Virdee ending explained: What happens to Harry and Saima?

This Virdee ending explained feature contains spoilers... It's been a visceral and violent ride full of gangland politics, family feuds and the small matter of a terrifying serial killer, but Virdee comes to a climax in this tense final episode.

It might seem like a while ago, but the whole story began with the gruesome murder of beauty technician and drug dealer, Priti Parmer, before the son of Bradford’s Chief Constable, Alastair Boardman, was taken hostage.

Meanwhile Harry’s niece Tara was also kidnapped and although the detective managed to rescue her, it soon became clear the perpetrator was a man with an axe to grind against Harry and the Bradford Police Force.

That man turned out to be Jai Pawa (Ramon Tikram) a powerful crime boss whom Harry and CC Boardman (Silas Carson) helped put in jail back in India. However he’s now escaped from Punjab Central and is at large in Bradford.

In a climactic fifth episode, Pawa turned himself in to Harry (Staz Nair) and set Alastair free, yet he had one sinister card to play because before he turned up at the City Park handover, he took Harry’s wife, Saima (Aysha Kala), hostage.

“If you tell anyone I have her, she dies,” he told the detective. “Now we’ll see just how far you’ll go to save her life.” But will Harry be able to get to his wife in time? And who is the woman the Punjabi prison guard referred to when he set Pawa free?

Elsewhere Saima’s brother and Harry’s childhood friend Riaz (Vikash Bhai) — the head of drug gang Bradford West — has killed his rival and leader of rival gang, Vasil Shala (Andi Jashy). Yet his sister Saima saw him commit the killing, finally realizing the truth about her brother’s criminal career.

She also knows that Harry has colluded with his brother-in-law and has been aware of his actions. Will she keep Harry’s secret? Or will Harry’s shady extra-curricular activities come to light and land him in deep trouble?

There’s also the death of Paul King back in 2001. Riaz took the blame and spent many years in prison for the crime, but we now know it was actually Harry who knifed the racist yob to death. After sharing a cell with Riaz in prison, Pawa also knows this and could well use it against the detective.

And last but not least, we have the situation regarding Harry’s father Ranjit (Kulvinder Ghir). After shunning his son over his marriage to a Muslim woman, will he be able to move on so the Virdees can be a family at last?

Here’s how the final episode of Virdee went down?

Virdee ending explained — Who is Sophie Bradenham?

We knew Riaz's mysterious partner, Sophie Bradenham (Nichola Burley), was formerly a part of Jai Pawa’s operation and had been placed in witness protection after he was sent down, yet we didn’t realise she was actually his wife and her real name is Jai Pawa.

We learn the truth in a flashback showing us how Pawa was arrested back in 2017 and it’s now clear she was the woman being referenced by the Punjabi prison guard. Pawa tells Harry the only way he can get his wife Saima back is by handing Sophie over.

This puts Harry in a tricky situation, but when he tells Riaz, the drug dealer is also faced with a horrible decision. Who will he choose? The woman who helped him climb to the top of Bradford’s drug world — or his sister?

For what it's worth, we think Sophie has plenty of secrets and we wouldn't be surprised to see her return in the thick of the action if this one returns for a second series...

Does Harry save Saima?

Harry tells Riaz and Enzo (Tomi May) the only way to help Saima is for them to abduct Pawa on the way to prison. He tips them off as to when they will be transferring him and Riaz’s men pull off the job, shooting Harry in the chest for good measure. Luckily he’s wearing his bullet proof vest. Phew!

Enzo tries to beat information on Saima out of Pawa, yet after spending years in one of India’s toughest prisons, the drug lord proves quite resistant to their methods.

So when Sophie turns up, offering to speak to Pawa in the hope of learning where Saima is, they reluctantly agree. However when left alone together, Sophie tells the drug kingpin she doesn’t care whether Saima lives or dies, before he stabs her with a broken bottle and escapes, telling her “this all ends where it started.”

Seizing upon this clue, Harry realises Pawa is talking about the old warehouse where he was arrested in that sting operation all those years ago. However by the time Pawa gets back there, he finds Saima has escaped her shackles and armed herself with Riaz’s gun, which luckily was still in her handbag.

Harry soon arrives on the scene, yet Pawa manages to creep up behind Saima and take her hostage. “Drop your weapon or Saima dies,” he tells Harry, when he bursts into the room.

During the stand-off, Pawa tells Saima how her husband helps her brother run the drug trade in Bradford. However Pawa has no idea that Riaz is creeping up behind him and the Bradford West kingpin shoots his old boss dead.

Saima now knows the truth about her brother and when she questions him he admits to being a drug dealer, but defends Harry by telling his sister her husband had nothing to with his operation. Will that be good enough for Saima though?

What happens to Riaz Hyatt?

Harry manages to stage the crime scene so it looks like Pawa and his men murdered Vasil Shala, before Pawa’s men turned on him. “Turn everything that’s happened this week to these two. Drug war, revenge.”

He says he thinks Pawa came back to Britain looking for revenge after Vasil seized control of his empire, yet we now know Riaz stole £30m of Pawa’s money to start his own operation, with the help of Sophie Pawa.

Riaz is in the clear for now and his identity as the biggest drug dealer in Bradford remains a secret, however DS Khalil Amin realises that Harry wasn’t taken to A&E after being shot in the chest and wonders where he was in those crucial hours before Pawa was killed.

Later on, Khalil meets UKCA agent Rebecca Armitage (Elaine Tan), who tells him they suspect Greater Yorkshire Police have been compromised by crime groups and she wants him to work for her to get to the truth...

Does the truth about Paul King come out?

After Pawa is killed, Riaz tells Harry he can blame everything on him to save his marriage with Saima, but insists that what happened all those years ago in 2001 “stays between them”.

Later on, Ranjit agrees to meet with his estranged son Harry and the pair share an emotional reconciliation, before the detective is also reunited with his wife Saima. She demands to know how long he’s been working with Riaz. “Years,” he replies. “I was trying to get him to stop.”

When she also asks him about Paul King, Harry admits to being there when he was stabbed to death, although he doesn’t reveal it was HIM who killed the yob and NOT her brother.

It looks like this secret could be one of several themes that continue to hang over the pair if there’s a second series? We shall see…