Deeply unsatisfying conclusion

I, like many people, thought this show was awful when I first started watching it. I have to admit I found it midway into the second season, and Rachel's immaturity was almost unbearable. For for want of better shows on American TV, I stuck with it, caught up with the first season, and really liked the third season. The fourth was also good, and it very much seemed as if it would be the last season from the way they had wrapped up the last episode.

So I was surprised and pleased to see there was a fifth season, although unhappy there were only 3 rather than 8 episodes. Now that I've seen them all, I can say, my goodness, they needed those extra 5 episodes. And a different writer.


But in the end, this last season was a great mistake, as the characters not only did not grow, but rather ridiculously began sporting characteristics we'd never seen before. Rachel was cocky and stupid as per usual, but even she did things that her character would not have done, like going to Victoria Station without ascertaining the message was from Janet (even I recognized it wasn't her voice), and rather than calling for immediate help on the general line, tried Janet's work phone after she didn't pick up her cell when Rachel was trapped with a killer.

Introducing a new character while killing off an old one who unbelievably suddenly forgot his years of experience, lost classified material, and then got himself killed, all while Rachel is busy bollocking everyone. It makes sense that Gill would have not been replaced, but the minute the case was discovered to be a serial killer, it would have been handed up. Rachel has been a sergeant for all of a year, and that year was spent in London. Why on earth would she be asked to head up this investigation back in Manchester, and after all the cock ups, why would she be allowed to keep it?

So let's just let all that go for now. We have the first two episodes setting up the plot (murkily - hard to follow) and then in a single 45 minute episode, we wrap everything up. But then, we don't. We don't know if the leak was from the missing day book. We don't know who leaked it. We never figure out if Will Pemberton was ever in the picture again for Rachel, and we are mystified why she would keep a stranger's baby, knowing she can't handle her own life. That kid will also be mentally and emotionally damaged because she was drinking her entire pregnancy, up to her 4th month, and drinking early in pregnancy gives the fetus fetal alcohol syndrome or fetal alcohol effect. That could actually explain a lot about Rachel and her family, but never mind.

This production suffered because they were trying to cram an 8 episode season into 3 episodes, and whoever wrote it didn't seem to understand what these characters were about. You have a serial killer working for years and suddenly when Syndicate 9 gets involved, the killer goes after Rachel? The oldest trope in the book. Tasie suddenly gets dick pics? Rachel lets someone she's not worked with before interview a serial killing suspect, and then when she sees the detective is botching the interview, she doesn't go in and stop it? Rachel finds a body of the girl they were trying to protect and there is nothing said about it?

An exasperating, painful, and poor end to an interesting concept.