Appropriate Force

An illegal immigrant dies while officers try to restrain him, and Cade has to defend a team whose actions will be picked apart for months. Appropriate Force is the question the whole episode refuses to answer cleanly: what amount of force, in the heat of the moment, is appropriate? The death happens in the middle of a routine job gone wrong, which makes it harder to dismiss than any deliberate wrong. It is the kind of incident that ends careers, and everybody in the room knows it. Cade's defence of his officers is the whole episode in miniature.

The restraint goes wrong and the man dies. The internal investigation begins, and the phrase everyone avoids is who is to blame. Peter Egan's Simon Duval and Michael Cochrane's Nigel Crimmond keep the institutional side busy, while Karen Archer's ACC Anne Stewart and Dermot Crowley's ACC David Bannen close ranks around the force. Maureen Beattie's Gemma Marshall, Louisa Milwood-Haigh's Elena Belinsky, John Graham-Davies's Insp. Jim Ryan, Brana Bajic's Maria Granic and Boris Boscovic's Sergei Ivanov move through the aftermath. The scrutiny lands on the whole department, and the show does not rush to make it go away.

Jeffrey Caine and Peter Jukes wrote it, A.J. Quinn directed. The season's writing team has the voice of the show down by now, and this is the voice at its most severe.

And the episode earns its title by never settling the argument. Cade defends his people because the job demands it; certainty is in short supply. The show leaves the judgement to the viewer, which is braver than handing out an answer. Martin Shaw has rarely looked more tired than he does here, and tired is exactly right. It is heavy material, handled with the show's usual refusal to comfort anyone, and it ends with the investigation still open. There is no heroic moment, and that is the point of the title. The episode is a strong argument for the show's central idea: the top job is a lonely one.