Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn, Adam Rothenberg, MyAnna Buring, Charlene McKenna, Lydia Wilson, Clive Russell, David Dawson, Josh O’ Connor, Ian McElhinney, Louise Brealey, Anna Burnett, David Wilmot, Leanne Best, Anton Giltrap, Elliot Levey.
The Peace of Edmund Reid is perhaps one that the people of Whitechapel might never have thought might be attained, in real 19th Century London or indeed in the fictional portrayal, made seamless and near perfect by Matthew Macfadyen, yet peace after so much devastation is not so much an impossible ask, it only requires all the circles of Hell to finally close and be seen to banished.
Ripper Street was thankfully saved from extinction as it was unceremoniously axed by the B.B.C., arguably one of the corporation’s biggest and most spectacular mistakes, and the cost of good story-telling would have proved too much to rectify if the third series of this excellent quality drama had been allowed to fall apart and be devoured by Time.
The third series finale, The Peace of Edmund Reid, did indeed close many circles and yet the news that a fourth and fifth series will be made suggests that the story is far from over for the detectives of the East End.
The finale also dug deep into the realms of violence that many associate with both the period and the area that lays between The Tower of London and the outer reaches of a city always teetering between extravagant beauty and the mess of uncertainty. This violence was not just meted out, it was calculated, absorbed, made plainly stark and disturbingly convincing as David Dawson gave his best performance over the three series as newspaperman Fred Best as he was tortured and beaten for withholding certain information about Long Susan’s father.
To portray violence as a means to an end is one that can be a tricky concept to grasp and in many cases is never justified and is perhaps as shocking graphically in a television series as it is on the streets, yet to expose the level of carnage that was possible on the streets of Whitechapel at the time and without a level of personal control, can be seen on any street up and down the country today, would be doing a disservice to the authentic feel that has been so readily captured with good grace throughout.
A class ending to a series that might never have been envisaged due to the lack of foresight on certain corridors at the B.B.C.; Ripper Street remains one of the great television treats of the last ten years.
Ian D. Hall