What Lies Tangled (2)

The second half of the final story carries an extra weight: Lewis has a six-month trip to New Zealand with Dr Hobson on the horizon, and the case is threatening to take it away. He is in a race against time to save both his career and his relationship, and the investigation keeps pulling him deeper into the local complications it was supposed to resolve. The personal and the professional have rarely collided so directly for him.

The case keeps the team embedded in the community around the bombing, with Elizabeth Capstone and Sarah Alderwood central to the unfolding revelations. Donald Lockston, Djimon Adomakoh, David Capstone: the names from the first part return to answer for their parts in the story, and Lewis has to decide how much of the truth he can chase without losing everything waiting for him at home. Every hour the case takes is an hour closer to departure.

But the New Zealand plan gives the final case its clock, and the episode uses it well, every delay costing Lewis something he wants. The resolution brings the story full circle, the case solved and the future restored, and it is hard to begrudge the show its happy ending.

Colin Dexter and Nicholas Hicks-Beach wrote it, and David Drury directed. Zoë Tapper plays Elizabeth Capstone, Mali Harries is Sarah Alderwood, David Warner plays Donald Lockston, Tosin Cole takes Djimon Adomakoh, Oliver Lansley plays David Capstone, Steve Toussaint is CS Joseph Moody, Angela Griffin plays DS Lizzie Maddox and Clare Holman takes Dr Hobson. Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox lead the final investigation.

It is a fitting end for the run, the case and the clock working against each other until the last possible moment. The episode understands that Lewis has earned a future outside the job, and it makes him fight for it. The bombing is solved, the trip is saved, and the show lets its hero walk towards something like happiness at last.