I’m not sure what I think of this week’s episode of Ashes to Ashes. On the one hand, I really couldn’t stand the main plot of this episode. On the other hand, the entire episode was kicked off with some of the best “chills and thrills” of the series so far. On to the summary:
The episode begins with an America’s Most Wanted-style reconstruction of a heinous crime: Gil Hollis (played by Matthew Macfadyen, Keeley Hawes’s real-life husband and co-star in Spooks) is a man from Birmingham that spent eight months sitting in a bathtub as a publicity stunt to raise cash for the starving children of Africa. However, he is robbed by “a man and a woman in balaclavas” as he’s going to deposit the cash. The reconstruction is beautifully (and hilariously) done, complete with actors playing hilarious caricatures of Gene, Ray and Chris. Everyone at the station gets a right kick out of it, however Alex watches from home. As Gil’s story continues on Alex’s TV, the Angel of Death interrupts the regularly-scheduled program with an important message:
He tells Alex that he’s going to take the life of someone. Alex sees herself on TV in an autopsy room with the Angel. A sheet is pulled back from a body, but she can’t see who it is. The Angel begins laughing maniacally as he writes a question mark in blood on the calendar written on the TV screen (shown above). After the Angel disappears from the TV, Alex runs to the calendar she pinned to her wall to keep herself sane… only to find the same question mark written in blood:
After the opening credits roll, the gang’s at the station. Hunt is his usual grumpy self, now that there’s considerable public pressure on him to solve the Gil Hollis robbery. Chris rolls Shaz into the main office inside the very tub that Gil used for his stunts. Gene starts taking an involuntary collection, as requested from his superiors, to replace the money that was taken from Gil. While all this is going on, Alex hears water dropping and sees small puddles on her desk from drops falling from the ceiling. She offhandedly tells Shaz that someone needs to take care of the leak, but Shaz doesn’t see any water anywhere. Foreshadowing, perhaps? Hmmmm… Gene and Alex then have an awkward moment where Gene asks her out to dinner that evening. It was painful, given that Gene Hunt is such a badass in everything else, that he’d be so aloof in asking Alex out. In any event, she agrees.
But she doesn’t agree with Hunt about Gil Holis. She initially thinks that Gil could perhaps remember more about the event using a walkthrough. So Drake and Hunt take Gil back to the crime scene, where Gil is not only unhelpful, he actually makes things worse by confusing the details. Were the robbers driving a Datsun or an Allegro? Gil doesn’t really know, because he is painfully obsessive compulsive. He’s so OCD that he can barely remember anything clearly, and his nervous tics and habits annoy the gang. Gil does, however, demand that Gene stop the car when they round a corner and see a particular billboard. Gil runs off to touches it. A group of ska kids see Gil, and start taunting him from a street corner. Gene shushes them with the threats of an ass beating.
Back at the station, the gang work through the robbery using Matchbox cars and a map of the area. Alex then speaks, setting off this gem of a conversation:
Alex: That’s an unusual MO, a male and a female…
Ray: Yeah – a bird doing blags… It’s very disturbing.
Chris: Do you think she wears heels or comfortable shoes?
Alex (to Hunt): I propose, given your reaction to the gender balance of the gang, is that this is their first job?
Hunt: Wot, new kids on the block?
Alex: Now that is a good name for a boy band!
Shaz hands Hunt a piece of paper
Hunt: Chris take that, list of dodgy second-hand car dealers in East 17…
Chris: All right! Backstreet boys!
Ray: Yeah… let’s get ’em busted…
Alex: Oh God, I’m going to scream.
Alex tries a sort of “hypnosis session” with Gil. She has him relax completely, and Gil suddenly remembers the female robber’s eyes. Dark, cold, eyes. Alex goes to the records room to look for possible female robbers with dark eyes. The Angel of Death watches over her in the room, but she doesn’t see him. I think she feels him, though.
Alex then proposes that Gene go on TV as a personal appeal for information. Gene absolutely declines. So you know what’s coming next:
Gene’s TV debut is disastrous. He looks completely uncomfortable, he flubs his lines, he won’t look directly into the camera, he uses Alex’s psychobabble without regard for what it actually means, and the interview eventually goes off the rails completely. Gene’s boss calls immediately after the interview is over, loudly berating him for his performance. Because this was all Alex’s idea, Gene puts the blame squarely on her shoulders.
Back at the station, Gene nurses a whiskey while the cleaning lady dusts his office. He rambles on to her, until he finally demands that someone turn off a boombox that’s blaring ska music. He then has a flash – because of road construction the day of the robbery, the robbers would have had to go past the ska boys’ corner. Hunt and the gang (and some backup) then go back to the ska boys and arrest them all, in an ugly scene all too familiar to anyone that knows anything about Brixton in the 1980s.
Back at the station, a near race riot breaks out. Hunt slings two of the ska kids across desks and up against walls, and suddenly threatens to staple another ska kid’s hat to his head with an industrial-strength staple gun. Hunt’s sheer anger at the ska kid scares the wee outta him, and the kid says that Holis came through, then went back behind a billboard for a few minutes, then took back off again. Hunt orders Gil back to the station for questioning immediately. Gene asks him why he went behind the billboard – to take a pee. He asks him if he took the money with him – of course he did. He asks why the ska boys remembered him going behind the billboard to pee, but don’t remember the supposed getaway car coming through 10 minutes later… Gil has no answer. Questions continue. Gene asks why Gil didn’t mention taking a pee during the walkthrough. Gil says that he can only remember the robber’s eyes, so Gene stages a line-up… and Gil picks Shaz as the robber.
This sends Hunt off on one of his rages. He takes Gil back to the interrogation room, where Gene and Ray use some good, old fashioned violence to get answers from Gil. Seriously, Gene pops his shoulder out of joint twice. It looked painful. Under extreme duress, Gil doesn’t change his story one bit. Alex screams at Gene to stop, asking him where the evidence is. In one of Hunt’s best lines ever, he replies that “evidence can always be found to back up my instinct”. Gene orders Ray to take Gil to the cells.
Alex thinks that Gene is out of control. She talks to Evan White for advice. He recommends that she turn to her superiors. He soon appears at the station, where Evan gives Gene a good dressing down. As his speech is ending, Caroline and Gene’s boss walk in. Caroline has her moment of fun dressing down Gene, which causes Alex to ask her to leave (showing her torn loyalties). Gene’s boss orders him to take some leave. As Gene leaves, he and Alex argue the entire way out of the building. He ends up rudely canceling dinner with Alex, which causes her to kick the side of his beloved Quattro. Alex goes back in the building and gets the cold shoulder from everyone there.
Alex has drinks with Evan later on. He pours them a couple of drinks while Peaches & Herb’s “Reunited” plays in the background. Alex can’t stop laughing about how cheesy the song (and Alex’s approach) is. Evan asks her if they’ve met before, somewhere in the past. Alex says that they’ve met in a different life, and tells him that he was there during a bad time of her life (the day her parent’s car exploded). Alex then gets a flash of Gene Hunt in her head, which she mentions. As soon as she mentions Hunt’s name, Evan becomes uncomfortable and says that he has to leave.
The next morning, Gene arrives back at the station, saying that he forgot something important when he left the day before – a bottle of Scotch. As he’s walking towards the door, he spies something on a videotaped new story about the Holis robbery: a stick-up Garfield plush toy in Hollis’ car window (like this) seems to have dried blood inside the suction cups. He tells the crew to have Alex look in to it when she gets in. The cops apparently have the plush in possession, because the next thing we see is Alex standing in front of the crew, asking everyone about the Garfield toy. She then notices an odd smell… the Garfield toy apparently smells faintly of a chemical toilet.
The gang rush down to the construction scene, where Alex orders Ray to stick his hand in the chemical toilet to look for the gun. Ray passes the job on to Chris, who bravely puts his arm in the muck… and finds a gun. The crew then head back to Luigi’s, where Hunt is eating a “steak and chips” pizza, to inform him that Gil apparently was behind the entire thing. Alex tells Gene that Holis has apparently fled, and the crew leave Luigi’s to look for him… only as soon as Gene tops the stairs, a gunshot rings out which smashes the wine bottle Gene was swigging from. The crew flee back downstairs, while the gunshots continue to ring out. Eventually the shots stop… and there’s a silence… and then Gill yells for Gene to come out. Alex, fearing the Angel of Death, begs Gene not to go talk to him, to which Gene replies that “[he] is not dying in a trattoria”.
Gene goes outside to talk to Gil… Alex follows. Gil laments his entire life, talking about how his wife left him during the stunt and how she thought that Gil cared more about black kids in Africa than his own children. It gets kind of sad at the this point, if it weren’t for the barbed insults Gene shouts back at Gil. Alex tries to talk Gil down, and he ends up throwing the now-empty gun at Gene and taking off. Shaz takes off after him at top speed. Gil runs back to the billboard, where he takes out a pocket knife to pull the stolen money out of a hollow beam. Shaz yells at him to stop, and he turns around, just as Shaz lands on him. The knife penetrates Shaz’s belly, and she hits the ground just as Gene and Alex show up. The poor thing just lies there on the ground, freaking out and crying for her mother. Shaz suddenly sees the Angel of Death, and cries out that she’s afraid of clowns. This causes Alex to scream at her, telling her that she must fight back, no matter how much it hurts. Alex tries CPR as Shaz drifts away. Chris, who has been watching this on bended knee, tries talking to Shaz, then just starts bawling.
Before anything else happens next, the thought hits you: “Man, Gil’s now a cop-killer. They’re gonna beat the shit outta that guy“. And that’s exactly what happens:
As the ass-kicking starts, Alex goes back to work on Shaz. The editing in this scene is fantastic – fists fly in every direction: Chris’s on Gil and Alex’s on Shaz. Chris screams as he beats Gill, Alex screams at Shaz to keep fighting. Shaz suddenly takes a deep breath, and Alex is filled with joy at having beaten the Angel of Death. She’s also filled with anger at the ass beating that Gene and crew just dealt out. She apologizes to Gil for the abuse, who tells her not to worry about it, that life just sucks for everyone.
Back at her place, Alex watches the TV, where her father is reading one of the Narnia books to her as a small child. She turns the TV off at a knock on the door. It’s Evan, who’s come over to see if she was OK. Alex starts babbling the truth to him, saying that no one died today, which proves that she’s in control, which means that she can save the life of her parents in two days, which means that she can go home… “to you and my parents”. Evan obviously doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about, so he tells her not to think so much.
At the station the next morning, Gene apologizes to Viv, who had complained mightily about Gene allowing Chris and Ray to beat up on Gil. Viv says that it’s OK, that “you [Gene] had your reasons”.
Although I’m not nearly as impressed with Ashes to Ashes as I am with Life On Mars, I’m still eagerly awaiting the season finale THIS THURSDAY!
MUSIC HEARD THIS EPISODE
The Clash – “Police On My Back”
Michael Jackson – “One Day In Your Life”
David Bowie – “Fame”
Peaches & Herb – “Reunited”
Gioachino Rossini – William Tell Overture
Marshall Hain – “Dancing in the City”