Ripper Street Review - Episode 6 (Spoilers for US)

This week's Ripper Street finally reveals a few of Detective Reid's secrets. Here's Jamie-Lee's review...

This review contains spoilers

1.6 Tournament of Shadows

Now three-quarters of the way through this beautifully bloody journey through the streets of Whitechapel in the months after the serials killings of Jack the Ripper, we are finally offered a brief insight into the background and inner workings of Ripper Street's lead character. Master of the bowler hat and sardonic quip, Detective Inspector Edmund Reid is played by Matthew Macfadyen of Spooks, Mr Darcy and husband of voice of Lara Croft fame. He even does those Marks and Spencers adverts, which is why you may find yourself wanting hot chocolate pudding oozing with cream and lashings of, ohhh, anyway... He has used his brooding skills demonstrably when hiding his feelings of pain about his daughter and somewhat awkward marriage in this gritty series and his MI5 training from Spooks has proved useful for authority, particularly when dishing out the dirty work to his right-hand men Drake and Jackson. He’s also shown that he’s not afraid of a rough and tumble himself when putting Jackson in his place, or giving one or two ruffians or embassy staff a swift backhand.

Ripper Street offers a plethora of on-going interesting characters and sub-plots to keeps viewers entertained alongside each week’s main plot, and this week’s episode is once again completely different from anything we’ve seen in the previous five. The H Division are left dealing with the dock strike of ’89 and rather unpleasant anarchists are stirring up trouble. A bomber is killed in an ‘accidental explosion’ revealing a deadly Communist plot, although as this is Whitechapel and prime time BBC One viewing, all is not what is seems. When Reid thinks everything looks a bit circumspect, he faces a backlash from Special Branch. Not heeding his warnings from above, he comes across something more unpleasant and sinister than the criminals roaming the streets, and far closer to home. In addition, we get a taste of what’s to come in the future storyline, when we discover that Jackson may not be who he say he is at all. Not so happily coerced into going undercover for Reid during the strike, he performs brilliantly, saving Drake’s life in the process. However, how far does and can his acting and betrayal go?

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