User Reviews

How many people need to do drugs, sell drugs, steal whatever and they get off? Also, all these criminals would kill Vera and any other police if they wanted they couldn't stop anyone. If my criminals in the US and there are a ton were to setup in Northumberland, there is no way anyone would stop them, unless the Armed response tram actually did their job..so funny watching these UK police try to stop people with no lethal force or weapons to protect themselves. I keep watching though.

Writer Paul Matthew Thompson goes out of his way to over-complicate the plot, so of course one figures it would be too simple for the adolescent victim, Caden Lennon, to have been murdered by one of his drug-dealing bosses. Probably someone else has followed him to Peyton from Newcastle estate then killed him for reasons other than drug dealing. When we first glimpse Caden's younger brother, he is being questioned by Vera, and it is obvious he is an emotional wreck. So it seems likely he will directly tie into the killing.

However, there's no earthly reason for the younger brother to commit fratricide. It's as if the writer thought it would be more dramatic, and ironic, if Caden was offed by the one he loved most and had always protected. Maybe if the younger brother had been schizophrenic or had been possessive of Kayleigh, the girl that knew both of them, we could buy it. But killing Caden in order to gain the respect of drug dealing thugs just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Perhaps this plot would've been better if the cop in Peyton was the killer. After all, he's looking out for Kayleigh (bending the rules and tampering with evidence behind Vera's back). So he'd have a much stronger motive to murder Caden Lennon.

Since this episode is entitled "Cuckoo," we expect the guy whose home has been taken over by the drug gang to play a more central role. But he's largely peripheral to the action, and gets abruptly killed off mid-way into the story.

DS Healy seldom has anything to say during the investigation scenes. Vera does almost all the talking when they're interrogating suspects and witnesses. Actress Brenda Blethyn is required to handle much of the dialogue in these scenes. She's undoubtedly the star, playing the title character; and she's a pro, of course. But it would nice if Kenny Doughty could be given a bit more to say and do as DS Healy; he barely gets a chance to act. All he's doing is following Blethyn around, which can't be too challenging to perform.

Typically when they give him dialogue Healy makes statements that are only half-right, so Vera can correct him and seem far more superior. But after four years of working together on cases, DS Healy would have picked up some of Vera's tricks and he'd be a lot more intelligent than the way they are writing and portraying him. Plus given Vera's personality, she wouldn't tolerate a dummy, and Healy would be just as focused as she is on these cases.