Futures

The friendship is in ruins, and then the call comes in: Gill has disappeared. Janet and Rachel have barely been speaking, but the call from MIT Command about their boss sorts that out in a hurry. Whatever is between them, they can do it while working.

Gill was shopping for her son's engagement party when Helen Bartlett took her at knifepoint. Helen is drunk and furious, charged with a crime she reported in the first place and now publicly reviled for it. She forces Gill into the car and demands the seaside. A member of the public sees the abduction and reports it, and Julie Dodson takes charge, asking Scott and Bailey for their help in finding their own boss.

Helen is spotted from the air, and her partner Louise tells police the car is heading for Flamborough Head in Yorkshire. It is where Helen spent childhood holidays, and it is a known suicide spot, which tells you everything about how she sees this ending. The car arrives to find itself surrounded by marksmen, and Helen is left to make a drastic choice.

Nicola Walker's Helen has been a quiet storm all season, and here she finally breaks. The stand-off is tense in the way the show does best: quiet, and full of people at the end of their options.

Sally Wainwright, Diane Taylor and Suranne Jones wrote it, Morag Fullarton directed. Amelia Bullmore leads as Gill, with Pippa Haywood's Dodson, Jake Roche's Sammy, and Suranne Jones and Lesley Sharp as the pair trying to hold it together. The squad of Danny Miller, Delroy Brown, Tony Mooney and David Prosho fill the edges.

The case closes, and with it comes something the season has been short on: Scott and Bailey, talking again. It is not forgiveness, but it is a start.