Conviction (2)

"Conviction (2)" starts where part one ended: with a body found, a family broken and a confession that fits too neatly. Lisbetta has admitted to killing her own son, but nobody with a functioning antenna believes her. Boyd certainly doesn't, which is why he swallows his pride and asks Sarah Cavendish for help. She has the specialist knowledge to expose the state's involvement in Karl Barclay's death, and the asking costs him more than the favour will.

The accounts of what happened to Karl keep contradicting each other. Jakob points at Mohammed, another member of the group, claiming he killed Karl before going back to Pakistan. Tristan, Sarah's colleague from the terrorist squad, has a different version: Karl died because he refused a bombing mission. Two stories, neither of them clean. Then Boyd is snatched and tied to a bomb, and Sarah is lured into the trap to save him. She does, and the brush with death settles something in her. Tristan, she decides, is lying.

The episode is quietly giving Sarah a way out of her own past. She has carried the blame for an operation in which one of her policemen was killed, and this bomb is the thing that finally lets her put it down. Naz, too, owns up to her buried truth: she loved one of her Islamic contemporaries, and that love led her to betray another person to the authorities.

The case closes, formally, though not to Boyd's satisfaction. But something has shifted between the two of them. Sarah withdraws every objection she has ever made to his leadership, which for this pair is as close as it gets to a love letter.

Barbara Machin and Timothy Prager wrote it, with Tim Fywell directing. Trevor Eve's Boyd, Sue Johnston's Grace, Tara Fitzgerald's Eve, Wil Johnson's Jordan and Eva Birthistle's Cavendish hold the centre, with Ashley Chin as Jakob, Claire Benedict as Lisbetta, Amber Aga as Nazeem, Babatunde Aleshe as Karl and Junade Khan as Mohammed.

Not a triumphant close, then. A settled one.