You know, I'm assuming Jean Stewart is a woman, though can't corroborate that anywhere - I was going to say it was a smart move to engage a female director on a three-parter that is focused on rape - Jimmy McGovern's most intelligent screenplay looks at all attitudes - male attitudes to women generally and on rape specifically, the crime, the rapist, the victims, the friends and relatives of victims, the societal implications (including race), police attitudes (both outward and internally) and procedures (telling line from police doctor to victim - 'It's so much easier when they're educated'). But not in a didactic way. In fact, putting Panhandle and the long-questionable Beck and Fitz into the centre of the story makes it uniquely involving, one of the best of the series. It even ends the season on a cliffhanger (after the tense ending at Fitz's home) with Panhandle - sorry, Penhaligon - holding Beck's own gun in his mouth as she straddles him... This is also great for the audience because (despite nuanced writing) most of us can't stand Beck, and couldn't even thirty years ago...
Graham Aggrey is the rapist. Ivan Strasburg still on camera, Tony Cranstoun editing.
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