But what a difference a resurrected corpse can make. Now that evil Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie) has done a Dirty Den and returned from the dead we finally have a character who doesn’t make you want to doze off. Though it wasn’t quite the thunderclap moment that the programme-makers perhaps thought it was.
I said in my first review of this series that there was something iffy about when Angela Burr (Olivia Colman) identified Roper’s body — and it wasn’t just her ropey northern accent. It didn’t look like Roper and why wasn’t Pine (Tom Hiddleston) allowed to get close to the body? I think we all knew this was coming. It’s a well-worn plot device. But it has given the series a much needed kick up the backside. “When you’ve slain the dragon, always check its breath,” Roper said.
Roper had talked his way out of his underground hell pit in Syria by means of “old boy” charm and bribery. Then he threatened to kill Burr and her child if she didn’t pretend to identify his corpse. So here he is in Colombia with his secret son, Teddy, and three lovely dogs (Chloe, Ronnie and Reggie, FYI), back to his old wicked ways but going stir crazy in his compound and homesick for England. He sang a Gilbert and Sullivan song to prove it.
It seems Mayra from MI6 (Indira Varma) is going to buy him a mansion just outside Oxford as a reward for helping to arm the local Colombian militia and kickstart a rebel war to bring about regime change. Or something. Happily, time in a desert coffin hasn’t made him any nicer. He told one of his lackeys that he would feed him “piece by screaming piece” to said dogs.
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It was an episode in which we also learnt something useful and possibly interesting for later. Jed (played by Elizabeth Debicki in series one) is alive. When Roper said he wanted Danny, his teenage son, to live with him in England, he told Sandy Langbourne (Alistair Petrie) to make her an offer, presumably one that she can’t refuse given that last time Roper had her tortured. And it seems that he is not all that fond of Teddy and is prepared to throw his own son under the bus.
What Roper didn’t realise until the closing minutes was that Pine has been peering at him through a pair of binoculars and getting someone to stick a recording device in one of his dog’s collars. We were in the realms of comical farce when Pine stole a motorbike so that he could chase through the streets of Medellin for a showdown and a ludicrous shootout with Teddy.
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But the cliffhanger was good, Teddy sending through the photo of the “Hong Kong investor” and Roper seeing to his horror that it was Pine. Hilarious that the photo was sent by fax for added dramatic effect, the “gradual reveal” of his face as it chugged out of the machine, when Teddy could have just pinged the photo on his phone. But never mind. At least the show has woken up and started getting back to form. About time.
★★★★☆
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