Episode 3

Lana Washington is having a bad week, and the show knows it. She is struggling publicly with the dangers of the job, and the only steadying hand she seems to have is Karl. Then the far-right group calling themselves the Crusaders claim responsibility for the mosque attack, and the bombing campaign finds a new target in an LGBT establishment. The threat level climbs, and so does the body count.

But the heart of the episode is forensic. Lana finds a link between the bomb at the mosque and an earlier device at Westhaven, and the question that drives the hour is a simple, nasty one: were both bombs the work of the same person? One link is all it takes to turn a lone incident into a pattern. The police race to answer it, trying to decide whether they are facing coordinated terrorism or a string of isolated acts of malice, and the difference matters because it changes who they hunt and how.

Daniel Brierley wrote it and Gilles Bannier directed it, and the hour is tightly focused on the aftermath of domestic extremism. McClure anchors the cast, her Lana's dedication tested from every side. Cal MacAninch's Inspector Lee Robins offers the institutional view, while Kris Hitchen and Nadine Marshall carry the senior investigation as John Hudson and DSU Marianne Hamilton. Ralph Ineson's Commander Bregman watches over it all. On the ground, Michael Akinsulire and Gwynfor Jones reappear as PS Carney and PS Brown, Tom Stokes and Rick Warden turn up as Pete and Andy Phelan, and Ewan Mitchell's Billy Washington is never far from Lana's orbit.

The episode keeps a palpable sense of mounting dread, and it uses the shared crisis to look at both systemic failure and individual resilience. That it does so without losing its grip as a thriller is a real achievement. It is the kind of hour that makes you check your own front door on the way to bed. Satisfying, uncomfortable viewing.