment otherwise, it was when Liz Baildon (Susan Lynch) told her horrible mother (Sheila Hancock, above) where to get off
There was your gasp-out-loud moment of the week! I can’t say more, for fear the spoiler police will whisk me away, but I not only gasped out loud, I also jumped out of my skin.
It’s a risk for this cop series, which we like because it creeps up on you quietly, but also: who of our four suspects did that? As for the best moment otherwise, it was when Liz Baildon (Susan Lynch) told her horrible mother (Sheila Hancock) where to get off.
Did you clap? I know I did.