5. We Loved: The New, Darker London
Ripper Street has always been pretty dark the first episode ever went straight in there with the origins of snuff pornography so you would expect season two to kick off with something grim. 'Pure as the Driven' doesn't disappoint. Right from the pre-title sequence, when a policeman is hurled out of a window and skewered on a wrought-iron spike, the audience is hurled straight back into the violence and drama that made Ripper Street stand out so well the first time around. However, London feels a more dangerous place in 1890 than in 1889. The episode takes pains to demonstrate that life in H Division is not what it once was. Respect for the police seems to be at an all-time low, with rioting in the police headquarters, presided over by the bewhiskered and exasperated Artherton, and the mood on the street is grim. 'The police are so violently humiliated' notes Reid, as the crowd jeer at the skewered policeman. 'A pig on a stick!' shouts one man. There is a real sense of danger here and Reid and co are more than aware of it.