Episode 2

The cannibal killer is still at large, and Luther is chasing him while being chased by his own history. An old cold case keeps surfacing, and the episode suggests it may hold the key to something that has been tormenting him for years. He cannot outrun it, and the show does not pretend he can. The cold case and the cannibal hunt turn out to be the same story told twice.

Benny Silver's hacking has turned up a list of hundreds of potential victims, which is one of those leads that is worse than no lead at all. A list of hundreds is not a clue, it is a menu, and the team has to work out where the killer eats next. The crime scenes are multiplying faster than they can be visited, and Luther has to figure out where the killer is headed rather than where he has been. It all points to an endgame, something planned and macabre, and the only way to reach it in time is to put himself and his new colleague Emma Lane directly in the killer's path. Rose Leslie's Emma is good company for Luther, sharp enough to keep up and sensible enough to worry about him, and the episode wisely pairs them rather than stacking the hour with more police business.

Neil Cross wrote it, Sam Miller directed. Patrick Malahide's George Cornelius brings proper weight to the cold case thread, Laura Haddock's Megan Cantor and Dermot Crowley's Schenk hold the station together, and the Segar family, Jimmy, June and Declan, played by Mark Carey, Lorraine Hilton and Tommy French, keep the human cost visible. John Heffernan's Steven Rose and Michael Smiley's Benny Silver complete a cast that has no weak links.

And the ghosts are the point. Luther can read killers because he understands damage, and the episode keeps reminding him where his own damage lives.

It ends with the endgame begun and both of them inside it. There is no walking away this time.