Gamekeeper

And so to the final episode of Series Three.

But just for old time’s sake, let’s have one last warning that this post may contain spoilers about this and other episodes.

Now we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get down to business.

(SPOLIERS ALERT!!!)

Episode Five ended on a cliffhanger after Matthew Forsythe’s solicitor Aodhan McAllister confessed to Michael Smiley’s police intelligence officer Colly that he had set his client Conor Mullen’s accountant George McClelland up for assassination as he travelled from Blackthorn Police Station in a car with Sian Brooke’s Grace Ellis.

Relaying this information to Joanne Crawford’s Inspector Helen McNally and Martin McCann’s Stevie Neil, Colly and the senior officers at Blackthorn were on tenterhooks as Grace switched to a secure radio channel and realised George, Brendan Quinn’s child protection officer Sean Mulholland and her were at risk from a dissident republican attack orchestrated by Charlie Maher’s Dublin criminal Fogerty.

As she carefully picked her way through suburban streets, Grace was encouraged by Diona Doherty’s C4 intelligence officer Carrigan to stick to her intended route.

“Do not arouse suspicion,” she was ordered as George crouched down in the back seat and a rather sweaty looking Sean nervously clutched a revolver.

Colly observed the car following Grace was “just a spotter.. The real threat is up ahead somewhere.”

In the C4 control room, Carrigan confirmed he was right, spotting the dissidents’ white van moving into position on an overhead camera.

Realising this meant there could be a gun battle near a primary school, Carrigan took a gamble and ordered Grace to reroute even though that meant she could be meeting the dissidents’ van head on.

Reluctantly Grace complied, with the dissidents’ pursuit car on their tail.

She was asked to perform an emergency stop, while Stevie had kittens in the control room in Blackthorn.

No sooner had she done this then the white van appeared and Grace, Sean and George braced themselves for a hail of gunfire.

Sandwiched in between two dissident vehicles, they crouched down only for the white van to be rammed at full speed by an MSU car, with officers arresting its occupants and another vehicle hauling out at gunpoint those in the pursuit car.

Grace, Sean and George didn’t so much breathe a sigh of relief as gasp for air as they realised just how close they had come to being shot.

And that was just the first six minutes of this week’s episode.

As a very rattled Stevie went outside to hyperventilate, Helen wanted to know exactly what Colly had pitched to McAllister in exchange for information.

After referring to the imminent release of Michael Shea’s Mo McIntyre, she realised his mum Abigail McGibbon’s dissident Tina was working for Colly under the codename Gamekeeper.

“She’s a drug dealer,’” Helen protested.

“And a life saver,” Colly countered.

“That’s the game, Helen – always has been, always will be.”

As George, Grace and Sean were transported in a police Land Rover from the street where they had had their brush with death, McAllister was also relieved as Colly told him everyone had been saved.

But then he had a scary realisation.

“Fogerty will know it was me – I’m a dead man,” McAllister glumly stated.

Colly observed that depended on whether he got to Fogerty first.

Following his own flirtation with death after being stabbed in the leg last week by a woman on drugs in a city centre restaurant, Frank Blake’s Shane Bradley awoke from surgery and was visited by Katherine Devlin’s Annie Conlon along with his father, Lorcan Cranitch’s Harry.

“Oh, thank God,” Harry muttered as he saw his son propped up in a hospital bed.

Shane clutched Annie’s hand and thanked her for saving his life.

After learning Shane was out of immediate danger, Blackthorn’s goody two shoes, Nathan Braniff’s Tommy Foster was summoned to see Aoibheann McCann’s Police Ombudsman investigator Grace Gilroy at the station but was reluctant to go.

Tonmy had to be coaxed into attending by Helen and Andi Osho’s Sergeant Sandra Cliff.

As he left for the showdown, Helen informed Tommy that the phone recovered by him from the drugged up punter in the restaurant was a real treasure trove of information about Fogerty’s operation.

That was cold comfort to Tommy who looked like he had been summoned to the headmaster’s office.

As Tina McIntyre was reunited with her son Mo at the courthouse, Grace Gilroy met Tommy in Blackthorn station and expressed sympathy for Frank, telling him that she had intended to let them both know in person that she had decided to discontinue the investigation because of a technicality.

As Tommy had the weight of the world lifted from his shoulders, Grace Gilroy explained Frank had also given her pause for thought – particularly around the group chat that George McClelland had been involved in and the way the sleazy men using it had spoken about women.

As the Land Rovers returned to Blackthorn station, Grace reassured George his family were being taken to a safe house following Fogerty’s use of the dissident gang but she also impressed on him that this was the moment where he needed to tell the police everything.

After Stevie gave Grace the most intense hug ever witnessed in Belfast, we were treated to one of the show’s writers Declan Lawn cameoing as a UTN reporter covering the dramatic police swoop on the dissident gang.

Cathy Tyson’s crime boss Dana looked dumbfounded as she stared at the report on her tablet.

Would George tell all?

Would Dana’s drug smuggling operation survive?

Patterson and Lawn turned in a concluding episode that was possibly on a par with the concluding episode of Series One.

It was thrilling. It was emotional. It was surprising and yes it was, at times, exhausting.

In fact, it was everything you hoped it would be.

Of the regular cast members, Brooke and Devlin led the way one more time this series.

Crawford, Osho and McGibbon also flew the flag in an episode where the women really stood out.

Smiley demonstrated once more exactly why he was recruited to the ‘Blue Lights’ cast, while McCann was finally allowed to be himself as Stevie was released from the confines of a Blackthorn Police Station desk.

Blake and Braniff were solid enough, while Forsythe and Gilroy enjoyed their moments in the sun.

With at least one more series on the horizon, Patterson and Lawn did some really deft work setting up future avenues for the show to explore.

This included the return of a character from a previous series.

After her excellent work last week, actress turned director Angela Griffin scaled even greater heights, thanks to some superb editing by Stephanie McCutcheon.

But now it is over, how are we to rank Series Three against previous series?

Among the regular cast, Brooke, Osho, Crawford, Irvine and McGibbon emerged as the star players this series, with Devlin joining their ranks.

Watching Devlin add more layers of vulnerability to Annie Conlon was unquestionably one of the show’s real delights.

With Stevie confined to base in his new role as Acting Skipper, Martin McCann felt underused.

Indeed he seemed to spend the bulk of his time onscreen looking miserable and stressed.

Bradley, Braniff and Dearbhaile McKinney as Aisling were inconsistent, providing occasional glimpses of the heights they could scale if given the right opportunities in the script.

Her partner in crime, Charlie Maher’s Dubliner Fogerty also irritated with his monotone delivery and one dimensional characterisation.

Niall Keery’s Sergeant McCloskey emerged as an unlikely cult hero, while Nigel O’Neill amused as Father Joe and Aoife Hughes impressed as the exploited teenager Lindsay Singleton.

Inevitably, when you review a show like this episodically, some instalments seemed stronger than others.

As with Series Two, while this series got off to a strong start, it then sagged in the middle of its run before recovering.

But even with this criticism, it’s still worth pointing out that ‘Blue Lights’ remains head and shoulders above any other drama series set and shot in Northern Ireland.

Even if every episode isn’t a home run, the show has the capacity to surprise which every good cop show should have.

Directors Jack Casey and Angela Griffin handled the action set pieces in the series particularly well and there were some good uses of city locations.

While Patterson and Lawn might be forgiven for making the case for Westlife and for their rigid adherence to “all’s well that ends well” montages at the end of each series, there’s grounds for hope that they could yet pull off a series that manages to eclipse the first.

That will require setting Stevie Neil free from his new role as Acting Skipper this series at Blackthorn.

But it also needs someone to step up and fill the show’s big Gerry Cliff shaped hole that has been lying there since Series One.

And as we have seen for three series, that’s easier said than done.

(Series Three, Episode Six of ‘Blue Lights’ was broadcast on BBC1 on November 3, 2025 with all episodes available on the BBC iPlayer)