Episode 2

The second part of the story carries on where the first left off, and the situation has not improved. The bodies keep coming in the East End, each one a fresh horror for the papers to chew on, and Scotland Yard is no closer to a name than it was at the start. Abberline keeps at it, walking the same foggy streets, interviewing the same frightened people, and the investigation has the tired rhythm of a job nobody believes can be won.

The hysteria has grown a life of its own by now. Benjamin Bates of The Star is still feeding the frenzy, and the name "Jack the Ripper" has passed from a letter into the public imagination, which is a far more dangerous place for it to live. Sir Charles Warren's fear of revolution in the East End no longer sounds like an exaggeration. The city is on a knife edge, and the police are trying to solve a murder while holding a crowd together.

What the episode does well is show the machinery of the hunt. Coroner Wynne Baxter's inquests, the line-ups, the press conferences, the false leads, the mediums and self-appointed experts who always materialise when a case becomes famous. Abberline has to wade through all of it to reach the one thing he cannot find: a suspect who sticks.

Michael Caine's Abberline is the anchor again, supported by the same strong company, Lewis Collins's Godley, Ray McAnally's Sir William Gull, Armand Assante's Richard Mansfield, Jane Seymour's Emma, Ken Bones's Robert James Lees and the rest. Derek Marlowe and David Wickes wrote it, Wickes directed.

And of course, the true ending is known to everyone watching. The real investigation never found him, and neither does this one. The drama's achievement is making that failure feel like the only possible outcome.