Review: GHTTB: Ashes To Ashes 2.1

Sally from Hyde dies in Gene's arms.

Ashes To Ashes - Series Two, Episode One

The second series of Ashes To Ashes is certainly more slick from a production side of things. The Eighties music from 1982 is even more atmospheric, and the direction has been cleaned right up. This series is my favouirte from the entire bonanza, because for the first time it has a series arc completely seperate from Alex's shenanigans.
     While there's news on the outside of Alex's discovery, the team discover a police officer strung up from the ceiling in Soho, apparently a victim of autoerotic asphyxiation. There's only one piece of evidence - a polaroid of the victim and a female friend. The group is under pressure to find out who's responsible from Superintendant Mackintosh (SuperMac, played by Roger Allam), who Alex likes for his progressionist attitude. They question the stripper from the photo, who Gene tries to protect because of her Mancunian heritage. The dead police officer's best friend, P.C. Kevin Hales, is incredibly concerned about his friend's death.
     The coroner's report comes back with date-rape drugs in his blood and signs of being forced down. When they talk to the stripper again, she is shot by an unseen assailant. Her death spurs Gene on. They question the policeman's wife again, who was playing away with SuperMac. Alex finds a rose on her desk with a note congratulating her on being found. Looking on evidence for Hale, Alex finds photos with the word Pont de L'alma - the place where Diana died in 1997, although Alex won't realise this for a while. They talk to Hale again, and get nothing.

Does SuperMac want to clean up the Force, or rule over it?

       The copper's wife comes to speak to Gene outside the station, "where the walls don't have ears." Her house has been raided, and she realises that it was probably their husband's diary that they were looking for. As Alex heads out on her own, the team find Hales' faint face in the polaroid, proving he knew something. Someone attacks Alex with chloroform, and she wakes up under surgery lights in a scene that teases her return to reality. Her kidnapper sends sounds of her scream to CID, and teases Alex about why she's in 1982 instead of the present. Gene fínds her as her kidnapper escapes. Alex and Gene go to arrest Hale, but he's been tipped off and is armed and drunk. Alex talks him down, and after they found that Hale has been accepting bribes, and is part of a larger conspiracy.
     Episode 2.1 begins the new angle of Police Corruption in a way that's incredibly entertaining. Unlike the arcs from the previous three series, which consisted of hallucinations, this feels more intriguing sheerly because the clues are there for us to follow. And, for the first time, there's an arc from both Alex and Gene's perspective; Gene is treated like a character in his own right and is all the better for it.
      Unfortunately, the set-up of these two new arcs made it nearly impossible for there to be a cohesive mystery, and so the episode jumped around between a set of people before the hasty explanation of the plot in the endscene. The only thing that really made it unique was the more overt commentary of the objectification of women and the tie-in to the Police Corruption plot that will be rumbling on throughout this series.

Alex receives anonymous letters from someone aware of her
true home.

      The first episode of this series got off to a great start, but its main story was distracted by two incredibly well-executed set-ups for this series' arcs. It could have had a much stronger central concept but everything else is on top form - characterisation, direction and certainly storytelling, as we advance upon one of the Bonanza's strongest series.

Thanks.