End Game (2)

The chess metaphor sits over the second half of End Game, and it fits. Linda Cummings has been moving pieces around Boyd for two episodes, and here the awful truth behind the hospital's walls finally surfaces. The conspiracies and crimes uncovered inside are not accidents. Every one of them has been steered into place so that Cummings can reach her endgame: checkmate against the man who put her away. The case was never really about the deaths. It was about the game.

The setting does half the work. A psychiatric hospital is a closed box, and the episode presses everyone inside it until the secrets start to sweat. The team work in corridors and offices where any door might be watched, and the claustrophobia is the point. But Cummings has spent the whole story a move ahead, and watching her watch them is its own pleasure. Sue Johnston's Grace Foley and Tara Fitzgerald's Eve Lockhart carry much of the burden, and Ruth Gemmell plays Cummings with the patience of someone who has already won. Grace and Eve have been through worse, but this feels personal.

It is a large cast for a story this contained, and nobody feels wasted. Trevor Eve's Boyd stays at the centre, with Wil Johnson's Jordan and Stacey Roca's Katrina Howard, and the supporting cast of Jackie, Dr Mohammed, Ellen and David O'Neal filling the corners. Daniel Percival directs from a script shared with Barbara Machin and Andrew Holden.

It is a satisfying close to the story. The hospital is not just a backdrop. The building is part of the plot, and the writers make sure you feel it. The truth it uncovers is ugly, and the episode does not soften it. Cummings plays her game to the end. Boyd gets his answer, and neither outcome looks like much of a victory.