Season1#2 The Assault: Summary and Review

DCI Tony Gates interviews a witness related to the investigation into the double murder of the two suspected drug dealers. He threatens the witness that he will be labeled a police snitch even if he does not talk. Cotton and Kapoor accept their mistake and apologize for leaving the surveillance early, which resulted in the double murder.

 

On the other hand, a burglar is caught red handed by PC Bannerjee and PC Larkin as they respond to a silent alarm at a block of flats. In the interview conducted by DS Janson, the burglar confesses to the act and to several other offences as well.

 

Meanwhile, DS Steve Arnott is still obsessed with investigating Tony Gates as he wonders why Gates has taken on the case of the hit and run. This investigation leads him to interviewing waitress Nadzia, where he gets to know that Gates was having breakfast with a lady. Nadzia further explains the appearance of the lady, which Arnott suspects to be Laverty. Arnott visits a hairdresser's that was burgled and suspects that Laverty may be running a money laundering scam.

 

Whilst this is going on Gates asks Laverty about her links with the victim she kills, as it was her accountant. She tells him that her plan was to expand her business and that her accountant disagreed with the idea. But Gates suspects that her accountant might have discovered that she was laundering money and threatened her to tell the police. Gates tries to arrest her, but on the way to the police station she persuades him to release her.

 

Meanwhile, another drug dealer is found dead on the estate, but Gates is nowhere to be found. Fleming realizes that Gates has disappeared and informs Arnott. Back at Laverty's house, she and Gates engage in another passionate encounter, until they are attacked by masked intruders. Gates position is even worse because of this.

 

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In this episode, things got a lot darker. I didn’t think it’d happen so fast, or so brutally, but by the end of Episode 2 everything has taken a turn for the terrible. And it makes for compelling viewing.
A strong supporting cast and some grim location work gives us a sadly accurate portrait of the reality of policing. DCI Tony Gates will only chase crimes that are well-known or highly prioritized to complete. This may be because it will give high notice from the public. Or there is high dullness in street crime.
But according to me, Gates’ days of being the self-described king around the station are numbered. He is a guy with his family holding weak emotions, as this is behind his mask, so we do not see much of this.

 

THEME OF THE EPISODE

It's the old story about the tensions between "real on the streets policing" and being stuck behind a desk. It appears that even adhering to bureaucracy may not be enough to save you, as both Steve and Tony discovered – the former when the firearms officers in his terrorism case changed their story, and the latter when his own paper trail began to be scrutinized by Kate and Steve.

 

MAIN TWISTS

Another tight episode saw various strands come together as we learned that Jackie Laverty was involved in some very murky dealings indeed. The relationship between Jackie and Tony Gates was a complicated one and, as we saw in the scene following her arrest, she clearly had an almost hypnotic hold over him.

 

I enjoyed finding out that Steve Arnott is a bit of a cocky knob-head; oddly it made him far more sympathetic as a character. Whether blowing out Kate's initial suggestion regarding the hit and run or heading off to chat up the Polish waitress some more, what stood out in this episode was Steve's youth. He might be an honest, straight-down-the-line cop but he's also a foolish young man in my point of view.

 

I also enjoyed the fact that Jackie Laverty continued to keep changing her story in this episode. Surely even Tony can't have believed the initial "He attacked me!" backtrack over her accountant.

 

Just when I thought that Tony arresting Jackie, and their emotional car ride, would be the most dramatic moment of the hour, along comes a stunning cliffhanger, as three masked men break into Jackie’s home and slit her throat, before placing the knife in the unconscious Tony’s hand.

 

Far from being just a shocking twist, it creates a seemingly inescapable predicament for Gates, and leads me to wonder just how desperate a man with so much to lose will become.

 

The question remains: How much did Tony know about Jackie's business and how is he going to get out of being framed for her murder?

 

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