Ok, so after we’ve been put through the emotional wringer in just the first two episodes, we’ve finally gotten a break from that grimness and intensity and have been given a more…light hearted ep. It may not be quite as excellent as the two hours before it, but it still has a lot to say, and gets a lot of things right.
First off, when we see Sam at the beginning of this episode (to the excellent sound of Ballroom Blitz), it’s becoming clearer that Sam is becoming a little more used to 1973. He’s not exactly fitting in yet, but he’s not as desperate to get back home, either. He’s at least trying to act a little like “the Guv” at times (and failing miserably: his mimicking of Hunt’s line of “I’ll come round your house and stamp on your toys” was practically cringing in its delivery, proving one thing: Tyler is not Hunt) and doesn’t mind getting the odd bacon butty for a workmate every now and again.
He hasn’t forgotten that he needs to get home, of course, especially when the police radio tells him to “fight”. How this moment relates to the episode is something I’ll get back to later, but I just want to bring up something common in a few tv series and film: predictability. In many a case, moments that are entirely predictable are usually a bad thing (even worse when its whole plots or endings), but sometimes, it can work in the story’s favour, if it’s intentional, at least. Even then, in some cases it still may not work, but if you’re lucky, it may pay off. After all, there’s a difference between guessing what a character will do because it’s an old cliché and you’ve seen it all before, and knowing what a character will do because they’re so well crafted that you almost feel like you know them personally.
Such a moment comes when Gene’s about to drive and Tyler says, “It’s a one-way street…” I adore this moment, knowing the moment Tyler says this Gene’s not going to bother driving the, ahem, legal way and instead just reversing like hell into a pile of boxes, with a bacon butty in his mouth and, to top it off, all to the wonderful sound of Ballroom Blitz. It’s a wonderfully crafted and directed moment of comedy.
When Tyler and Hunt arrive at the scene, they find a horrifically slashed body at a textiles factory. However, what’s strange about the body is where it is: Sam’s flat, or rather, in the exact place that Sam’s flat will be in 2006. A rather huge coincidence, especially when Hunt disagrees with Tyler over what the best method is to find a suspect – method or instinct, to put it very simply – and challenges him to a bet, saying Tyler has “no fight” in him if he turns it down. Rather convenient, considering what he heard on the police radio earlier, right? Almost like the product of a comatose mind, giving itself a problem to solve?
And yet Sam treats the whole case as if it were real because, again, we come up to the old contradiction that Sam’s world can’t be real and yet in fact is. If the coma aspect wasn’t there, that kind of obvious coincidence wouldn’t have been so interesting, but with the idea that it may be a product of Sam’s mind, it makes all these strange and convenient coincidences simply add to the disorientation and strangeness of Sam’s situation.
While the previous two episodes were very internally focused – on Sam feeling mad, on exploring different morals and how people see right and wrong differently – this episode has a more external exploration, on how times change in society. Of how important the fight is – whether you know the outcome or not, if what you’re fighting against is inevitable, sometimes the fight itself is important. Depending on what you’re fighting for, anyway. It also explores on what can be important today can be obsolete tomorrow, even if that affects so many lives. I’ve watched this show so many times, and still I discover another line of dialogue that makes me think. This time it was Annie’s line of “Houses should be houses, factories should be factories. I mean things are built for a purpose.” Said from a perfectly normal character in the show, not Nelson the wise barman, and yet it’s a line that not only fits that character but also gets you thinking, of how things can remain the same on the outside but completely change on the inside, and whether that can be a good thing or not depends entirely on your point of view. We’re given another moment to think about when Gene talks about how important pure instinct and snap decision is even when you’ve got a thousand different ways to solve the crime, and without it, none of it matters. We’re reminded once again of where Sam comes from, of who he once was: a man based entirely on method and had thrown away feeling aside, and it nearly got his girlfriend killed, and we’re again left wondering how much of a good influence Hunt may be on Sam through a few lines of Hunt’s wisdom. God, I fucking love the dialogue of this show!
Despite the gruesome “murder” of the ep, this is a wonderfully funny and quotable ep at times, giving a large number of comedic moments both visually and spoken. Some of these come from the cases in the show – the visual image on the suspect made from bits of different photographs was hysterical, as well as seeing how “rewarding” a “thorough investigative process” is. More comedy is given to us by Litton, a copper whose methods are even hated by Gene. In fact, it’s a wonderful moment seeing Gene and Sam team up to punch Lytton in the face simultaneously.
One more thing I’d like to say about this episode is how much some of the characters have seemed to develop already. Chris has gone from someone who’s as bad and dumb as everyone else to someone who’s keen to learn. Well, maybe that’s not quite true. It’s not that he’s become keen to learn, I suspect he’s always keen to learn, but with only Hunt and Ray there, he’s not had as many positive influences, not to his personality anyway. Here, we see him keen to follow Tyler as much as possible, taking up the idea of “multi-tasking” rather quickly (even if it is with tea and biscuits), and drawing a blood pattern analysis for him. He may not be the fastest copper around, but his eager to please attitude, along with the fact that he is learning, makes him just that little more likeable than when we first met him.
Gene and Sam, whatever their arguments in the ep, seem to be getting on a lot better at least after most of the tensions between the two practically exploded in the last ep. Each still believes that their opinion is the better opinion, but they’re both more willing to let the other try out their methods at least. Sam and Annie’s relationship also seems to be getting gradually more than platonic. The only major character who hasn’t changed at all yet is of course Ray. No real surprise there, of course, and to be honest, it would be unrealistic for him if he did change: Ray is absolutely loyal to his Guv, and hates Tyler for taking the position he feels he should’ve earned. Two reasons why this misogynistic bastard very probably won’t ever change. Well, that and the fact that he is a misogynistic bastard.
So in this episode we’ve had an examination of how times change, how people change, and how important it can be to fight, no matter what the outcome. Oh, and we’ve also had a car drive through boxes, a shootout and a massive punch-up. Either way you look at it, you’ve got a fantastic piece of television right there.
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