SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for Blue Lights Season 3, Episode 2.

Blue Lights Season 3, Episode 2, “Skipper” does its functional job of building up the BritBox drama’s season-long story. But what it really boils down to is one smaller, less significant (for now) scene for Annie and Aisling. Even three seasons in, Blue Lights gets its punch from the emotional rawness of the characters.

Despite the reminders in the Season 3 premiere that they’ve been on the job awhile now, “Skipper” re-establishes that the core characters aren’t that acclimated to police work. Everyone struggles here, some of them far more significantly than others. The episode takes its title from the fact that Stevie works his first shift as a sergeant, and is quickly out of his depth when he has to coordinate everything. In his defense, no one is expecting a threat alert about dissident Irish Republicans.

Tommy and Shane have been reported for Shane’s cell phone stunt, which puts both their careers on the chopping block. It’s nice to see Blue Lights call that out for the big mistake that it is, and not fall into the TV crime drama stereotype of partners covering for one another just because. Tommy semi-attempts this by saying that he didn’t see Shane touching the phone, but he’s not very good at it, and quickly drops the act when he’s confronted with hospital video. Not only that, but he confronts Shane again in the hallway—which leads to the two of them having an actual fistfight. Shane’s rant about middle-class crime will do him no favors, but at least he admits Tommy tried to stop him. Nathan Braniff is particularly aces in this episode; audiences can see every ounce of what Tommy is going through, from his fear to his rage to his heartbreak for Aisling. He’s a genuinely good guy through and through, which makes that he’s caught between a rock and a hard place twice even harder to watch.

Grace continues to pursue help for Lindsey (and with good reason, as the opening scene proves she’s in the clutches of the bad guys). She doesn’t get very far at all; in fact, her scene in Child Protection is one of this episode’s weak spots. She doesn’t really deserve to get chewed out by the social worker, considering that literal moments before that he’s making off-color comments about expecting Sandy McKnight to be dead. He has no high horse to sit on.

But “Skipper” really belongs to Dearbháile McKinney as Aisling and Katherine Devlin as Annie. The duo are dispatched to a car accident that will have big-picture implications, as one of the vehicles has a classified registration. But both drivers die on the scene, and Aisling ends up staying desperately with one of them as he passes. This is a beautifully acted sequence; the audience already knows it’s going to end tragically, but McKinney carries it all the way home. She then has another powerhouse scene when Aisling makes the death notification to the victim’s parents, and to say they’re in denial is an understatement. It is gut-wrenching to see how they go through the stages of grief in a matter of mines, coupled with Aisling trying to do anything to make it better, plus Annie and later Tommy frantically trying to get her out of the house because they might all be in danger. This whole sequence of events is another example of why Blue Lights is one of the best shows on BritBox.

Then co-creators Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson button this beautifully. Viewers are expecting a massive shootout, as a suspicious white van has boxed in the police cars. That would be the tack that any other police drama might take, because it’d be exciting and dramatic. But instead, the victim’s heartbroken father marches right up to the van and tells its occupants “not today.” He essentially saves four lives on the worst day of his life. It’s not only an effective plot twist, but it means something emotionally, and it’s a reminder that Blue Lights isn’t just about these cops being heroes. The characters they interact with get their space and time, too.

Of course, for the mystery fans, there’s plenty of usable information about what the villains are up to and who’s on what side. (The episode ends on a car bomb, although it’s a genuine surprise that it doesn’t go off. Again, another show would have done that just because.) But “Skipper” drops the Blue Lights characters in hot water and lets them marinate in it. Lawn and Patterson may have let the characters level up, yet they’re leveling up their challenges as a result.

Blue Lights streams Thursdays on BritBox. Photo Credit: Courtesy of BritBox.

Article content is (c)2020-2025 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.