Smallscreen News

Luther recap: Season 2 - Episode 2

By Ian Cullen Jun 23, 2011, 4:06 GMT

Yes please, Idris Elba - "Thor" Los Angeles Premiere - Arrivals - El Capitan Theater - Hollywood, CA, USA © Tina Gill / PR Photos

Synopsis: Luther must save Ripley’s life in time to stop the murderer Cameron’s final act in his series of monstrous killings.

This picks up from where things left off last week. Luther along with DS Grey and the team continue their investigations, but Luther has to ease Grey’s concerns about DS Ripley, who has been kidnapped by Cameron.

Things soon pick up when Cameron calls DS Ripley’s cell phone, which Luther picks up once he has silenced everyone at the station. Cameron, who is our murderer, tells Luther that if he doesn’t do as instructed he will kill Ripley and proceeds to torture him while on the phone. Luther hangs up.

The phone rings again and Luther ignores it much to the chagrin of Grey who is extremely concerned for Ripley. The killer then try’s another phone and Grey goes to pick it up, but is warned off from Luther, who tells her that by picking up the phone they are giving the killer what he wants. A connection that he can use to manipulate them with. Another phone rings and this time they play the message on the speaker phone. Cameron is raving mad that his attempts to establish a connection to discuss the fate of Ripley have gone ignored. By the end of the call he is screaming down the phone.

The race is now on to hunt down Cameron and hopefully save Ripley, who Luther feels will not be harmed due to Cameron feeling somewhat powerless without a connection because he thinks Luther and the team do not care about Ripley, which sort of takes the power of killing him away from Cameron, who like a petulant and twisted child thrives on the attention.

Ripley, who has been tortured by Cameron is tied up and is somehow keeping himself alive via an ongoing dialogue with his tormentor.

Back at the station Luther orders the team to stop trying to anticipate Cameron’s next move. He believes the key to catching Cameron is to follow the paper trail he has left from having inherited a substantial sum of money from his late mother. They are also asked to investigate certain people that Cameron was in prison with, who may have helped him out in some way. At this point Luther gets a phone call from the friend he helped last week by rescuing her daughter from a life as an underage porn star in a series of extreme porn flicks. He is asked to meet at her place.

Luther heads out to her place to be greeted by an ex copper he knows and a younger guy. He is escorted somewhat roughly to the woman’s apartment at gun point and the ex copper nails one of Luther's hands to the table. In the apartment are Luther’s friend and a middle aged woman, who Luther recognizes and not for good reasons. Luther realises he has been set up by this woman to go rescue his friends daughter so that she could have a police officer on her hook to help with certain legal issues.  The woman tells Luther that she needs him to get someone to change their statement and that if he does not co - operate she will have his friend and her daughter killed.

Left with little choice in the matter Luther pulls the nail out of the table and his hand and walks out to make a phone call to one of his contacts in order to find out where the witness is being kept.

Meanwhile Grey has been interviewing various people that knew Cameron in prison and has learned that he purchased a school bus and some explosives.

Luther, who is still in a bit of pain from the nail incident has found out where the witness is being kept and sets out on a mission with some help from his friend Mark North who has been looking after the young girl he rescued. In order to go on this mission they hide the girl in the trunk of the car. Given that it’s the only place they can put her where she isn’t going to run off.

Mark and Luther stage an accident in order for Luther to get into the safe house. The lead police officer in the safe house leaves the witness with his partner, who is a bit shaken and is checking around. The lead officer gets into a verbal argument with Mark because it is his car that Mark has crashed into. While all this is going on and the other officer is not paying attention Luther gets the witness and forces him into the toilet and tells him to change his statement. The other officer who was checking the doors and what not knocks on the door while Luther is in the toilet with the witness. Luther tells the witness to answer. He does and by the time the officer has taken the initiative to kick the door in much to the protestation of the witness Luther is gone.

Job done Luther and Mark drive out of there and when at a safe distance they get the girl out of the trunk. Luther asks Mark to drive her around and keep an eye on her until things blow over and they know they’re in the clear.

Back at the station Luther hooks up with DS Grey who tells him about the School Bus and the Explosives. Grey seems to think that Cameron is going to pick up some kids and blow the bus up, but Luther corrects her reasoning saying the Cameron is taking his inspiration from the absence of things and is basing himself on murderers and mythical monsters that killed and disappeared without a trace, but is looking to dispose of the children in a similar way by wiping them off the face of the earth.

Acting on this information Luther and the team learn that a School bus was vandalized, which leads them to locating the killers bus by finding out the route of the vandalized bus.

Meanwhile with Cameron gone Ripley has managed to escape his bindings and has gotten out and made a call to Luther to let him know where he is. While Grey and the team track down the school bus that the killer stole Luther heads out to pick up Ripley.

Grey and the team find that the bus is empty and as they board it all the kiddies’ cell phones start to ring simultaneously. 

When Luther and Ripley arrive on the scene we find out that a witness seen Cameron load the kids onto a green VW van and drive off. With some quick thinking Luther asks for a remote enough location for Cameron to use in order to both murder and dispose of the kids. This line of enquiry leads them to an abandoned industrial building out in the middle of nowhere.

Cameron thinking he has everything in hand gets out of the van and proceeds to pump gas into the back where the kids are. While he is setting all of this up one of the children somehow manages to escape and dashes very quickly to a hiding place just out of site of Cameron, who has put his mask on in order to commit his most monstrous act yet. The kid peers out from his hiding place only to have Cameron spot him and run after him. As Cameron gets to the kid Luther arrives on the scene.

Enraged at the fact that Luther has been able to catch up to him, Cameron orders him to back off. Luther completely ignores him and engages the kid in conversation. Cameron orders the kid not to talk while he has a knife to his throat, but the kid tells Luther his name is Tim. Luther tells the boy that Cameron will not harm him. He tells the boy that Cameron is nothing and can’t harm him. This gets Cameron angry. He has lost control because he removed his mask to see better in order to grab the kid. Luther points out to the kid that he will not hurt anyone without wearing the mask. Luther goes to release the kids while Cameron is threatening to kill Tim. His protestations and taunts go he ignored and he releases Tim while shouting threats. At this point Ripley gets out of the car attracts Cameron's attention and punches him and says, “Cameron, nobodies listening.”

Seeing that everyone is safe Luther allows Ripley to make the arrest and read Cameron his rights. While investigating the crime scene they find storage containers, which were meant to store the bodies of the children, and had had shipping papers to have them sent abroad to be incinerated.

Murderer caught and loose ends tied up Luther picks up the young girl he rescued and delivers her to her mum. Her mum, who doesn’t seem to appreciate the gravity of the situation thinks that she can keep her daughter and get on with life as normal without her having to give up her high flying job. Luther gives her a reality check saying that so long as the girl is in town and she is in town. The middle age women and her criminal organization have leverage and would not hesitate to kill the girl. He plays them a message on his cell phone, which the woman had sent. It’s a video of the conversation that Luther had with her, which could be used to incriminate him meaning that he cannot protect them so long as the crooks have this leverage over him.

As he gets home Luther meet up with his mysterious friend Alice Morgan, who has escaped the high security hospital where she was being held. Alice tells Luther she is leaving for more exotic locales and tries to persuade him to go with her, but Luther says he can’t because he still feels an obligation.

The episode closes with Luther going back for the girl that he rescued, and he proceeds to rescue her from her mum, who is more interested in her career than her daughter’s welfare. Luther take the girl home with him as a temporary measure and shows her where everything is and proceeds to fall to sleep on his sofa after a long hard day.

This was a fantastic resolution to the story. I really enjoyed the way in which Luther explained the psychology of the killer to DS Grey, and how it all resolved. The subplot of Luther being used as a pawn by a criminal organization to stop a witness from testifying was nicely executed and didn’t feel like it was shoehorned into the plot.

We see some cracking acting from Idris Elba in this episode, but for me the stand out performance for this episode came from Warren Brown as Ripley, who gave a very subtle performance in the scenes where he was communicating with his torturer Cameron.

Again not much was seen of Ruth Wilson as Alice this week. She seemed to be used in this episode as a means to get Luther to suddenly change his mind about helping the girl more, by mere virtue of the fact that Alice was trying to talk him into doing the selfish thing.

I know that Alice was a big part of the first series and having what equates to three short scenes with Alice in the first two episodes. I can’t help but be somewhat fascinated by this somewhat twisted and selfish character and what her connection is to Luther.