Betrayed (2)

The second part of Betrayed narrows to a single hard choice. Chappel is desperate to crack the Eastern European sex-slave ring, and the price of doing so is betraying an old friend. The episode makes plain from the start that the consequences will be deadly, which gives the whole hour a queasy weight: you know the wound is coming, and you watch it open anyway. The ring has been the squad's white whale for a while, and Chappel has run out of clean ways to end it. Chappel is not a man who betrays lightly, which makes the act weigh all the more.

And Joe Robinson is caught in the middle of it. Chappel puts him on the case without knowing that the girl at its centre has feelings for Joe, and that private complication sits on top of an already impossible job. His marriage, frayed since the first part, starts to come apart under the strain. The vice reaches the man's home and stays there. Robinson is the one who pays for Chappel's decision without ever being told the reason.

Anita J. Pandolfo wrote it and Philippa Langdale directed. Ken Stott is Chappel, with Caroline Catz's Hutchins and David Harewood's Robinson carrying the burden. Garry Cooper's Supt. Jeff Callard and Diane Parish's Shirley Robinson are around the edges, and Branka Katic's Sofia, David Schofield's Harrison, Elizabeth Berrington's Julie Evans, Valerie Edmond's DI Greer, and Michael Byrne's solicitor fill the rest.

The episode earns its title. The Vice has always been interested in the damage done between people who trust each other, and here that is the whole engine of the plot. I found the betrayal of the friend the colder stroke, and the sadder one, because Chappel does it on purpose. That is the difference between this and the smaller betrayals elsewhere in the series, and it is a cold thing to watch.