Line of Duty finale pulls in 12.8m viewers, but fans were ‘definately' not happy
Mother of God, that can't be how it ends?
On Sunday night, millions of fans tuned in to the BBC to see our favourite detectives close the net around ‘H’, the assumed fourth corrupt copper inside the police force.
The final episode of the sixth series of Line Of Duty was watched by an average of 12.8 million people, according to the BBC. It had a 56.2% share in overnight viewing figures and the episode had a peak viewing figure of 13.1 million.
The episode was a much-anticipated conclusion to a series arch that stretches back to 2012 and AC-12 was expected to at last unveil a high-ranking police officer who was pulling the strings to orchestrate and facilitate corruption within the force and who allowed members of organised crime groups (OCGs) to work freely throughout the city.
Instead, fans were left underwhelmed, confused and angry and with no future seasons confirmed or denied, they are grappling with the thought that this is all there is to the story.
H was believed to be ‘The Fourth Man’ within the police force working with OCGs. The other three were DI Matthew “Dot” Cottan, ACC Derek Hilton and Senior Legal Counsel Gill Biggeloe, who were identified in previous seasons.
The prime suspects ahead of the finale were DCSupt Patricia Carmichael, who is taking over the anti-corruption unit following Ted Hastings forced retirement, Chief Constable Philip Osborne, who has been in the show since the first episode and his attempt to cover up the shooting of an innocent man in season one led Steve Arnott to join AC-12, and DCI Marcus Thurwell, a high-ranking corrupt police officer played by Jimmy Nesbitt and believed to be living in Spain.
Instead, the episode revealed that Detective Superintendent Ian Buckells was the missing link. Yes, really, the blundering bobby who has been cropping up over the years. And it has rubbed fans up the wrong way.
“I can’t accept that ending. I’m sorry, I would rather have had Kate be H,” one disgusted viewer wrote.
Another added: “I'm not buying it that it stops at him. There's got to be more to it, and there's got to be a S7 to wrap it up!”
I know! Even Hastings was dismayed by the revelation, describing the cop as someone who “failed upwards” in the organisation.
“All the time we were sitting here thinking we were chasing a criminal mastermind, but no....your corruption was mistaken for incompetence.”
Social media was soon alight with confused and annoyed viewers and both ‘Buckells’ and ‘Buckles’ began to trend on Twitter as people were two angry to spellcheck. Desperate times, etc.
One person wrote: “No way is Buckells the top man. What a flop.”
“Ian Buckells told Jo Davidson to plant evidence against Ian Buckells by putting files in the boot of his service vehicle. pls make it make sense,” another said.
Viewers think not. One wrote on Twitter: “Buckells 100% isn’t H, I believe this is the face of a man who’s just covered for the real fourth man so they can carry on, or is that just what I’m hoping?”
One of the key clues throughout the series was a tiny misspelling that often cropped up in correspondence between the OCGs and The Fourth Man. Ted, Steve and Kate became obsessed with the spelling of ‘definately’, soon becoming literal grammar police.
Chloe cross-checked the spelling against both evidence seized in connection with OCDs and within police files on the system and each instance it appeared in either, Buckell’s fingerprints were all over it.
Fans aren’t buying it though, and theories are still swirling around social media.
“He was there from the very first moments in series one, with the anti-terrorist operation gone wrong coverup. And he was brought back now as Chief Constable. Obsorne is definately the man who's been pulling the strings the whole time! Buckells' smirk said it all,” one viewer thinks.
Fans feel hard done by that it was neither a long-running theory like Carmichael or Osborne nor was it Thurwell, who apparently was murdered in Spain some weeks earlier, meaning the surfacing of a photo of James Nesbitt on-screen was merely a red herring.
Cartoonist TwistedDoodles best described the imagined casting call in a drawing she shared online, where Nesbitt’s agent says: “What? You just want a headshot? And his 2019 Lanzarote holiday photos?”
James Nesbitt’s agent #LineofDutyFinale pic.twitter.com/OqbEPp6OLc
— TwistedDoodles (@twisteddoodles) May 2, 2021
If there's a season seven, don't be surprised if he walks into a room.
Chloe watching on as the team go off to the pub to celebrate when it was all her work that did it. Mate. #LineOfDuty #LineofDutyFinale pic.twitter.com/SI6bM6zEdT
— Dewi Rogers (@dgrog) May 2, 2021
Steve Arnott might have a bad back after being thrown down a few flights of stairs some years ago, but it is Chloe who is carrying the entire anti-corruption team through the season.
While Steve, Kate and Ted chase their theories and find themselves in more than a few gunfights, Chloe is the one back at the office doing the grunt work, sifting through paperwork and pinning down hard evidence against their suspects.
"AC-12 would be nothing without Chloe. Nothing," one viewer wrote, with another suggesting "they could've at least given Chloe a promotion before they wrapped the season up."
She’s the real MVP of AC-12, and she wasn’t even invited to their post-work ‘yay we caught the baddie’ drinks. She deserves and night out, a promotion, a raise, and a holiday.
