Operation Brightside

After the conclusion of last week’s episode of ‘Blue Lights,’ nerves were fraying on the loyalist Mount Eden estate as residents fretted about a possible paramilitary feud.

(SPOILER ALERT!!)

The shooting last week of Chris Corrigan’s Jim Dixon sent shockwaves through the community and catapulted Blackthorn Police Station into a flurry of activity.

Although you wouldn’t have known it from the start of this week’s episode, as Katherine Devlin’s PC Annie Conlon and Frank Blake’s PC Shane Bradley woke up in bed together after a night on the tear.

After agreeing they were idiots, Annie panicked when Sian Brooke’s PC Grace Ellis returned home to find beer bottles and takeaway cartons all over her kitchen.

Fearing Annie had taken a huge risk by bringing a stranger home, Grace’s jaw dropped when Shane burst into the kitchen and told them the news about Jim Dixon.

Back at Blackthorn Police Station, Joanne Crawford’s Inspector Helen McNally and Des Eastwood’s DS Murray Canning of the Paramilitary Taskforce were under pressure to explain who murdered Jim Dixon and how they were going to contain it.

Helen gave Andrea Irvine’s Chief Superintendent Nicola Robinson a quick rundown of the police response to the shooting.

A call had been put out for officers from other districts to come to Belfast to boost police numbers in Mount Eden, with everyone working 12 hour shifts.

Smarting from the Chief Superintendent’s rap on his knuckles, DS Canning pulled Shane aside to take him to task for smelling of booze and having no intel on who shot Dixon.

“I need you to step up here,” he whinged before telling Shane that if he didn’t get his act together, he’d no longer be on the fast track to the Paramilitary Taskforce and would remain stuck in Blackthorn.

On the streets of Mount Eden, Grace and Martin McCann’s PC Stevie Neil had the unenviable task of knocking doors in the hope that residents might have heard or seen anything the night before.

It seemed a fruitless task until Stevie spotted a doorbell camera at the home of Carol Moore’s Eileen.

However they were told by the pensioner that they would have to get a warrant to obtain her footage.

Moments later, PCs Ellis and Neil were delighted to be pulled out of the estate to investigate a suspicious death in a middle class neighbourhood.

North of Belfast, Nathan Braniff’s PC Tommy Foster was back on the Glenshane Pass, wooing Dearbhaile McKinney’s Stroke City PC Aisling on the bus/diner where we had seen them eating the week before.

“What will it be, Romeo?” asked the waitress who was appalled last week by his choice of scrambled eggs, no toast.

She was delighted when Tommy opted for a fry and when the food arrived, he jabbered excitedly about being given a glimpse into Murray Canning’s shady world of keeping paramilitaries in check.

However Aisling was unimpressed.

After Tommy was summoned back to “Gotham City” by Andi Osho’s Sergeant Sandra Cliff to join his colleagues on Operation Brightside, Aisling revealed she was heading there too because officers from other districts were being drafted in.

Meanwhile former soldier, taxi firm owner and wannabe crime boss, Seamus O’Hara’s Lee Thompson was in Belfast city centre for a rendezvous with Abigail McGibbon’s Tina McIntyre and Charlie Maher’s mouthy Dublin criminal Fogerty to float a business proposition.

With Dixon gone and his loyalist paramilitary rival, Tony Flynn’s Davy Hamill being questioned about his death, Lee pitched that he could step in and use his taxi fleet instead to ferry drugs across Belfast, making even more wads of cash for Tina and Fogerty.

Despite almost being shot in Series One and making an observation that “the trouble with you Nordies is you love chaos,” Fogerty quickly bought into the idea.

After the meeting, Lee hotfooted it up to the Mount Eden community centre where Jonathan Harden’s Inspector David ‘Jonty’ Johnston was trying to reassure residents about Operation Brightside as a former neighbourhood policing officer.

Earlier in the episode, Jonty had an uneasy encounter with Sandra, PC Gerry Cliff’s widow in the police station where she bluntly told him she hadn’t read the letter he had sent after her husband’s death.

But if that was bruising, it was nothing compared to the residents of Mount Eden who proved an even tougher nut to crack, especially when Lee turned up.

Passionately expressing his view that Jim Dixon and Davy Hamill were “paramilitary scumbags” who leeched off their neighbours through payday loans and demanding protection money, he whipped residents up into a frenzy by claiming the PSNI were aware of both loyalist’s activities yet had still tolerated it.

Tensions on the Mount Eden estate further ratcheted up when Shane got carried away during a routine stop and search of cars with Annie.

He started harassing Dan Gordon’s veteran loyalist Rab McKendry in front of Lee’s impressionable young nephew, Alfie Lawless’s Henry Thompson.

With Mount Eden becoming a tinderbox, the officers of Blackthorn Police Station still remained oblivious to Lee’s rise as a gangland chief.

But when would the penny drop or would it be too late?

Halfway through Series Two, it is still clear that Declan Lawn, Adam Patterson and their writers are carefully building up to an explosive finale.

With Patterson and Lawn again on directorial duties working from a script by Bronagh Taggart, tonight’s episode demonstrated how the show continues to benefit from the duo’s extensive research with serving or former police officers.

But for all its authenticity, it is not yet clear if Series Two can eclipse Series One.

On the plus side, Lee Thompson is emerging as an intriguing underworld figure, while DS Murray Canning is comfortably fitting into the role of Blackthorn’s enemy within.

But the jury is still out on the series’ legacy storyline, which this week saw Hannah McClean’s Jen Robinson prick the conscience of former ‘Casualty’ star Derek Thompson‘s traumatised ex RUC Special Branch officer Robin Graham about his failure to prevent a 1978 chip shop bombing.

This storyline could yield dividends but it is also plain to see how it could very easily go Scooby Doo.

Taggart did a decent job, though, in this episode with her subplot about a gay couple at the centre of a suspicious death.

While the romantic exploits of the cast can sometimes feel too soapy and a bit of a distraction, Patterson and Lawn still managed to deliver a bit of a bombshell at the end of the episode about one pairing.

The show’s creators also delivered another handsome looking episode with some splendid drone shots of the city.

As for the cast, O’Hara again impressed as Lee, while Kenneth Branagh lookalike Frank Blake showed more potential as we saw the darker side of Shane.

In the absence of IFTA award winning Richard Dormer’s larger than life character Gerry Cliff, Brooke, McCann, Osho and Crawford continued to step up and provide some heft, while Harden’s Jonty has emerged as a far more interesting character than in Series One.

Eastwood is clearly relishing playing the office villain.

Seana Kerslake, though, feels underused, while Abigail McGibbon’s brief appearances are so good, they leave you wanting more.

As Series Two heads towards the business end of the show, it’s not without some trepidation.

There are storylines that could easily undermine the series or propel it to a higher plain.

Here’s hoping it’s the latter.