Line of Duty, seasons 1 and 2
Jan. 4th, 2015 09:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
This was my Christmas present from
kathyh, which I just finished marathoning. (Two seasons, but British ones, the first one with five, the second one with six episodes.) I had heard good rumours about it before, and
kalypso said Keeley Hawes was giving the performance of a life time in the second season. So I was curious. It turned out the rumours were correct.
Line of Duty in its two seasons so far has a simple basic formula: the anti corruption unit AC 12 investigates one particular copper who in turn is also carrying on an investigation, which turns out to be related. But that's just the tip of a very complex iceberg. Police corruption is obviously a red thread through both seasons, as are individual conscience versus larger picture, loyalties, and myriads of interwoven motivations. Structurally, there is a key difference between both seasons, and it's not just that the first one introduces the show and brings the three later regular members of the AC12 team we're following together. It's also that in s1, we know what the officer under investigation, DCI Tony Gates (Lennie James), has done and what he hasn't; the suspense comes from some seemingly minor misdemeanours snowballing into ever larger misdeeds he can't extricate himself from while the team closes in on him. In the second season, however, the question whether the enigmatic DI Lindsey Denton (that's Keeley Hawes' once in a lifetime role) is guilty or innocent or a mixture of both is one that's not cleared up until the last episode of the season, and the series gives you reasons to believe both.
Both seasons make the investigated officers sympathetic (though I have to say I lost patience with Gates at a certain mid season point), while pointing out the institutional problems. Our three regular AC12 investigators are: Steve Arnott (Martin Crompton), who gets recruited in the pilot after having made himself spectacularly unpopular by being the only officer refusing to back up a fake story about the anti terror unit he was previously a part of accidentally shooting an innocent man (Arnott dealing with the fallout for this and his own part in it makes for a season 1 subplot, and also affects how he's dealing with Gates), Kate Fleming (Vicky McClure) who specializes in undercover assignments, and their boss, Ted Hastings (Aidan Dunbar, which gave me a start because the last time I'd seen him play a copper was in season 2 of Ashes to Ashes, where he's the main antagonist of that season). Hastings is more of a background character in s1 but in s2 gets fleshed out as much as Arnott and Fleming, complete with small subplot of his own. There are also other ongoing characters but to say who they are would spoil some s1 developments. The AC12 team aren't portrayed as saints - Arnott going from initially believing in Gates' innocence to believing he's guilty has as much to do with Gates' being a prick to him as it has with actual facts, Fleming, in a reversal of gender copper stories clichés, is the regular who gets the "loses spouse and kid because of infidelity" subplot in s2, and Hastings has to face his own moment of temptation by ambition - but they're all smart, competent people who do believe that people should be held accountable, not that "don't turn on your own" should be the highest guideline. And while all three are prickly and not hugging types, their slowly growing attached to each other feels utterly believable.
The show's produced in Northern Ireland and probably set in Belfast, though it's never said out loud on screen so far. It's definitely noir, because while individual cases get solved, insitutional injustices continue to flourish, and the show doesn't pretend otherwise but points this out. The acting is top notch. Script wise I wouldn't say this is The Wire yet, but series creator Jed Mercurio must be a fan because in s1 there's a direct quote ("if you take a shot at the king...") and also there's a chilingly vicious kid in the mold of Snoop around. Race wise, of course, the shows are very different; most characters in Line of Duty are white. (The one prominent black character is Tony Gates in season 1. Otherwise, there are black and Asian characters around, like Lindsey Denton's boss in s2, but they're not main characters.) Gender wise, there are more male characters than female ones, but in a more even ratio (I don't know how reflective or not this is of rl British copper statistics), plus no one either on a Doylist or Watsonian level ever treats Kate Fleming differently for being a woman, and her many scenes with Lindsay Denton in s2 make for regular Bechdel Test passings. (Sidenote: in the spirit, not always in the letter of the test, i.e. yes, they occasionally talk about men, but as a part of Fleming's investigation into Denton's guilt or innocence, not because the guys are the focus.) (Oh, and there's also a Lindsey-gets-in-Kate's-space scene complete with soft spoken menace which can be read as subtextual as you like.) Which brings me again to D.I. Lindsey Denton und why this is such a fabulous role for Keeley Hawes to play. This starts on the most shallow, basic level: looks. If you've seen Ms. Hawes in other roles, you know she's a tremendously attractive woman, often given glamorous wardrobe to wear by whichever production she's in. Line of Duty went out of its way to distance her from this image, from the unflattering hairdo (fringe, straight hair, think Anne Rice in the early 90s) to large sweaters and baggy trousers hiding her figure to no make up (except for one flashback to a party) and the camera highlighting every eyesack and wrinkle and making her skin look sallow. In short, she looks exactly like a woman who's been in a nerve wrecking job since decades with not much of a social life. Then we get to characterisation. One of great s2 landmark scenes is the one in 2.02. where we see for the first time how smart D.I. Denton is, when she, from a position of weakness, turns the tables on the AC12 team in an intelligent and ruthlessly efficient manner. (I won't tell you what she does, but it's fairly prepared and also points out she's a brilliant copper herself.) Now all too often when characters are written as smart, they're also written as unemotional, which is a tv cliché that annoys me more and more. Not so here. Lindsey Denton has a temper (we see it on display with her neigbour who is one of those people insisting on playing music loud enough for the next t hree blocks to hear), and she's deeply attached to her mother. (Key plot point.) And while keeping the audience guessing as to her guilt or innocence in the offense she's charged with (which is very serious indeed and resulted in the deaths of various people in the opening scene of the season, and the show keeps reminding us of this), the show also keeps demonstrating her incredible courage and endurance under increasingly horrible pressure from all sides, so she's impossible not to sympathize with. In short, she's exactly the type of character who, if she were male, would have been taken to fandom's collective bosom, shipped with everyone on sight and from other shows, and declared a woobie to rival Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad or post Horseman Methos at his heyday. As it is, a first look for Line of Duty fanfic tells me there's precisely one starring Lindsey Denton over at FFN and some multli crossover thing without her at the AO3 and... that's it. Go figure.
In conclusion: great show, and I'm tremendously grateful for
kathyh for this marvelous present.
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Line of Duty in its two seasons so far has a simple basic formula: the anti corruption unit AC 12 investigates one particular copper who in turn is also carrying on an investigation, which turns out to be related. But that's just the tip of a very complex iceberg. Police corruption is obviously a red thread through both seasons, as are individual conscience versus larger picture, loyalties, and myriads of interwoven motivations. Structurally, there is a key difference between both seasons, and it's not just that the first one introduces the show and brings the three later regular members of the AC12 team we're following together. It's also that in s1, we know what the officer under investigation, DCI Tony Gates (Lennie James), has done and what he hasn't; the suspense comes from some seemingly minor misdemeanours snowballing into ever larger misdeeds he can't extricate himself from while the team closes in on him. In the second season, however, the question whether the enigmatic DI Lindsey Denton (that's Keeley Hawes' once in a lifetime role) is guilty or innocent or a mixture of both is one that's not cleared up until the last episode of the season, and the series gives you reasons to believe both.
Both seasons make the investigated officers sympathetic (though I have to say I lost patience with Gates at a certain mid season point), while pointing out the institutional problems. Our three regular AC12 investigators are: Steve Arnott (Martin Crompton), who gets recruited in the pilot after having made himself spectacularly unpopular by being the only officer refusing to back up a fake story about the anti terror unit he was previously a part of accidentally shooting an innocent man (Arnott dealing with the fallout for this and his own part in it makes for a season 1 subplot, and also affects how he's dealing with Gates), Kate Fleming (Vicky McClure) who specializes in undercover assignments, and their boss, Ted Hastings (Aidan Dunbar, which gave me a start because the last time I'd seen him play a copper was in season 2 of Ashes to Ashes, where he's the main antagonist of that season). Hastings is more of a background character in s1 but in s2 gets fleshed out as much as Arnott and Fleming, complete with small subplot of his own. There are also other ongoing characters but to say who they are would spoil some s1 developments. The AC12 team aren't portrayed as saints - Arnott going from initially believing in Gates' innocence to believing he's guilty has as much to do with Gates' being a prick to him as it has with actual facts, Fleming, in a reversal of gender copper stories clichés, is the regular who gets the "loses spouse and kid because of infidelity" subplot in s2, and Hastings has to face his own moment of temptation by ambition - but they're all smart, competent people who do believe that people should be held accountable, not that "don't turn on your own" should be the highest guideline. And while all three are prickly and not hugging types, their slowly growing attached to each other feels utterly believable.
The show's produced in Northern Ireland and probably set in Belfast, though it's never said out loud on screen so far. It's definitely noir, because while individual cases get solved, insitutional injustices continue to flourish, and the show doesn't pretend otherwise but points this out. The acting is top notch. Script wise I wouldn't say this is The Wire yet, but series creator Jed Mercurio must be a fan because in s1 there's a direct quote ("if you take a shot at the king...") and also there's a chilingly vicious kid in the mold of Snoop around. Race wise, of course, the shows are very different; most characters in Line of Duty are white. (The one prominent black character is Tony Gates in season 1. Otherwise, there are black and Asian characters around, like Lindsey Denton's boss in s2, but they're not main characters.) Gender wise, there are more male characters than female ones, but in a more even ratio (I don't know how reflective or not this is of rl British copper statistics), plus no one either on a Doylist or Watsonian level ever treats Kate Fleming differently for being a woman, and her many scenes with Lindsay Denton in s2 make for regular Bechdel Test passings. (Sidenote: in the spirit, not always in the letter of the test, i.e. yes, they occasionally talk about men, but as a part of Fleming's investigation into Denton's guilt or innocence, not because the guys are the focus.) (Oh, and there's also a Lindsey-gets-in-Kate's-space scene complete with soft spoken menace which can be read as subtextual as you like.) Which brings me again to D.I. Lindsey Denton und why this is such a fabulous role for Keeley Hawes to play. This starts on the most shallow, basic level: looks. If you've seen Ms. Hawes in other roles, you know she's a tremendously attractive woman, often given glamorous wardrobe to wear by whichever production she's in. Line of Duty went out of its way to distance her from this image, from the unflattering hairdo (fringe, straight hair, think Anne Rice in the early 90s) to large sweaters and baggy trousers hiding her figure to no make up (except for one flashback to a party) and the camera highlighting every eyesack and wrinkle and making her skin look sallow. In short, she looks exactly like a woman who's been in a nerve wrecking job since decades with not much of a social life. Then we get to characterisation. One of great s2 landmark scenes is the one in 2.02. where we see for the first time how smart D.I. Denton is, when she, from a position of weakness, turns the tables on the AC12 team in an intelligent and ruthlessly efficient manner. (I won't tell you what she does, but it's fairly prepared and also points out she's a brilliant copper herself.) Now all too often when characters are written as smart, they're also written as unemotional, which is a tv cliché that annoys me more and more. Not so here. Lindsey Denton has a temper (we see it on display with her neigbour who is one of those people insisting on playing music loud enough for the next t hree blocks to hear), and she's deeply attached to her mother. (Key plot point.) And while keeping the audience guessing as to her guilt or innocence in the offense she's charged with (which is very serious indeed and resulted in the deaths of various people in the opening scene of the season, and the show keeps reminding us of this), the show also keeps demonstrating her incredible courage and endurance under increasingly horrible pressure from all sides, so she's impossible not to sympathize with. In short, she's exactly the type of character who, if she were male, would have been taken to fandom's collective bosom, shipped with everyone on sight and from other shows, and declared a woobie to rival Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad or post Horseman Methos at his heyday. As it is, a first look for Line of Duty fanfic tells me there's precisely one starring Lindsey Denton over at FFN and some multli crossover thing without her at the AO3 and... that's it. Go figure.
In conclusion: great show, and I'm tremendously grateful for
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no subject
Date: 2015-01-04 06:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-05 09:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-04 07:14 pm (UTC)I too have to fall back on an S&B icon, as I confess I haven't iconned the once in a lifetime role. But that seems to be a clue to my attitude to the programme. I think the point is that I don't really react to LD in a fannish way; I watched it and admired it as straight drama. And I'm not sure I could write fic for it; even at the end, when I understood most of what was going on, I don't think I had enough of a grip on it to write it. Maybe I should get the DVDs, as I wouldn't mind seeing the first season again just to clarify the background to the second (I'd forgotten a lot of the original plot by then).
I fear it was too early in the year for Hawes to be remembered as clearly as she deserves when the awards are handed out, but I wish I could vote for her. She was magnificent.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-05 09:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-05 12:31 pm (UTC)Another remarkable thing about Lindsay Denton is that, at first sight, it looks as if her character has been drawn up after Jed Mercurio thought "Right, the first series centred on a black man who's highly successful in his career and his private life and very popular with all his colleagues. Let's create someone who's the exact opposite." And yet, though Tony Gates is a strong character, Lindsay Denton could wipe the floor with him. From what I suspect were artificial and schematic beginnings, she's developed into a living, breathing, utterly fascinating human being.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-05 01:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-05 01:24 pm (UTC)