Resolution

Resolution gives Sergeant Joseph Beck his hardest hour. A prisoner is found dead in a cell, the death lands on Beck's watch, and his response is to hand in his resignation. A man who dies in custody is never just a case; he is a question aimed at everyone who held the keys. The dead man's story is told through the living, which is the show's way. The episode is less about whodunit than about what a death inside the station does to the people who work there.

But Beck's resignation lands like a second incident, and the inquiry that follows turns every routine into a question. Inspector Kate Longton leads the investigation with Sergeant George Parrish, while Detective Chief Inspector Mark Perrin, played by Edward Peel, provides the oversight. The constables, Danny Sparks and Brian Kelleher, handle the evidence and the interviews, and the station's periphery closes in: Maggie McCarthy's Barbara Davies, Liz Edmiston's Ellen Hubbard, Carl Proctor's Garry Davies and Melanie Hill's Jean Simpson. Every officer in the building has to decide what they saw, what they heard, and what they will say about it.

Don Webb wrote it, Marc Miller directed. Anna Carteret is Kate Longton, with David Ellison as Beck, Noel Collins as Parrish, C.J. Allen as Kelleher, Mark Botham as Sparks, Edward Peel as Perrin, Maggie McCarthy as Barbara Davies, Liz Edmiston as Ellen Hubbard, Carl Proctor as Garry Davies and Melanie Hill as Jean Simpson.

The title is doing quiet work. Everyone in the episode is looking for one, for the inquiry and for Beck's career, and the question of blame hangs over both. Nobody gets an easy answer, and the atmosphere stays thick with the waiting. The station has never felt smaller or more crowded. And Beck's decision, whatever one thinks of it, takes nerve. It is one of the strongest entries of the season, the sort that stays with you after the credits. Resolution is a word the episode treats as a hope rather than a promise.