Cops on the edge

“Strong bloody violence from the start and throughout,” as Channel 5 would say- and I’m thinking-

aww- what about the strong language and the scenes of a sexual nature?

Here’s the “Police hunting for the next victim” scene. That’s odd, as it normally comes at the end of the drama, when the Murderer is arrested. Stretch the tantalising anticipation- they have found her. What a relief! This drama goes with Women’s Problems- here, the cop has personal clashes with the people in the office, the other cop’s daughter is arrested. So, not exactly quotidian problems, but we can relate to teenage daughter in trouble.

After bloody but unbowed stressed hero cops in Shetland and Trapped as in The Killing, Marcella takes it to the limit. She has fugues, during one of which she may have killed someone. She’s really afraid when she finds the body. She’s also obsessed with a particular suspect, who has made a complaint about her- stay away from him, says her superior officer just like so many superior officers before him- but the twist here is that we see the other suspect actually doing a murder. I don’t know how they’re going to end this one.

For a month we had that fortissimo MI LAH DO RAY ostinato advertising Call Line of Duty until in the words of the chief inspector, repeated nightly for that month, “God Give Me Strength”. Then it’s really complex, but it seems that the corrupt coppers are getting away with it. There’s a torture scene and a man dies gargling his own blood. Was it something to do with child abuse? I can’t remember, I am just confused. Yeah, that was it: nice touch seeing a police firearms officer kill a man who had surrendered, then torture his mate, but bring him some sympathy when it’s revealed they abused him as a teenager in a care home.

I have had two fugues, once when drunk, and in both people saw me doing something embarrassing but did not tell me the precise details.

Anyway, two blokes are playing a game where they challenge each other to kill some random person, film it, and put the film on the Dark Web. We start with a witness saying “I thought he was coming back for me, but he just stood there and filmed him dying on his phone”. Ooh, yuck. How extreme will these get? Does it matter? I am still reading The Iliad, and the introduction promises me Patroclus pushing his spear through the face of a charioteer, then pulling him out of his chariot like a fish on a hook. Among other violence. Then, the Greek city states were in a state of constant cold, regular hot war, any sign of weakness inspiring attack.

The world…
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight…

Am I watching too much television, or is it really like that?