Going Under

The second series opens with Alan Oxford undercover in Manchester, and the job is cursed from the first day. The gang runs drugs and armed robbery, which is dangerous enough company. Worse, his identity comes out early, leaked by a bent officer from Manchester CID. He has done this kind of work before, and it has nearly killed him before. And from the moment the leak happens, the episode is a countdown to the moment they catch him.

The countdown ends with Oxford taped up from the neck down, a strip across his mouth, in a coffin. It is the image the episode is built around, and it earns it. The gang does not rush the job, which somehow makes it worse. Charlie Scott is left to plead with a member of the gang for help, about as far from the squad's usual footing as the show ever gets. Bryony Oxford is in the background, living the side of the job nobody signs up for.

Roy Mitchell wrote it, Colin Gregg directed, and it aired on 10 October 1996. Gary McDonald's Oxford is the right kind of undercover copper, steady and unshowy, easy to mistake for the real thing. Reece Dinsdale's Scott is the one sweating, and Brendan Coyle's Tate is around for the heavier moments. Gary Beadle plays John Boyd, Robbie Gee plays Dalton McQuarrie, Tony Marshall plays Tony Watts, Grant Masters plays Daniel Grant, and Kate McKenzie plays Stephanie Scott.

Going Under is a strong way to open a season: it takes the show's most reliable character and strips away everything he relies on, leaving him in a box. The leak from CID is the detail that makes it sting. Oxford's own side sold him. Undercover work is not a game of wits this week; it is just luck, and the luck is bad.