Luther season 5 finale review: Is Alice Morgan leaving for good?

Luther

We are set up for one heck of a showdown in the Luther season 5 finale with Luther in one corner and George Cornelius in the other. Luther has tried everything he can to clean up the mess Alice made when she killed Alister, but George is retaliating and in a big way. He’s sent a hitman out to kill both Luther and Alice and to show Luther that he’s serious the hitman killed Benny too.

Tonight’s finale was as intense of a showdown as you could have possibly expected, given that George was still doing his part to plan out some of his final salvos. Meanwhile, Alice herself eventually decided that she was going to take matters into her own hands and show up with a machine gun. Well, that’s one way to take on a challenge, isn’t it?

For better or for worse, this season has been about the game between Luther, Alice, and Cornelius, who eventually took it upon himself to try and frame John for murder. Then, he also had the difficult task of convincing Catherine that he was inside — and that he also didn’t lure her as bait. Ultimately, it didn’t really matter given what happened next — Alice showed up, shot Catherine, and made it clear that she would probably let her go. That happened, or at least it did temporarily. To make matters worse, she shot Luther on her way out and that led to one of the stranger sequences of the night: What seemed to be the final showdown between Luther and Alice.

At this point, Alice was convinced that no matter who was in his life, he didn’t care about any of them. He just used them in order to feed a personal compulsion. In this conversation, he tried to convince her that she was only there to try to free herself from something that would always be there.

While this conversation was going on, did we mention that police were surrounding the site and it was pretty clear that Luther was going to be able to get out of this in one piece? He tried to arrest her for Halliday’s murder, and all she did was laugh at him in response. She had one final bullet that she was ready to use on John, but before she fired it, he managed to overtake her. Then, he tried to save her from falling to her death, but she wouldn’t allow it. She cut him and then dropped. With that, it seems as though she is gone. (You never know what this show, but we’re gonna say for now that this is the end for Ruth Wilson.)

Meanwhile, Luther in the closing minutes was arrested — a final reminder that he could not continue to go rogue and operate on his own agenda. He was not Alice Morgan, but he certainly had blood on his hands.

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CarterMatt Verdict

We consider the finale, and this season of Luther overall, to be a natural evolution in the series. We do recognize that one of the larger criticisms that is out there about this season is that it doesn’t feel like anywhere near the same show — at least from a gore perspective. (Yet, ironically there are others who claim that the series is too violent.)

What we got for this season was a story built mostly around relationships and social dynamics, with of course some violence thrown in there. It was about the remnants of Alice Morgan, and how Luther’s inability to see the light caused him to dive further into darkness.

What did you think of the Luther season 5 finale and was it worth the wait? Leave us a comment in the box below with your thoughts. (BBC One.)

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