Line of Duty season 5 finale review: Gill Biggeloe’s surprise; Ted’s status
How did it do that? Well, Ted learning that Corbett was Anne-Marie’s son is a pretty good way to start. After all, the implication here is that Corbett may have been Ted’s son. The man broke down and when Ted cries, the world cries with him.
Of course, after Ted’s entire personal history was shaken to his core, the interrogation persisted. He still had endure more questions regarding the money in the envelope and accusations about him being H — accusations that he claimed were made mostly to discredit him and what AC-12 was trying to do. Ted can make a good argument, but the problem is that Carmichael. She’s fantastic with police procedure and paperwork — whoever knew that these would be superpowers? Luckily, Ted’s team also had some powers of their own, and they used them in order to try and discredit any link that Carmichael had to him and organized crime.
Right when it looked as though Ted was getting a leg up, though, new evidence serviced — evidence that seemed to give Carmichael newfound confidence as Ted was shipped back to his cell. As it turns out, there were hairs that were present on John Corbett’s body that match up to Ted. He claims that he is being framed, but the louder Ted shouted it, the less Carmichael seemed to be listening to him.
After the evidence was presented…
Well, the interrogation continued. Ted was forced to not only proclaim himself innocent of being H, but also innocent of being a murderer. Unfortunately, what Ted encountered in the process of doing this was finding himself once again at the end of some tough questions. Take, for example, his Eastfield robbery and the aftermath of it. Ted’s problem is that his desperation to get to the bottom of the OCG mystery led to him being extremely suspicious — and a prime candidate for him being H as opposed to trying to just pretend to be H for the sake of getting the job done.
Here is how thorough Line of Duty and Carmichael were with the questioning — she brought up not only the disposal of the computer (he claimed it was because of some adult materials he was viewing), but also the misspelling of the word “definitely.” Ted wasn’t really able to help himself … but this was when he got a little bit of help! Let’s go ahead and thank Kate and Steve now.
Who is the responsible party?
As it turns out, it was none other than Gill Biggeloe herself who was the responsible party. She is the one who set up Ted to be H and, beyond that, she was the one operating a burner phone. Gill’s efforts were going to be able to take down AC-12 once and for all, and the question from here is if Gill is the person really at the top of the chain. Based on her wanting immunity, it feels like Gill is not H. She’s claiming that she is just one rotten apple. She was arrested, and with that, Ted was finally free to go. Poor Ted … our heart breaks for him. Carmichael still tried to pursue Ted, but without Banks’ testimony, she had nowhere to go with him. Ted doesn’t follow the rules, but he’s not bent.
Just because this show can’t have a quiet ending, it turns out that Officer Tina, who was escorting Gill to the bathroom, was also bent and tried to kill Gill on her way out of it. Someone put a hit out on Gill, and the question now is rather simple: Who else is it? Who else can be involved in all of this?
Ultimately, what we were left with tonight was a clue — that H may be more of an organization than just one person. Gill was involved, but there was still one more person out there … and this could be the focus of season 6. (For the record, though, Gill did what she could to avoid prosecution, mostly because of the information that she did possess.)
CarterMatt Verdict
Perhaps the biggest compliment that we can offer a show line Line of Duty is that it can feature conversations in a small room for a solid hour and never have us born. Nobody tells stories about corruption, paperwork, and procedure quite like it. This finale was eerie and intense, dark and also wonderful.
We suppose that coming out of this, the best thing that we can say is that Ted is no longer in custody. For now, we at least have something to celebrate.
When could Line of Duty season 6 premiere?
If you head over to the link here, you can get some of our first discussion all about what could be coming, and when it could return on BBC One.
What did you think about the Line of Duty season 5 as a whole? Be sure to share right now in the comments. (Photo: BBC.)