Walking On Water (1)

Walking On Water begins with Chappel and Hutchins back undercover, this time inside The Jupiter nightclub. The squad has its eye on an illegal gambling and prostitution ring running out of the place, and the two of them are sent in to pull the operation apart from the inside. It is a structured network, not a street corner, which means the work is slower and the margin for error smaller. Hutchins takes the front-facing role, charming the room while Chappel works the edges.

And the pressure tells. They have to hold their covers while they gather evidence against the people running the ring, and every conversation at the club is a small risk. The episode is built on that unease: the sense that the deeper they go, the harder it becomes to climb back out. The Jupiter turns out to be thoroughly compromised, its regular trade a thin disguise for betting and prostitution that someone has worked hard to keep tidy. Chappel plays the long game, betting that patience will surface the names at the top rather than the foot soldiers who only take the fall.

Matthew Evans directed and J.C. Wilsher wrote. Ken Stott is Chappel, with Caroline Catz's Hutchins doing much of the early legwork alongside him. David Harewood's Sgt. Joe Robinson and Diane Parish's Shirley Robinson support the pair, and Marc Warren is Dougie Raymond. The club's world is filled in by Tim Woodward's Trevor Nashe, Melanie Gutteridge's Donna, Murray Head's Tommy Roker, Robbie Gee's Maxwell, and Niven Boyd's Slater.

What stays with me is the strain of the double life. The Vice is good at showing how undercover work wears a person down long before the danger arrives, and Hutchins carries a fair share of that weight here. It is a steady, tense opener to the story, content to let the trap close slowly.