Ripper Street Season 3, Episode 6 Review: The Incontrovertible Truth

It’s hard to believe that there has only been 6 episodes of Ripper Street season 3 so far as so many major events have occured. We have had Susan descending into a corrupt political life and even becoming a murderer, Mathilda has found her way back to Reid, and Reid almost died at the hands of Susan. When I started ‘The Incontrovertible Truth’ and saw that the run time was 1 hour 15 minutes I got more excited for a television show that I should have as I assumed it would all come to head in this episode. I thought that the trio would reunite and see Susan for what she has become, and make attempts to take her down, but boy I was wrong. Reid is back in the fold at ‘H’ division without much discussion of his injury which is quite frustrating. He was shot in the head and the abdomen so it’s not like it was an everday scrape or bruise, those injuries take time to recover from but the audience gets no information. It isn’t even explicitly said how much time has passed, or what has become of Susan and I understand that they want to keep the mystery alive but it just doesn’t make any sense to me.

With ‘The Incontrovertible Truth’ we step away from the main storylines of the season for a story of a sordid love affair and murder which was brilliantly acted but I was expecting so much more from Ripper Street given the events of the last few episodes. A member of the upper class, Lady Vera Montacute, is found lying with a dead body, covered in the victims blood. Due to her status Reid believes that they must get to the truth before daybreak or her lawyer will arrive and help her worm her way out of it. Of course she is the prime suspect but when her spineless husand arrives and their unconventional sex life is exposed he is also in the frame for the murder. Laura Haddock played Lady Montecute and she completely embodied the role, she seemed positively lost and psychotic which was enthralling to watch. If only the mystery around her was as good as the acting this episode would have been absolutely brilliant but in all honesty I found myself quite bored and certainly didn’t warrant it’s runtime. If this episode was close to the beginning of the the season or pushed back until the next season then the acting alone would probably make it a brilliant episode, but it’s placed in the latter part of season 3 and this episode really should have explored the main storyline.

The episode was set exclusively at the police station which has never happened before in Ripper Street and just felt wrong as Whitechapel has pretty much been it’s own character on the show since it’s beginning. I appreciated seeing the show at a slower pace and this episode seemed like it wanted to explore the actors range (or save money), but you really can’t have Ripper Street without Whitechapel. The one highlight for me was the Jackson’s use of forensic evidence in an attempt to close the case and prove that Lord Montecute committed the murderer, not his thrill seeking wife who confessed. This is not the first time Ripper Street has explored early forensice science but I think it is the first time we’ve seen them using fingerprints to tackle a case, and it gave me a dorky thrill seeing the beginnings (I know it’s fictional) of something that is part of basic detective work in our modern day society. Of course this experiment went ignored by Aberline who insisted that the false confession was valid and sent the crazy wife to the rope.

It made me feel slightly uncomfortable seeing Reid back in charge like nothing happened, ordering around both Drake and Jackson like he did back in the first season, as if they haven’t changed since then which is incorrect. He attempts to persuade Drake into interrogating with his fists which Drake no longer does and is appalled by the suggestion, in the end they manage to bluff it. He talks Jackson into staying the night at that station to work even though he has plans with Hermione, he’s actually beginning a serious relationship with her and about to meet her father which isn’t some the Jackson of season 1 would do. I think Reid must genuinely believe that nothing has changed in the years that they were apart, police work is still a priority for them but he is wrong. If Reid’s attitude persists it will most likely create tension between the three in the upcoming episodes, which of course they’ll end up settling before the seasons end.

Reid and Jackson have a conversation about Reids experience in the closing moments of the show, yes I had to wait well over an hour for it, and Reid reveals that he has no memories of what happened during the shooting, he only remembers how he felt. He also says that he must have been saved for a reason which is why he is back at work, he was ready to leave with Mathilda when he was shot and no one would blame him if he left, yet he stays. This job tore his family apart before and I feel that it will probably do the same again, he has only just gotten Mathilda back and he is risking his happiness with her. During the exchange between the two I got a nagging feeling that Reid was holding something back, or possibly lying about something he said, I feel he knows a lot more than he’s letting on. He’s an intelligent man and there is no way he would let Susan get away with her actions, and his investigation could be helped by the gun Jackson is hiding from the others, which he’ll probably now use to experiment with fingerprinting. Although this was a disappointing episode there are still a lot of loose ends that need tying up so I still have hope for the upcoming episodes.