Episode 5.5 [Rewatch]

[Silktie]

This episode is really good at ratcheting up the tension. You can just see the net being spun tighter and tighter around Ruth, and the options diminishing for Harry.

I bloody love the Harry/Mace scenes in this episode. Mace is such a wonderful bad guy, and his unscrupulous use of Ruth to get at Harry underlines how ruthless (ha!) he really is. What makes it more interesting, is that at the beginning of the episode Harry apparently still thinks he can persuade Mace to fight the good fight with him, not knowing that Mace was on the dark side from the beginning.

What also makes this episode interesting to me, is that we as an audience can see that if only one or two people made different decisions early on, the whole thing could have been avoided: if only Harry believed Ruth from the start that there was a drop, if only Jo didn't plant that tracker on Ruth and tell Ros about it, if only Ruth didn't go off to do her own investigation, if only Ros didn't try to get at Harry by shopping Ruth to Mace... The permutations are endless.

The Ruth/Harry stuff is wonderful, and truly touching. Harry is so gentle with her throughout this episode, even when he doesn't believe her about the drop. And the way he falls on his sword in an attempt to save her, is so sweet. Who would've though Harry Pearce had that in him? I love their goodbye too, it's not too melodramatic, and very understated, and yet the two actors manage to convey the absolute heartbreak of both these characters. Great stuff.

Ros, here, is probably at her most unlikeable for me. It's her attitude that irritates me more than the fact that she sells out Ruth. Her motivation is never to do the right thing, or because she truly believed Ruth was doing something wrong. She saw an opportunity to hurt Harry, to pay him back for the fact that he couldn't get her father's sentence reduced, and takes it. And when Adam confronts her on it, she continues to lie about why she did it. Then, even when she is forced to admit that Ruth is being set up, she continues with her snotty attitude towards Ruth, by refusing to apologise. And later, when Zaf refuses to tell her where Ruth is, she is snotty about that too. It's her complete unwillingness to accept responsibility for her actions that I loathe most of all.

I do love that Ruth gets a little shirty with her when Ros tells her she never apologises, with her "But if you did" response. It's the closest we've ever seen Ruth come to telling someone off.

I think RPJ did a great job with portraying Adam's PTSD in this episode, and you can tell throughout that he's never really at his best here. Would he have been able to save Ruth if he'd been on top form? Another for the 'if only' pile.