Spoiler alert: this recap is for people watching Sherwood on BBC One. Please don’t read it unless you have watched series two, episode four.
The women behind the wire
Out of options and fearing violent reprisals, the Sparrow crime family formed an unlikely alliance with police to bring down the Bransons. Yet their statements, even supplemented by the “clean as a whistle” Rachel (Christine Bottomley), weren’t enough to pass the prosecution threshold. Somebody needed to wear a wire and record the rival clan making a confession. Risky.
Elder son Rory (Perry Fitzpatrick) refused to be a “grass” and stormed out. “He’s all skirt and no knickers,” said matriarch Daphne Sparrow (Lorraine Ashbourne, who has been superb this series). As a former cop, she was the obvious choice and volunteered to do it alone. In return, she told Ian St Clair (David Morrissey) “we’re all square”. Her secret past must never resurface again.
It was toe-scrunchingly tense as Daphne met her counterpart Ann Branson (Monica Dolan) at the “clubby”, with detectives listening in from the back room. Smiling in that scary way of hers, Ann edged tantalisingly around admitting anything incriminating. Back at the station, Branson ally DI Marcus Clarke (Jorden Myrie) charmed a young PC into telling him about the wire. When he called to warn Ann, she somehow maintained her poker face. “We’re tethered together now,” she told Daphne. “I go down, you go down.” As Ann departed, Daphne told Ian: “She knows. She bloody knows.” Understandably furious, she insisted the police had a leak. With the Bransons still at large, the Sparrows were now in even more danger.
A turn-up for the books
Ryan Bottomley (Oliver Huntingdon) built his drug empire from behind bars. His “cousins” moved to Ashfield, ostensibly to look after Stephie (Bethany Asher) but they were actually “cuckooing” – taking over a vulnerable person’s home to use it as a criminal base. In prison, Ryan talked crossbow killer Scott Rowley (Adam Hugill) into “investing” his £15,000 buried treasure in the operation. It was a fight, quite literally at first, but Scott gave him the coordinates and Ryan’s crew dug up the loot. They were in business.
Simmering with anger, Rory wanted a piece of the action. Determined to fill the power vacuum in the NG17 district, he took an axe to their front door (The Shining gags were wasted on the young) and proposed a deal. His contacts and their manpower made a powerful package. As they recruited local kids, county lines-style, Rory supplied 4kg of ketamine to get them started, plus the materials for their spice scam. They’d smuggle the “zombie drug” into prison by piggybacking on its new library scheme and spraying the synthetic cannabinoid on page 50 of donated books. Ryan would take delivery inside. Since the library was council-funded, they even had the cheek to ask sheriff and councillor Lisa Waters (Ria Zmitrowicz) to help convey the cargo. You had to admire their ingenuity, if not their respect for Brontë classics. Wuthering Highs, more like.
Where there’s brass, there’s muck
Philanthro-billionaire Franklin Warner (Robert Lindsay) gazed fondly at a photo of himself with Margaret Thatcher. A hint that he was the 80s spy cop-in-chief after all? So it proved. He decided not to refute the accusation because “denial implies shame and I’m ashamed of nothing”. Codenamed “Westminster Bridge” because he’d acted as a link between the state and the coalfields, Warner worked as a fixer for Thatcher’s Tories, leading anti-strike activity in Nottinghamshire. As Lisa angrily said: “You used government power and money to divide the community, then profited from it. It’s the original chumocracy. You built your business empire on a myth.”
Insulated by wealth and privilege, Warner dared her to go public. Most of it was libellous, he claimed. With the council vote looming on the proposed new mine, it would be seen as last-ditch dirty tricks to smear her opponent. “You’d better be sure,” he concluded smugly. “I’ll leave it with you.” Is he truly untouchable?
Branson beef is personal for Harry
Julie Jackson (Lesley Manville) watched the estate agent’s “under offer” sign go up and grew emotional about leaving her houseful of memories. She left to visit sister Cathy in the Peaks with an eye on relocating there, too. After their aborted date, Ian dithered about phoning her and later dropped round, only to find the house empty.
Elsewhere in “Shottingham”, violence continued to escalate. Police had seized six months’ worth of guns in the past six weeks. Things got worse for Ian. By returning to police work, he’d betrayed the trust of his street-level sources and suddenly found intel hard to come by. He took out his frustration on DCS Harry Summers (Michael Balogun), who went for a pint with his new confidant, bent copper Marcus. At last we learned the truth of Harry’s trauma. His wife, Chloe, had worked for the Bransons’ accountant. Harry saw a chance to recruit nephew Kyre as a gangland informant but it backfired and Chloe got caught in the fallout. Kyre didn’t kill her but he knew who did. Roy (Stephen Dillane), perhaps? Harry and the crime kingpin could be on a collision course.
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Who got the Sheriff?
We can probably rule out Bob Marley. After her emailed death threat, Lisa’s house was daubed with graffiti: “Vote for the pit or end up in one.” She brushed it off as part of the trolling that has become a sad reality for women in politics.
Tragically, it looks like somebody soon delivered on the threats. Lisa was left lying prone in her own home and ended up in critical condition. We last saw her with Stephie and Ryan’s right-hand man Jordan (Tyrese Eaton-Dyce) but surely they weren’t responsible. Ryan seemed shocked when he saw the news. Cut to Franklin Warner, looking villainous in his darkened mansion. He had made a point of confirming that Lisa hadn’t shared the dodgy dossier with anyone else. Had he now had her silenced?
Line of the week
“You’re all sat here with limp dicks in your hand, unable to do the dirty yourselves, so you want us to lube up and get the job done for you.” – Micky Sparrow summarises the police’s position.
Notts notes
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Actress Bethany Asher, AKA Stephie, has said she hopes her pivotal part in Sherwood – impressively, her first major role – will help break down the barriers that actors with Down’s syndrome face.
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Scott’s dream destination – the Pennsylvania ghost mining town with a fire still burning beneath it decades later (metaphor alert) – is the infamous Centralia, which inspired 2006 horror film Silent Hill.
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Tom George takes the directorial reins from Clio Barnard for the second half of the series. He previously directed every episode of the mighty This Country.
Just one climactic double bill remains, so rejoin us on Sunday to ponder the penultimate episode. In the meantime, sheriffs, please leave your thoughts and theories below …