WRITER: Neil Cross[SPOILERS] A more typical crime investigation this week, with a killer who wasn't close to anything like a femme fatale getting away with familicide or a creepy "vampire", but instead an everyday husband (Rob Jarvis) with a handbag fetish whose marriage has staled and provoked him into posing as a taxi driver to befriend stray women and kill them. It wasn't a great story in terms of developing Luther's (Idris Elba) character, who was anchored to the office for most of it, but it was less reliant on silly deductive leaps to drive the plot forward and it had more credibility because of that.
DIRECTOR: Sam Miller
GUEST CAST: Warren Brown, Dermot Crowley, Rob Jarvis, Linda Walker, Anton Saunders, Michael Smiley, Johann Meyer, Stacey Sampson, Okorie Chukwu & Matti Houghton
The supporting storyline with Alice (Ruth Wilson) continued quite nicely, although I'm not sold on the idea she's Luther's kindred spirit he can't resist giving face-time to. He's indulging her far too much, and it's getting ridiculous, but there is something inherently enjoyable about such a devious character taking a special interest in the only person (a detective, no less) who "gets" her.
The main story was routine and unoriginal (the kind of thing any number of detective drama have tackled before), but it was told well and there was great acting from Linda Walker as the wife whose affair with another man (Johann Meyers) tipped her impotent husband Graham over the edge. The scene where she was intentionally left alone in an interview room with the case-file on the murders Graham's committed, unable to resist sneaking a look at the horrors contained within, was particularly well done. Although I still don't understand why that tactic was necessary on Luther's part; wouldn't she have been as cooperative if you'd just told her what other half's been doing at night?
The climax of this episode was ghoulish fun, essentially turning the episode into a horror movie; Graham beating his wife's lover to death with a hammer, calling an escort girl to the house to kill her, only for the cops to warn the call girl and have her hide in the bathroom, which Graham proceeded to smash down in a full-on homage to The Shining. Much to enjoy, but the episode's unexceptional premise, lack of insight into Luther himself, and the increasingly ridiculous Luther/Alice dynamic, made it less interesting overall.
Aside
- Luther sometimes tries to crack cases by mixing up crime scene photos on the office floor, out of order, as David Bowie does with song lyrics. Later, it's revealed that Alice has heterochromia (mismatched eye colour), as does Bowie. I'm not sure what that's trying to say, but it can't have been coincidence.
