Category: TV

Sorry for the delay in posting this – I had computer troubles on Tuesday!

This episode kicks off with Alex and Gene chasing a suspect through a “fun run”. As Gene accelerates to catch the bad guy, Alex slows down. Suddenly the street is empty, and she can hear Molly’s voice asking for her. She has a vision of herself being led through the street (towards surgery) on a gurney. She becomes very woozy and starts to sit in the street, but she’s suddenly jarred back to reality as people in costumes jog by her. Gene calls her over to attend to the suspect he has nabbed… only the suspect attempts to get away by jumping over a wall that was a little taller than he had perhaps thought. As the two carry “Heroin Harry” off to jail, Alex looks around at the beautiful little section of London that they’re in:

Alex: “You know, you forget sometimes, how beautiful London can be… the architecture, the canals….”
Gene: “… dead body floating along…”
Alex: “You really have no poetry in your soul at all do you?”
Gene: “No. That dead body, there… look.”

At the morgue, the medical examiner reveals that the body had little water in the lungs, indicating that the man died before hitting the water, probably from blunt trauma to the head. The ME also points out some bizarre scars on the man’s arm, which Ray immediately blames on Satanists. Later on, Chris finds a missing persons report for one Colin Mitchell. Gene looks at the report, then sends Chris and Ray to talk to the man’s wife, while he and Alex go and talk to the man’s father. Gene reminds them that this is a murder investigation, and to keep any information leaked to the wife to as minimum. Before heading out, Shaz asks Chris for a wedding date. Chris evades her.

Continue reading “Ashes to Ashes: Season 2, Episode 6”

I don’t know what to think about this episode of Ashes to Ashes. On the one hand, the “crime of the week” was pretty mundane; on the other, the people the crime happened to were interesting… plus, we finally meet Creepy Doctor! Read on, folks!

This week’s episode kicks off with Alex sleeping on her sofa, with the TV blasting static in the background. The TV suddenly switches to a children’s show, and Orville the Duck (see “Other Stuff” section, below) says that he’s worried about Alex because he thinks she’s going to die. Keith tells Orville told that Alex isn’t going to die because she’s at the hospital, and when she arrived there were two bouquets of flowers waiting for her.  The screen suddenly goes back to static, and Alex hits the TV, trying to get the show back.

We next see an amusing throwaway scene: Gene and the gang are in the Quattro, chasing a panel truck with French markings. The driver of the truck finally pulls over, and the gang gets out. Gene tells Chris to go and hassle the driver. While Chris has the man looking for paperwork, Ray and Gene open the trunk of the Quattro and pull a man out. The man’s hands are tied and there’s tape over his mouth. Gene and Ray take him to the back of the truck, where they open the back door and toss him in. “Now go and be a pain in the derriere to the gendarmerie!”, Gene says.

Back in the car, Alex lectures the rest of the gang on what amounts to an illegal kidnapping, then proceeds to lecture Chris about smoking. Ray, who has been reading the newspaper, complains about the “anti-police” headlines that have been all over the place lately. Gene says that he wishes the reporters would find someone else to pick on. Chris thinks it should be mimes. Ray says that a kid spit in his face that morning because he was a cop. Viv then comes over the radio, taking about a burglary at 2 Stanley Road. Gene tells Viv to give it to some uniformed cops, but Alex suddenly becomes quite animated and demands that they go investigate. Gene asks why they should go, and Alex says that “it’s Pete’s dad!” When Gene asks who Pete is, Alex says he is Molly’s father, and that they’ve got to get to the Drakes. Gene wonders if they “have the misfortune” to be related to Alex. Alex says that “it’s going to be weird”, to which Gene quips “that’ll make a nice change”.

Continue reading “Ashes to Ashes: Season 2, episode 5”

Wow! Wow! Just… wow! After last week’s snoozer, Ashes to Ashes came roaring back with one of the best episodes ever! Let’s stop playing around and get right to it!

The episode begins at Liugi’s, where Gene has told the gang about his pending transfer to Plymouth. Everyone’s heartbroken, and it’s made worse by a much larger table full of guys from “Division A” who are taunting Gene and the gang by singing “Combine Harvester” with exaggerated West Country accents. Ray, defending the group’s honor, tosses a roll at the next table. Chris joins in. An all-out food fight starts, which quickly escalates into a real brawl, despite Luigi’s pleas to take it outside.

Before the fight breaks out, Alex excuses herself and leaves, and just as the fight starts, the gang turns around and finds that Gene has disappeared… leading the others to wonder what, exactly, the two are up to. Is it an affair?

Actually, no: Alex and Gene are busy planting a bug in Supermac’s office. As Gene stands on Mac’s desk to plant the bug, Alex wonders aloud where all of Mac’s purloined money is going. She mentions a gold bullion heist where some of the evidence “disappeared”, yet Mac still lives in the same house, drives the same car, and still takes the same crappy vacations. Alex wonders if it’s time to bring Ray and Chris in on it, but Gene says no. The two then go to Gene’s office to work on a flip chart of all of Mac’s connections.

The next morning, Ray, Chris, Shaz and Viv find Alex and Gene asleep in his office. Although the two are fully clothed and sleeping on separate chairs, everyone looks at them as if the two were sleeping together. Ray blasts Gene for leaving them at Luigi’s… and just as he finishes, intrepid reporter Jackie Queen walks in (see the “Other Stuff” section, below). She agrees that Gene has always ran away from his obligations… and opens her coat to reveal that she is very pregnant:

Gene says that he can’t possibly be the father, as there is no way that he would ever sleep with Jackie. Jackie says that they most certainly did sleep together, although Gene was too drunk to remember it. Jackie then reveals that she’s also there for another reason: she’s writing a news story about teenage girls that come to London from northern England and go missing. She’s specifically looking for a girl named Rachel Lessing. But here’s the thing: the Met has actively ignored her requests for information. Gene asks Jackie who she had spoken to, and she apparently names Viv. Gene talks to Viv, who says that he was acting under a direct order from Mac.

Continue reading “Ashes to Ashes: Season 2 Episode 4”

This episode begins with Alex sitting on the sofa, battling insomnia by drinking wine and watching TV. She’s watching Take Hart, a show about painting (a British version of Bob Ross, if you will), when she gives up and turns off the TV with the remote. She gets up to walk to the bedroom… and the TV comes back on by itself. At the same time, she doubles over in pain. The TV shows Morph, a claymation character from Take Hart, preparing a defibrillator. A voice asks if Morph will help Alex. When he shocks Alex with the paddles (on TV), the real Alex flies across the room and crashes into the wall. Morph then appears to give up on her, and the voice asks why he’s given up. Morph replies (in gibberish), and the voice asks “what do you mean, ‘she’s given up?'”. Morph then gets a sad look, changes into a ball, then rolls offscreen. We then see Morph stretched into a straight line representing a heartbeat monitor, which beats for a few seconds then flatlines.

The next morning, we see Alex and Gene arrive at Felhurst Prison to interview Kevin Hales. The guard asks why they’re there, and Gene says it’s to interview Kevin. The guard says that “you won’t be doing that today”, then nods towards a body bag being rolled towards a van. Kevin Hales, it seems, has committed suicide by hanging himself. Gene asks if no one tried to stop him. The guard says that “health and safety rules” prevented them from running to his aid; he says this with a knowing look on his face. He might as well have winked and said “say no more, say no more!”

Back at the station, Gene goes through Kevin’s possessions. He looks at a letter that appears to be of interest, but we see nothing more at this point. In fact, Gene disappears completely by the time the next thing happens: a father and daughter walk through the doors of the station carrying a box.

Continue reading “Ashes to Ashes: Season 2, Episode 3”

After last week’s massive 4000+ word recap, you’ll probably be disappointed with this week’s recap. I’m really going to make an effort to make this short and sweet… so here goes:

The episode begins with Alex having a daydream or hallucination. She’s walking down a hall at the police station, and spies a girl that looks a bit like Molly. She takes a few steps towards her, then hears “operating room noises” from a door to her right. She bangs on the door and tries desperately to open it. She comes back to “reality”, still banging on the door, and asks Shaz if she has the key to the door. Shaz looks at her oddly, and simply turns the knob… to reveal an empty “Interview Room 1”. Alex asks Shaz if he could “hear them talking” and other things that make her sound like a loon. The important thing here is that Alex wonders aloud if she’s forgetting her life in 2008.

Shaz says that Hunt has been calling for her (“loudly”) and so Alex goes outside to find Gene. As she steps outside, she hears the helicopter sound again and so she looks up in the air. Two guys are nearby, working on a disabled police car with the hood up. At first, Alex hears them talking as if they were EMT workers, but eventually their words morph back to the present (1982) day, where one of them says he wants to get a sandwich. Alex walks up to them, once again talking like a crazy person. “Fight for me”, she begs. “More like fight over ya, darlin'” one of them says.

Thankfully, Gene pulls up just then in the Quattro. He says they’ve gotten a tip about “Operation Burning Ring”, and we next see them in a car chase near a gypsy camp. Hunt pulls the Quattro even with the fleeing car, and Alex notices that the man appears to be intoxicated or having a seizure. We then hear a “crunching” sound, but we do not see Gene hit the other vehicle, nor do we see any obvious damage to the Quattro. In any case, the car flies off the road and has a spectacular crash, coming to as rest just at the edge of the gypsy camp.

Continue reading “Ashes to Ashes: Season 2, Episode 2”