The Ends of Justice

Jackie Reid is newly promoted to inspector and leading the city centre murder inquiry, after a busker called Jacko is stabbed to death. The promotion is meant to be the good news of the week; the stabbing cancels that out. Meanwhile Robbie Ross is trying to wean Katie, a drug addict he's befriended, off heroin, and his method involves beating up her pusher. That decision sets off a chain that nearly ends his career.

Robbie gets reported, investigated and suspended from the Jacko case. CCTV puts council official Clark Donovan and gangster Benny Docherty in the area on the night of the killing, both photographed together by art student Mickey Dawson. Mickey is put in a safe house and gets shot anyway, because Robbie told Docherty where he was, and Docherty has abducted Katie. Jackie has to run the inquiry while her closest colleague falls apart next to her, and she does it without ever looking away. But when Katie is killed too, Robbie comes back to Jackie, fuelled by rage, with the piece of information that breaks the case. It turns out Jacko's murderer was also a victim. Docherty ends up caged, and the team closes ranks to save Robbie's job.

Glenn Chandler and David Kane wrote it, Douglas Mackinnon directed. Blythe Duff carries the new responsibility well as DI Reid, John Michie is the Ross who's come apart, Alex Norton is Burke, Steven Pacey is Clark Donovan, Anneika Rose is DS Mita Rahim, Jamie Quinn is Mickey Dawson, Siobhan Redmond is Chief Superintendent Karen Campbell, Mark Bonnar is DCI Atkins and Emma Campbell-Jones is Katie Wallis.

The season closer pushes the personal and the professional into the same cell and lets them fight it out. Ross's mistakes cost a life, and the show doesn't pretend otherwise. The title sounds like a slogan, but it turns out to be a description: everyone in this episode is looking for their own version of an ending. The ending it gives Ross is almost kind, which somehow makes it harder to watch.