Told

Told jumps two months forward and finds the women further apart than at any point in the series. Carol is in a psychiatric ward after her attack on Curly. Anita is living on her own after breaking with George. Rose and Tracy are in London, and Gina's killer has still not been caught.

London gives Rose the series' most hopeful thread. While Tracy carries on working the street, Rose tries to go straight. She enrols at college, studies for a different career and falls for a man called Richard. For a few scenes Band of Gold imagines a way out for the woman who has always seemed most at home on the Lane. Then Richard rejects her, and the hope goes with him. Rose leaves college and returns to Bradford, and Tracy, still in London, is left behind.

Geraldine James was nominated for a BAFTA for the series, and storylines like this one show why: the hard woman who runs the street shows how much she wanted something else. Kay Mellor does not frame the failure as a punishment. Rose is not too damaged to change; the world she tries to join simply does not make room for her.

Carol's strand is darker. Released from hospital and trying to concentrate on getting well, she becomes aware that someone is following her. The killer, it seems, has noticed the woman who has been asking questions about Gina. Rather than retreat, Carol sets out to find him herself, and the episode lets her chase a series of false leads that the audience, like her, cannot easily dismiss.

The episode is Charles Beeson's first as director, and he directs both of the last two episodes of the series. It carries the highest viewer rating of the first series on IMDb, which suggests audiences valued its quieter emotional material.

The weakness is pace. With the women separated across two cities, the murder plot slows, and the London scenes, however well acted, sit apart from the rest of the drama. The strength is the honesty of Rose's story, which makes clear that leaving the Lane takes more than will power.

Anthony Milner, Rachel Davies and David Crellin are among the supporting cast.

By the end of the episode Rose is back in Bradford, Tracy is alone in London and Carol is being watched, setting up a finale in which the killer finally steps out of the shadows.