User Reviews

Very poor and disappointing compared to previous Syndicate series's. The plot is so stupid its laughable. Stolen lottery ticket and 4 idiots running around Monaco trying to find the guilty party. Just let the police deal with it! This would never happen in real life. Episode 4, hoping it will improve but still no sign of what it would be like to have £27million and what you'd do with it which is what most people want to see (flash cars, big houses etc).

The premise is that Frank, who looks after the lottery machine in his fiancé's shop, passed through the winning ticket but lied to the ticket holder, giving them £500 and pretending that was the prize whilst claiming the jackpot himself. Sounds credible. He fakes his own suicide and travels abroad. Again credible but fell apart immediately. The rightful ticket holders figure out they were swindled and contacted the lottery. Still credible. And the lottery begins an investigation. Meanwhile we get to know about the characters as each episode continues akin to the formula. What we learn is they're the usual idiots. Faffing about working out what their numbers were. Getting excited over a few pounds. And the drama leading up to working out they'd got all 7 numbers was a bit mind numbing. But It's OK. It does feel a bit immature compared to prior series so you'd be forgiven for thinking its a CBBC drama. But in the end it's about dreaming of winning the lottery and moving to Monaco which is a bit of fun in itself.

I am convinced Season 4 of this show had to be some sort of joke or parody because I'm struggling to understand how this was Okay-ed by anyone in the BBC. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy it; I did, but perhaps for all the wrong reasons! This is the type of show you want to watch when you're drunk playing a drinking game or you've smoked a zoot and wanna watch some bad TV.

The worst/funniest character of this season was by far Gemma. Her entire character can be summarised with: she's fat, she enjoys eating and wants to assassinate her dad. Nope, I didn't make the last part up. Gemma received very little character development or story throughout the whole series. She probably has the least screen time and the fewest lines of the syndicate, making it all the more jarring when she makes references to wanting to murder her father.

In the first episode, when the main characters were discussing what they would do if they won the lottery, Gemma told her friends that she'd order a hit on her dad. Her friends kind of just laugh it off awkwardly and it's never mentioned again. I managed to convince myself that I had hallucinated that scene (because it was so ridiculous) and forgot about it.

In the fifth episode I was abruptly reminded of Gemma's mission to murder her father. She walks into a gun shop in Monaco and asks the owner if the pistol she's looking at could kill someone. She then asks if she could bring it onto a plane. The owner is of course alarmed and secretly calls the police, who escort a shocked Gemma away. How could any human being not realise that walking into a gun shop and asking those questions would look incredibly dodgy???

In the final episode when the media is asking the syndicate what they'll do with their winnings, Gemma tells the cameras that she was considering ordering a hit on her dad but then decided not to in the end. Of course nobody knows how to react because who in their right mind says stuff like that in public? Everyone kind of just awkwardly laughs.

The final scene is one of happiness. Everybody is celebrating their lottery win with the media and uplifting music is playing. The music continues to play, and the scene abruptly cuts to Gemma's father being hit by a car. Not only was this scene transition comedy gold, but it led to the reveal that Gemma's grandmother ordered the hit on Gemma's dad! Still, the show ended with a "happy ending".

While watching this I felt like Kay Mellor didn't consider the fact that Gemma's father being found dead shortly after she was seen on TV expressing that she wanted him to be assassinated would seriously implicate Gemma and that people would think she did it.

The whole assassination revenge subplot was ridiculous and melodramatic. It wasn't even explained WHY Gemma wanted her dad to be assassinated until the final episode, and even then I struggle to believe her motivation because that's not how actual young women act in real life.

Gemma's entire character was absurd. She didn't act like how real human beings act. Even a person with a learning difficulty or someone who's on the autism spectrum would know not to start blabbing to the media and your friends about how you want your dad to be assassinated. Still, her character gave me many hearty laughs.