The Final Reckoning

Duncan Warren sells the murder hunt to a journalist for money, and Red is off the case, furious and helpless while the bodies keep coming. It's the episode's first nasty turn, and it sets the tone. The killer's timetable is the only one that matters now, and Red has been cut out of it by someone he trusted.

Stephen Hedges, the vicar from the hostel, spells out what the team is really looking at. Five victims so far, each with a disciple's name and a disciple's job, each killed on the saint's day that belongs to his namesake. Red understands what that means for the men still alive, and understanding doesn't slow anything down. Eleven men die in the end. Only Judas is left, and Judas, it turns out, is the point.

The reveal is a quiet one, which makes it worse. The killer is someone Red knows, a man who believes himself to be the immortal Messiah and who has reserved the last name on the list for the person he sees as his Judas. Red is written into that story whether he likes it or not. Kate and the rest of the team can only watch it happen. The final confrontation is a bare-knuckle fight for survival, with Susan helping Red through it, and it ends the way a story about an avenging messiah probably should. The image that stays is Red, exhausted, still standing at the end of it.

Lizzie Mickery and Boris Starling wrote it, Diarmuid Lawrence directed. Ken Stott carries the weight as Red, with Edward Woodward as Hedges, Michelle Forbes as Susan, Neil Dudgeon as Warren, and the rest of the cast rounded out by Frances Grey, Jamie Draven, Ray Trickitt, Art Malik, Colin Gourley and Victoria Byrne.

It's a grim close to a grim pair of hours. The show never lets Red enjoy his win, and it wouldn't feel right if it did.