No Offence

The second series of Paul Abbott's blackly comic, bracingly in-your-face cop drama kicked off with a fateful explosion at a Manchester gangland funeral, and tonight's finale threatens to end with an even bigger bang. The indomitable DI Deering seems to be closing in on calculating racketeer Nora Attah but, in reality, her unit is falling apart. Can coppers Dinah and Joy rub along with their steamrollering boss long enough for them all to make the ultimate collar?

Paul Abbott's cop drama continues, with the Friday Street team - minus Viv - bargaining with Attah crime family boss Nora. It turns out that Nor is rather opposed to female genital mutiliation, so - at her request - the officers search out a so-called cutter suspected of performing operations across Europe. Elsewhere, Viv heads undercover despite her suspension, unearthing a lead in the search for Ronan, one of the Attahs' victims.

Preview - No Offence

With justice juggernaut Viv (Joanna Scanlan) suspended from duty after being outmanouevered by Nora Attah, the matriarch of the nototrious crime family, she risks blowing the team's case against Manni by continuing to build evidence into the Attah's complicity in the disappearance/murder of several children.

The snappy, gutsy cop show is nearing the peak of series two's main story. With two more episodes to come after tonight, this is the one where the police discover just what horrors they're dealing with in their investigation of crime boss Nora, given cocky swagger by the terrific Rakie Ayola. Every showdown between Nora and justice tornado Viv (Joanna Scanlan) is a thrill. In comparison, the case-of-the-week side-plot at an abortion clinic feels a little pat.

Paul Abbott's bawdy crime drama juggernaut rolls on and tensions are running high down at the Friday Street station. This week, there's division between Dinah (Elaine Cassidy), Joy (Alexandra Roach) and the boss who you wouldn't dare mess with, Deering (Joanna Scanlan). There's suspicion that the Attahs might be colluding with one of the team, and there's another case to crack when a dad reports his daughter missing and the search uncovers sinister online activity.

Preview - No Offence

Paul Abbott's award-winning drama continues to cut through the norms of what is expected from the crime genre. It is a show that can at a stroke break from serious storytelling to the blackest of visual jokes and the coarsest of dialogue. It does take a while to recalibrate your brain to tune into Abbott's non-comformist but brilliant plot lines, and for the patient, it is well worth it.

With Viv having hit a wall in the investigation of Nora Attah and the girls who died in last week's devastating fire, she brings in her "weapon of mass destruction" to try to break the gangland kingpin. And, sure enough, cracks are soon beginning to form, not from Nora, but courtesy of son Manni. Meanwhile, an ex-con living with dementia tries to rob a bank that's since been converted into a pub. But there's more to this stick-up than meets the eye.

No Offence review

Few cop shows extract this much entertainment.

Paul Abbott's pacy and compelling police drama continues, with the consequences of the crematorium bomb continuing to multiply. And, as her team face life-threatening situations, Joanna Scanlan's DI Viv Deering is only just holding it together. The strength of No Offence lies in this beautifully realised vulnerability: these cops are hard-bitten, but very human, and their dilemmas, anxieties and mistakes give the series heart, heft and a real ring of truth.