Divided Loyalties

Colin Selwyn's death looks accidental, and Gill feels sorry for his widow, sweet old Margaret. Then Margaret's daughters come forward with a story that changes everything: their mother had often spoken of killing her husband. A murder inquiry is opened, and the sympathy evaporates. The sweet old lady defence rarely survives a police interview, and here it barely survives the doorstep.

The station's own soap opera is running hot. Andy Roper, who spitefully tried to get Janet into trouble, is moved to another division. Janet thinks she has made her peace with him, until he feeds her misinformation and Gill misses an appointment with the coroner. The coroner's missed appointment is a small thing that costs the office a great deal. Gill, tired of their games, announces that one of them will have to go. Adrian, meanwhile, has learned of Janet's affair, and any thought of reconciliation is dead.

Rachel's week is worse. After a drunken hen party she cannot remember, Nick Savage is found brutally assaulted and she is the prime suspect. Nobody believes her when she says she cannot remember, least of all Rachel herself. She is exonerated, but at a price she does not discuss. And the experience sends her, at last, to see her mother. The episode has been building to that visit all season.

Sally Wainwright wrote it, Morag Fullarton directed. Lesley Sharp's Janet and Suranne Jones's Rachel lead, with Amelia Bullmore's Gill, Val Tagger as Margaret Selwyn, Sandra Huggett and Kathryn Hunt as her daughters, Pippa Haywood as DCI Julie Dodson, Nicholas Gleaves as Andy and the squad in support.

Everyone is keeping score this week, and nobody is keeping it quietly. By the final scene, the only surprise is how little the scoreboard has changed. And the next series will have to pick up the pieces.