Episode 3

Episode three keeps the investigation grinding on and adds a nasty new ingredient: the bomber is watching. Counter Terrorism Command is learning more about the recent killings with Lana's help, and every step forward is being logged by someone on the other side. The episode's trick is to make the police work feel like a game of chess where the opponent can see the board, and the players on our side are the last to know, and the most exposed.

The bomber does not treat the inquiry as something to survive; he treats it as part of the campaign, something to shape and steer while the team thinks it is closing in. Chris Brandon and Daniel Brierley's script keeps the two tracks running side by side, the evidence mounting on one, the watchful eye on the other, and the gap between them is where the dread lives, and where the hour does its best work.

Jamie Donoughue directs with a steady hand, and the cast keeps pace. Vicky McClure's Lana remains the anchor, joined by Maisie Ayres's Wren Cheshire, Katie Bernstein's Jenny Manning, Kaye Brown's Jo Adeyemi, Nabil Elouahabi's Hassan Rahim, Jason Flemyng's Steven Wyles, Gabriella Fortuna's Jessica Tanbury, Tom Glenister's DC Neil Brenton, Christopher Hatherall's Phil Croxley and William Ilkley's Isaac Wyles, all of them feeding the sense that the room is being listened to.

But the result is an hour of simmering dread rather than spectacle. Every gain the team makes feels necessary and perilously exposed at the same time, which is exactly the right mood for this stretch of the season. You watch them work, and you keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. The episode knows something they do not, and it lets you share that knowledge uncomfortably. Nothing here is wasted, and every scene earns its place.