This Blue Lights season 2 episode 2 recap contains spoilers... Shane Bradley and Annie Conlon rescue Dixie's family in the morning, yet that afternoon Grace and Stevie find themselves in a scuffle with the loyalist gang leader. However, Dixie has more pressing concerns when Lee Thompson moves to start a turf war on the Mount Eden Estate...
The episode begins with Tommy meeting Aislyng at a roadside cafe half-way between Belfast and Derry. Go Tommy!
Meanwhile, Annie and Shane are responding to an emergency call about a fire at a block of flats. When they get there the Fire Service are nowhere to be seen and after hearing there are still people inside, the pair bravely head into the burning building. After struggling up the stairs Annie helps a small boy escape and as an explosion rocks the building, Shane and the boy’s mother come just behind.
With the pair safe, loyalist gang leader Jim ‘Dixie’ Dixon soon arrives on the scene. It seems this was his family, but who started the fire?
Back at Blackthorn Police Station, Grace is completing an incident report following the break-in at the pharmacy in last week’s episode. She admits that she came very close to firing her weapon and killing Eamonn Cunningham. "I was just waiting for the bang," she says.
When Police Ombudsman official, Geraldine Gilroy, bumps into Sgt McNally in the corridor after the meeting she tells her that her report to the Policing Board will explain that Grace found herself in such a terrible situation because Cunningham was not arrested earlier in the day. However, just when McNally starts to take exception, she explains how she believes the officers are suffering from lack of resources. “One day maybe you’ll come to realise we’re on the same side,” she tells her colleague.
Later on, Stevie walks in carrying some pork belly sausage rolls with capsicum and chilli jam, which sound completely delicious. Grace tries to play it cool, but it’s clear she’s desperate for one and after reeling her in, Stevie takes the chance to apologise for being so overprotective.
“Still want to be friends?” asks Stevie, but we think there’s a lot more than friendship and sausage rolls on the table for these two.
'I don't want to live like this..'
Shane and Annie are given a hero’s welcome when they stride into Blackthorn’s briefing room, as Sgt Sandra Cliff explains the property that burned down was one of the many used by Jim Dixon. Apparently he’d just moved his girlfriend and son in there the week before. The front door was locked before they went to bed “so someone must have chucked a petrol bomb into the kitchen,” says Shane. However we know that Lee Thompson had a key to his flat.
“It looks like this Dixon / Hamill rivalry has now escalated to a full-blown loyalist feud,” says Cliff, before Murray Canning tells the Constables he wants them all on the Mount Eden Estate today doing stop and searches. McNally doesn’t approve, in the first hint of friction between the two commanders of the unit.
At Belfast’s Titanic Visitor Centre, Lee Thompson meets Tina McIntyre. “What does a nobody like you want with me?” she asks. Lee tells her that Dixon and Hamill have been using her Dublin drugs connection for nine months, but done nothing except for covering the city in ‘peelers’. It’s bad business for everyone, he says. He’s offering her another option and although she’s reluctant, it’s clear she’s impressed by his ambition.
Realising the police has no intelligence assets in the Mount Eden Estate, McNally suggests they might bring back David 'Jonty' Johnston, who does have some contacts in the area. Yet bringing the former sergeant, who had an affair with junior officer Hannah McClean in the first series, could be problematic. When she asks him to return, Jonty isn’t keen, but McNally says he owes the team.
Meanwhile at The Loyal Pub, Mags finishes a game of chess with her son Henry, when Lee comes in to discuss the pair’s circumstances, living under the heel of Dixie and his rival Hamill. “I don’t want to live like this, so why do we accept it?” he asks. Mags is reticent, but Lee says she needs to trust him, before a load of men with drums walk in.
It seems they’re planning to give Soupy a send-off by marching that evening, yet some of their number are concerned because they haven’t filled in an application form. However it’s clear Lee isn’t interested in application forms. “There’s a feud going on,” he’s warned by his uncle Rab. “If you march tonight and people come out to see it the place could explode!” Reluctantly, Lee agrees to at least ask Dixie.
Across town, Hannah McClean is investigating the 1978 chip shop bombing in which six people were killed. She thinks it might have been a cover-up. Apparently in 2006 a former RUC Special Branch officer, Robin Graham, tried to sue the government for PTSD, mentioning this specific bombing. The case was quietly withdrawn, but why?
'Nowhere is safe for you now..'
While on the Mount Eden Estate, Sergeant Sandra Cliff and Constable Tommy Foster find a man beating someone up. When the assailant flees, Tommy gives chase and knocks him clean out when he tries to take his weapon. Looks like those sessions in the gym have been paying off.
It seems the victim of the attack was Davy Hamill’s son, in what’s presumed to be a retaliation attack for the fire at Dixie’s flat. When Canning arrives, he needles the assailant and asks him why the two crime bosses are going to war now. There are other questions being posed outside the car, as Shane asks Annie out for a drink. 👀
Elsewhere, Grace pulls over Dixie, and Stevie - against all his better judgements - waits in the car while she approaches him. She asks him to step out of his vehicle and raise his hands so Stevie can search him. When he refuses, she goes to grab his arm and he pushes her back, which is when Stevie rushes forward and grabs Dixie by the throat. Luckily Annie and Shane soon arrive on the scene to provide back-up and arrest Dixie, but it’s clear the crime boss is furious with Stevie and has rumbled the vibe between the pair.
Shane says Stevie can expect Dixie to file assault charges, before reminding the gang leader of how he and Annie saved his family not too long ago. “I reckon if you don’t file some bullshit complaint then we can call it evens,” he says. Yet Stevie is worried about the repercussions of the incident.
In a more salubrious part of Belfast, Hannah McClean pays a visit to former RUC Special Branch officer, Robin Graham. He’s unwilling to talk about the chip shop bombing of 1978 or his part in it, but she leaves him her number.
At The Loyal Pub, Rab tries to dissuade from going ahead with the parade, especially with Mags’ son Henry in tow, yet his pleas fall on deaf ears. However when Dixie sees them he’s not impressed. “You’re fucked son,” he tells Lee, leaving before the police turn up.
Yet the police aren’t the only ones who heard the flutes and Dixie’s loyalist rival Davy Hamill is soon in the scene. When Sandra tells them the march is illegal, Lee asks if they can march back the way they came and she agrees, desperate to try and de-escalate tensions. As the band departs, Dixie and Hamill exchange threats across the street and it’s clear trouble is brewing on the Mount Eden Estate.
Later on Dixie arrives at The Loyal Pub after the march, he’s furious with Lee and smashes Soupy’s urn, before telling him he now pays double protection money. Yet when Lee slides his keys across the bar, Dixie realises it was him who set fire to his flat, thinking he was inside. “Nowhere is safe for you now,” he warns Dixie. It’s a very bold move indeed.
Yet when Dixie gets home, there’s a gunman waiting for him who shoots him dead. But was his death ordered by Lee Thomson or Davy Hamill?
