This Blue Lights season 2 episode 1 recap contains spoilers... It's been a year since Gerry was gunned down in the street by an associate of the McIntyre crime family 😢 and as this year’s six-part second series begins the squad are facing a new challenge from the loyalist side of the community.
Rival gang leaders Jim Dixon and Davy Hamill have filled the space left by their cross-city rivals and government cuts mean the Blackthorn team have less resources than ever, despite rising crime statistics. They might not be rookies anymore, yet the fresh recruits are still finding their feet on the streets of Belfast. Here's how the first episode played out...
Constables Grace Ellis, Constable Stevie Neil and the rest of the Blue Lights team are on patrol in an armoured vehicle when they come across a road barricade. It immediately becomes clear they've wandered into a trap when an angry mob descends upon them, pelting their Range Rover with bricks and bottles. They're told to "sit tight" by the control room, which is fortunate because when a petrol bomb sets fire to their vehicle it won’t start.
Luckily it’s all just an exercise, yet our friends in the PSNI will need to do much better if they ever encounter such a situation while on patrol. "If this was real life, you’d be dead," says their instructor.
The next day, Grace and Stevie find a homeless man called ‘Soupy’ dead in the street from a suspected heroin overdose. "What in the name of god are you doing all day?" says the shop owner who found him, before complaining about the state of the area.
Elsewhere, Constable Tommy Foster and Constable Annie Conlon are called to a disturbance at Moylan’s Pharmacy. A man’s methadone prescription hasn’t arrived and he’s shouting at the pharmacist. "The last six months it’s just desperate people screaming at me!" says the shopkeeper. They move him along, before Annie tells her downbeat colleague he really needs a ‘ride’ and encourages him to message Aislyn, a girl he met on a training course.
He offers to text her, but she says that’s weak and he should call her. “Texting weak, calling strong, everybody knows that!” she says.
Back at the station, team commander Sergeant Helen McNally meets Detective Sergeant Murray Canning, who’s now with the paramilitary crime task force and is very keen to reduce the district’s rising crime figures. McNally says the figures might be something to do with the loss of three response officers in the last year, but luckily she’ll be getting a new recruit, as Constable Shane Bradley is joining the team, on DS Canning’s recommendation.
Helen wants to know why the PTCF are interested in crime stats and Canning says he wants to reduce drugs in the area in the hope of cutting those stats. "From now on DS Canning will be working with your section in whatever way he sees fit," says Helen’s boss, Chief Robinson.
Later on, Annie gets her first look Constable Shane Bradley when she walks into the locker room and gets a glimpse of the new recruit's shredded torso. Oooosh! But there’s no time for that now, because Canning is giving a presentation, reminding us how the McIntyre crime group were brought down last time out. Their fall saw a drop off in drug-related crime figures, but they’re very much back up now. “It looks like someone’s taken over the supply and turned up the volume,” he says, before introducing us to rival loyalist gang leaders, Jim Dixon and Davy Hamill, from the Mount Eden Estate.
Afterwards, Canning wants to see Tommy upstairs, so Annie is partnered with the buff new boy Shane Bradley. They’re soon called to a disturbance at a house where a man called Brendan is having a mental health crisis. Shane calms the situation by offering him a cigarette, as an impressed Annie watches on. It turns out Brendan has been waiting over seven months for a mental health assessment. “Is everything just f*****?” says Annie.
'Intelligence policing..'
After the briefing, Sandra Cliff opens up to Helen about her pain in the months since her partner Gerry was shot. She says that without him, there’s nothing left for her in Belfast and she’s decided to go back to London. Like us, Helen is gutted.
Meanwhile upstairs, Canning praises Tommy for his analysis of the crime stats and says he thinks he’s being wasted on the beat. He tells him to ditch his uniform, because he’s going to teach him “how this city really works”.
On the road he tells Tommy that Hamill and Dixie hate each other, but control most of the nefarious activities in the area. "It’s all about intelligence policing," says Canning. “The more I know about them the more I can contain them.” It’s soon clear he wants Tommy and Shane to be his eyes and ears around the area, as they’re a cut above most of their colleagues. He then pulls Dixie over for a chat, so Tommy can get a good look at him, although the new recruit doesn’t seem impressed by Canning’s tactics.
Later that day, Dixon meets Tina McInytre, who used to be part of the old McIntyre gang. He wants her to tell the Dubliners he can “do twice as much next time”. However, while she agrees to pass on his message it seems clear she holds the power in this relationship. “Some day that bitch is going to get what’s coming to her!” says Dixie to the cabbie driving him about. He refuses to pay his fare, but when he’s dropped home the driver realises Dixie has forgotten his keys. Could that be important later on? We reckon so...
'People think the truth is dangerous..'
Meanwhile, former Constable Jen Robinson has been working as a trainee at the local solicitors and is delighted to hear she'll be retained as a full-time employee. She can’t go and celebrate with the partners though, because she has other plans.
Those plans involve working at a soup kitchen, where she shares her good news with Happy Kelly. He’s delighted and tells him Gerry would be proud of what he’s doing now, although it seems the soup kitchen will be closed soon due to government cutbacks. They share painful memories about the day Gerry died, wondering if things might have gone differently. “Sure it would drive you mad,” says Jen.
He tells her it’s not the first time he’s got someone hurt, as in 1978 it was his idea to go to a chip shop and his father and brother died when it was bombed. No one was ever convicted of the bombing because no one would talk. “That’s the thing about this place,” he says. “Even after all these years people think the truth is dangerous.”
When she gets back to the office, Jen is doing some digging on the 1978 bombing, when her mum calls to congratulate her.
'There's no turning back..'
Grace and Stevie head to Soupy’s and find it’s a bar run by Lee and Mags Thompson. It seems Lee and Soupy were in the army together and he’d been living in the flat upstairs. Lee says he threw him out of the bar after catching him shooting up in the toilet.
That afternoon, Grace shares her latest baking effort with Stevie — oh how we’ve missed this! He’s impressed, although he can’t help but offer a few choice pieces of feedback, which aren’t well-received by Grace. Oh Stevie!
Yet the moment is ruined when everyone is called to Moylan’s Pharmacy, which is where Annie and Tommy were earlier on. Grace and Stevie get there first and he sends her to secure the back entrance, while he goes on the front. When he finds the shop open, the shutters soon start to come down, trapping him inside. Meanwhile, Grace finds the back door smashed open and when she enters she finds the pharmacist lying on the ground badly wounded.
Stevie tells her not to go in, but she does and is soon attacked by Eamonn Cunningham, who tries to stab her with a screwdriver. Grace pulls her gun on him, but when Shane arrives and cracks the assailant on the back of his head, it’s all over.
At the station, Annie blames herself for letting Cunningham walk earlier that day, while Grace tells Stevie that he needs to stop trying to protect her while they’re on duty. “Remember when we talked about us and I said we couldn’t do this job properly and do that,” she says. “Well this is what I meant!” He promises it won’t happen again.
That night Tommy plucks up the courage to call Aislyn from Derry and she seems pleased to hear from him. “He just rang you? Strong!” says Aislyn’s colleague after their conversation. Great advice from Annie there!
At The Loyal Pub, Dixie pays Lee and Mag Thompson a visit to collect the protection money he clearly takes from them. £500, plus money from his ‘wee sideline’. “Sooner or later you’re going to have to join us officially,” says Dixie, but Lee doesn’t seem too keen.
Apparently, Dixie is eager to buy the bar, yet Lee has other ideas and after the crime boss leaves, he goes into the back room to meet his pal Craig McQuarrie who says.. “If we do this, there’s no going back!” However, Lee is ready to go and chucks Dixie’s keys on the table. But what's their plan?
