Errors of Judgement (2)

The second half opens with the bill coming due. Jane Tennison made an error of judgement, and it cost a young boy his life. There is no way to walk that back, and the episode does not pretend otherwise. What she can do is figure out what is going on and help solve the mess, and she sets about it with the grim patience of someone paying off a debt. Every step forward reminds her of the step that started it. The mess is hers, and the episode is not interested in letting her share it out.

Campbell Lafferty has been murdered, and the case keeps pulling Jane towards The Street and Michael Johns. Both men have been careful; both are still in reach. The Street has covered himself for every incident so far, and Michael Johns has been careful in his own way. Closing in on both of them is slow, exacting work. The Street's hold on his community is part of why nothing sticks to him; nobody talks. The investigation becomes a closing-down operation, with Jane at the centre of it, working through a tangle that is partly of her own making.

Guy Andrews wrote it and Phil Davis directed. Helen Mirren's Jane is supported by David O'Hara as DS Rankine, Julia Lane as DI Devanney, John Brobbey as DC Henry Adeliyeka, John McArdle as DCS Ballinger, Steven Mackintosh as The Street, Ray Emmet Brown as Michael Johns, Joe Jacobs as Campbell Lafferty, David Norman as Tony Rice and Martin Ronan as DS Pardy.

Competence is a fragile thing when it is built on judgement, and judgement is only ever one bad call away from ruin. Jane carries this one for the rest of the story, and the weight shows. The title names the theme precisely: errors of judgement are human, and the show has never excused Jane hers. She does not ask for sympathy, and the episode does not offer any.