Teenage drug dealers and guns. Father with MS wakes to find his wife has been shot dead in bed beside him. It turns out to be a stray shot from a crack den opposite. A heartbreaking tale of exploitation and drug dealing with cold blooded teens and cold blooded adults. Without the big resources of Hollywood, a small screen series has an impact movies rarely achieve. The cast on every level are believable, and, unusually, former soap actors manage to inhabit the parts credibly. The mother who will abandon her child, to death, even, for her next fix, and the parent who thinks his medicinal supply of illegal drugs can't possibly be so bad. It makes its point forcibly: drug dealing is not a victimless crime and the way dealers enforce their rule is devastating communities. Its also about child exploitation and that whole subculture. So much is packed in that it extends to two episodes, and the devastating end of part one gives Bradley Walsh the opportunity to display some fine, understated acting. The writers create true economy while manipulating the tension. They also have you wanting to punch some of the characters, without descending to soap opera cliche, just naked depiction of their inhumanity, while driving home the message that drugs dehumanise, and break down the bonds between parents and child. The mother who doesn't care that her young son will be arrested and imprisoned for murder, and the father who isn't able to care for his teenage daughter, whose work pays for the drugs that he thinks help him.
Well worth watching; maybe one to show the kids- sitting through it with them.