Legends: The War on Drugs

 "It's because of what happened to me that I know it hasn't happened to them."

For Guy, Kate and Bailey the stakes of the deadly game are getting higher and higher, with lots of guns, tension, and character moments, from the O'Connells being sprung from a prison van at the beginning to the shocking bloodshed at the end. And, this time, at the centre of it all is drug kingpin Carter, a man whose greed, ambition and need for control leads to horrific levels of violence, death... and, it's strongly hinted at, hubris. 

There's more, though. Thatcher is under threat by the men in the grey suits, Hezza is on the march, it's the Tory conference... and the safety of all three of our protagonists is potentially put at risk for the sake of party politics. Don is there to discuss with others (and us) the psychological well-being of Guy, Kate and Bailey... and he should know. Steve Coogan is, as ever, extraordinary.

Bailey slowly gains the trust of Eddie, who in turn, unsurprisingly, is losing faith in the volatile Carter. There is drama between different Turkish factions. And for Guy, in particular, life feels dangerous and precarious. And the legend is changing him, causing him to threaten his daughter's piano teacher. 

There's a lot going on, and it's all gripping stuff. And yet, with all good telly, character is at the heart of it all. 

Legends: This Is Liverpool

 "That's called importing drugs. It's sort of the opposite of what we do."

Things get even more dramatic and dangerous this week for our underpaid Customs officers working on a shoestring and risking our lives, showing the real costs. Yet we also see why they're doing it. A young Tommy, ironically the son of one of the kingpins himself, finds himself hooked on heroin through a perfectly ordinary and natural set of circumstances, and we slowly see his decline and death. it's harrowing, and it happens to the very father who... orchestrates the shocking ending.

Guy is getting deeper and deeper into his "legend"... and thereby connecting well with Don, who well knows the appeal and the costs. And he's under pressure to show what he can do by actually importing large quantities of heroin which, well, he can't do. But, in a delightful sequence, Don solves the problem in arranging a deliberately botched raid by armed police in Felixtowe. I also love the sequence in which he desperately gets some customs officers to back off. Steve Coogan absolutely steals every scene he's in.

Kate and Bailey also have some excitement, getting locked in while sneaking around but getting away with it through sheer desperate cleverness. But the moment of sheer drama is Shaun's cover being blown, and he and his family subsequently escaping a fiery death by the skin of their teeth. It's utterly gripping, and really sells the risks of undercover work... yet, earlier in the episode, Shaun confesses just how much he's loving it.

Still utterly gripping, even if much of the episode is necessarily setting things up. 

Legends: Alliance

 "You're allowed to enjoy it, Guy."

As per the quote... Guy's wife knows him well. He needs the excitement, the risk, all of it. And, as we hear more of Mylonas's background this episode, perhaps the two of them are more similar than either would admit- both adrenaline junkies.

Turning to Kate and Bailey, we have quite the contrast. Kate is game to take risks, Bailey more cautious, causing tension... until an everyday instance of police racism makes Kate realise what Bailey has to live with, and why he has to be cautious. Meanwhile we meet Scouser Shaun, another bored VAT man, who is sent straight undercover, all because he cares deeply about his local community.

And so our protagonists are nicely developed as characters as we explore the world into which they've been dropped, a world of constant risk, calculation, adrenaline, with occasional betrayal and murder, with twists and turns that lead Kate and Bailey to witness the forging of a new alliance between Hakan's Turks and Carter's Scousers. It's all superbly sculpted plot-wise, yet it really gets us to know the protagonists.

Even more worrying, one of the Turks seems to suspect Guy, and a white van is watching his wife and daughter at their house. The levels of risk are off the charts... but this is Customs, far wilder and riskier than the police or the spooks. This is simply gripping stuff. The drug smuggling montage at the start alone is magnificent television.

I'm loving this. 

Legends: Could You Offer More?

 "Lunch money? What are you, twelve?"

1990. It was a very different time, the early years of rave culture, and Thatcher (just!) hanging on. But it was also a time of massively increasing availability of heroin. And so we have the hard-hitting opening, with two young people, from very different class backgrounds but both with their lives ahead of them, have those very lives snuffed out.

There is, of course, a lot of cynicism in how the government of the day reacted- Alex Jennings has an excellent cameo as rightly forgotten Home Secretary David Waddington driving home this very point. Thatcher, at a low ebb, needed a success. But there's no doubting the moral urgency of snuffing out the heroin trade.

The way this is to be done, however, is on a shoestring. Ordinary civil servants from Her Majesty's Customs and Excise are to go undercover, with only a little training, no extra resources and no extra pay... which is, wow. And so we have our triumvirate who have what it takes- Bailey the VAT man (yay, he says cryptically!); Kate the vice officer, and Guy from Customs- a real person who wrote the book on which all this is based. They are the only three who make it through the rigorous selection process, which is enormous fun to behold.

It's a joy, as ever, to experience the sheer charisma of Steve Coogan as Don Clarke, the world-weary yet wise man in charge, the person who anchors all this. And, soon, we see our brave trio into action, and very real danger.

This is going to be fun. Loving the character of Mylonas...