Episode 6

After the fiasco with the drop, Geoffrey gives up on the official route and takes the investigation into his own hands. The decision turns him into something like a vigilante, and the episode follows that choice wherever it leads. He starts tracking the kidnappers himself, moving through the network of people connected to the case, and the hunt becomes personal in a way the police operation never could. The police, for their part, are still working the case their way, which means the two investigations start pulling against each other.

The supporting cast gives him a world to move through. Derek Thompson's Frank Crossan, Aingeal Grehan's Kate and Susanna Reid's Clare all cross his path, and the police element is still there in the shape of Garda Twomey and Doherty, offering structure and obstruction in roughly equal measure. Kearney, O'Hanlon and McLaughlin fill out the network he is pushing against. Every conversation carries the possibility that this is the one that goes wrong. Any face he meets could be the one that gives the kidnappers away, or the one that gives him away first.

Peter Barkworth plays Geoffrey Carr, with Harriet Walter as Frances Carr. Derek Thompson is Frank Crossan, Aingeal Grehan is Kate and Susanna Reid is Clare. John Kavanagh appears as Kearney, Peadar Lamb as O'Hanlon, Oliver Maguire as McLaughlin, Colm Hefferon as Garda Twomey and Denys Hawthorne as Doherty. Peter Barkworth and Peter Ransley wrote it, and Peter Smith directed.

But the real question the finale asks is whether one man's determination can make up for the machinery that failed him. The serial has spent six episodes watching money and procedure bend under the weight of the kidnapping, and Geoffrey's self-directed quest is the last resort of a man who has run out of both. It is a fitting end for a story about what happens when the usual answers stop working.