Nobody's Fool

Teenager Will Hudson's body is found in a Manchester park, and Rachel knows his death could have been prevented. That knowledge is the whole tone of the episode. The Taking Out The Trash website is the problem: information about it is out in the public domain, so monitoring potential targets has become nearly impossible, and Mitch's missing daybook looks like the source of the leak. Then Rachel receives an email with video footage of Will's murder in it. The rules of the game have changed, and Rachel's safety is now in question. An email carrying a murder is a message as much as a threat: whoever sent it wants the police to know they are watching.

Janet's problem is closer to home. She sits in on Taisie's police interview as the appropriate adult, and she feels utterly powerless to protect her daughter. Rachel tells her, correctly, that as a police officer she cannot interfere. But Janet is Taisie's mum first, and she knows she has to do something to stop the madness, whatever the rules say. There is no version of that interview where Janet gets to be both officer and mum, and she knows it.

It is Syndicate 9's darkest day, and the episode knows not to cheer anyone up at the end. Janet and Rachel share a drink, and it is clear to Janet that the world is a very different shape from the one she thought she was policing.

Lee Warburton, Diane Taylor and Sally Wainwright wrote it, Alex Kalymnios directed. Lesley Sharp and Suranne Jones carry it, with Harriet Waters's Taisie, Angela Lonsdale's Gina, Suzette Llewellyn's DI Hollister, Jing Lusi's Anna Ram and the familiar faces of David Prosho, Tony Mooney and Gregg Chilingirian in support.

A death that should not have happened, and a leak that helped cause it. Nobody's fool, as the title has it, except that everybody here is fooled by something.