Sons (2)

The Vice keeps its cards close in this fourth episode, and the patience pays off. P.C. Cheryl Hutchins is still chasing the boy from the porn film, and her progress is the slow kind that comes from knocking on the same doors. Brendan Fitzsimmonds is the name now, and Hutchins has settled on a quiet conviction: his parents know more than they are saying. John and Sheila Fitzsimmonds close ranks, and the case stops being a matter of procedure and starts looking like a family with something buried.

And while Hutchins works that thread, Pat Chappel finds his own footing shifting under him. His dealings with Dr. Christina Weir, until now strictly professional, tilt toward the personal. The show lets that happen without fanfare. Chappel is not a man given to displays, and the interest lands as a muted thing, all the more interesting for it. The two strands run in parallel, the investigation cooling as the romance warms, and the episode is content to sit with both.

Paul Henry Powell wrote it and Roger Gartland directed. Ken Stott carries the squad as Chappel, with Caroline Catz's Hutchins doing the legwork on Brendan and Anna Chancellor's Weir drawing Chappel in. David Harewood is Sgt. Joe Robinson, Marc Warren is P.C. Dougie Raymond, and Tim McInnerny plays Max Wilson. Raymond Pickard is Brendan, Olga Sosnovska is Tanya, and Paul Angelis and Eileen O'Brien are the boy's parents.

It is a quieter hour than some, and the better for it. The Vice is often at its steadiest when it trusts a slow burn, and here the small mysteries matter more than any single arrest. What the Fitzsimmondses are hiding, and where Chappel's loyalties now sit, hold the attention without needing to shout. I would rather watch a secret unfold at this pace than be handed the answer early.