We're interested in one thing and one thing only - and that's watching AC-12 nicking bent coppers.
Over the course of five twist-laden series of Line of Duty, Jed Mercurio's gang of indefatigable officers have managed to make gripping viewing out of police anti-corruption work, facing everything from organised crime syndicates to historic abuse cases.
Before the show makes its return to our screens for the much-anticipated and (long-delayed) series six later this month, here's a look back at AC-12's antics so far - and Mother of God, is there a lot to catch up on...
Series one
When he refuses to co-operate in a cover-up after a counter-terrorism operation goes horribly wrong, DS Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) is assigned to anti-corruption unit AC-12, headed up by walking catchphrase generator Superintendent Ted ‘like the battle’ Hastings (Adrian Dunbar). He’s convinced that star cop DCI Tony Gates (Lennie James) is too good to be true and sends undercover officer Kate Fleming (Vicky McClure) to infiltrate his team, which is made up of the sort of blokey fellas who almost definitely think Jeremy Clarkson is a top lad and reckon feminism has gone too far.
Hastings’ instincts are right - Gates has helped his mistress Jackie Laverty (Gina McKee) to cover up a drink driving offence by encouraging her to report the car as stolen and faking a break-in at her home. When he realises that she’d actually perpetrated a targeted hit-and-run on her accountant (who’d worked out she’d been laundering money for a criminal gang) he decides to come clean - until Jackie is brutally murdered in front of him, in the show’s first gasp-inducing moment (how dare they cast McKee and then kill her off in episode two?) and gang boss Tommy Hunter blackmails him into keeping quiet.
Arnott manages to persuade Gates into setting up a rendezvous with Hunter, who eventually admits that he was behind Jackie’s murder, as well as the linked deaths of three drug dealers, and reveals that an inside man helped do the dirty work. He’s arrested, but Gates, who believes his career is now over, deliberately walks into the path of a lorry. Then, as Hunter is taken into custody, there’s one final twist: Gates’s sidekick Matthew ‘Dot’ Cotton (Craig Parkinson), one of the aforementioned #policelads, is the bad apple who’s been helping Hunter all along, going by the nickname of the Caddy (it's a golf reference, or something).
Series two
Series two kicks off with an attack on an armed police convoy carrying a civilian under witness protection. DI Lindsay Denton (Keeley Hawes) is the only surviving police officer, which is a red flag for AC-12. Fleming is dispatched on another undercover job, forced to ingratiate herself with the lonely, socially awkward Denton, while Arnott, who’s now inexplicably started wearing waistcoats to the office, gets paired up with new DC Georgia Trotman (Jessica Raine). She meets a dramatic end when she’s thrown out of the window while visiting the witness - who we later learn is Hunter - in hospital by an attacker disguised as a nurse.
Denton is eventually charged and ends up in prison - but she is merely a pawn in a much larger game presided over by Dot, who needed Hunter silenced to stop his cover being blown. In a stroke of great timing, he’s taken on as the latest member of AC-12. What could possibly go wrong? Arnott's suspicious at first, but he has more pressing matters to grapple with (like the ethics of sleeping with all his female witnesses) and seems to warm to Dot after they go out for a horrible-looking curry. Lads lads lads!
Series three
The gang's initial focus is Sergeant Danny Waldron (Daniel Mays) who has shot an unarmed suspect dead and then attempted to cover it up, altering the crime scene to make it appear as if he shot himself. It soon transpires that Waldron has made a list of names involved in a child abuse ring that operated at the children’s home he’d grown up in, which Dot finds and destroys. By now it's pretty clear that the extent of Dot's dodginess is far greater than we'd first thought - the man owns about 52 SIM-only burner phones and speaks into each one in a croaky accent which is apparently convincing enough to disguise his true identity.
Denton, who’s been acquitted of conspiracy to murder, manages to get a copy of the list to AC-12 moments before Dot shoots her. The game’s up for the Caddy, who makes a dramatic exit from his police interrogation, pursued by Fleming - but when one of his associates takes shots at Fleming, Dot throws himself in the way, saving her life. His dying words help convict the chief abuser in the ring.
Series four
DCI Roz Huntley (Thandie Newton) is under pressure to catch a serial killer, but forensics coordinator Tim Ifield (Jason Watkins) is less than impressed by the evidence. Fearing he has reported her to her superiors, Huntley confronts Ifield at his home. He’s found dead soon after, and Huntley takes charge of the crime scene, switching evidence around to save herself and implicate Ifield in the another murder case.
When Arnott questions Huntley’s husband about her alibi, he’s pushed down a stairwell by a shady balaclava-wearing assailant. Balaclava Man, as he is creatively named by AC-12, is soon linked back to the dodgy lawyer working for Huntley’s husband - and to Huntley’s boss, ACC Derek Hilton. Meanwhile Huntley finds it hard to hide her involvement in Ifield's death - not least because a cut on her arm acquired in a struggle with Ifield appears to have become infected with MRSA.
In a dramatic finale, there's a stand-off at the police station, where another Balaclava Man (for, as we learn from the dodgy lawyer, they are legion) takes an officer hostage - prompting Hastings to come over all action hero and finish him off with a bullet to the head. Another look at Dot’s dying declaration reveals that a high-ranking cop, code-named H, helped him climb the ranks.
Series five
Does H stand for Hilton? Or could it possibly be Hastings? Or is the letter H just a red herring? These are the conundrums that we face as series five kicks off with a new investigation into an organised crime gang, who’ve orchestrated an attack on a police convoy. It soon becomes clear that undercover officer DS John Corbett (Stephen Graham) is involved.
Corbett was previously tasked with infiltrating the group of criminals, but he’s since gone rogue and stopped communicating with his police handlers - all because he’s determined to work out the true identity of H, who’s been helping the gang pull off a series of raids. His scheme is foiled, though, when his second-in-command Lisa McQueen (Rochenda Sandall) brutally betrays him.
Hastings, who’s been acting erratically since the breakdown of his marriage, is suspended and eventually charged with conspiracy to murder Corbett. In another nail-biting interrogation, presided over by the steely DCS Patricia Carmichael (Anna Maxwell Martin), he’s finally vindicated when it’s revealed that police lawyer Gill Biggeloe (Polly Walker) has been feeding the gang information all along - and trying to frame Hastings to boot.
In a final twist, AC-12 reassesses the footage from Dot’s death. His hands appear to be tapping out the Morse code for the letter (you guessed it) H, which is… four dots. “Four police staff in league with organised crime,” Arnott muses. So, that’s Dot, Hilton, Biggeloe - and one more bent copper yet to be discovered… Will AC-12 finally unmask the villain at the heart of this spider web of bent coppers in series six?
Series one to five of Line of Duty are available on BBC iPlayer
