Red Riding Trilogy - 2009 (PDTV)

Red Riding Trilogy - 2009 (PDTV)

1974

The first episode of the trilogy features Sean Bean and Andrew Garfield. It focuses on a series of the unsolved murders of young girls. It is set in the year of the title. The story follows Eddie Dunford (Garfield), a young reporter from the Yorkshire Post as he tries to find information on the missing (presumed dead) girls.

John Dawson (Bean), a local businessman, has bribed members of the West Yorkshire Constabulary and councillors so that he can purchase local land and gain permission for a mall he has plannedΓΓé¼ΓÇ¥this is done by burning down a Roma camp previously existing in the area. One of the murdered girls is found on his land, having been tortured, raped, and strangled, with swan wings stitched to her back.

Young, cocky and naive, Dunford conducts his investigation up to a dangerous stage. After the death of his friend Barry Gannon (Anthony Flanagan), he meets an elusive male prostitute, BJ (Robert Sheehan), who passes along incriminating materials Barry had gathered about local authority figures. Dunford becomes involved with the mother of one of the missing girls, Paula Garland (Rebecca Hall). He then learns that she has a secret sexual relationship with Dawson: she tells Dunford that she and Dawson have known each other all their lives. Dunford ignores threats from police (orchestrated by Dawson) to keep away from Paula and Dawson's institutionalized wife. However, he continues his investigation until he is ultimately arrested by the police, after storming into a private party at Dawson's house, and Paula is abducted and murdered.

After a severe beating and torture by two police officers, Tommy Douglas (Tony Mooney) and Bob Craven (Sean Harris), Dunford is given a gun and abandoned in a desolate area. He seeks out Dawson, finds him at the Karachi club and challenges him about the murders. Dawson makes a confession to having 'a private weakness', indicating that he was connected to the girls' murders. Dunford shoots him repeatedly then flees by car. He then deliberately drives into a head-on collision with two police cars that were pursuing him; a vision of Paula appears by his side before his death.

A bag full of documented evidence of police corruption, left by Dunford with a seemingly trustworthy officer before his death, is brought by the latter to Detective Superintendent Maurice Jobson (David Morrissey), who destroys it.

This episode was shot on 16 mm film and broadcast with an anamorphic aspect ratio of 16 x 9. It was directed by Julian Jarrold.
[edit]

1980

The second episode of the trilogy aired on 12 March 2009. The theme for this episode is the investigation of the Yorkshire Ripper murders. It starred Paddy Considine as Peter Hunter, a police officer brought in to assess the investigation of the Ripper murders. It featured David Morrissey as Maurice Jobson, Jim Carter as Harold Angus and Maxine Peake as Helen Marshall.

The story focuses on police corruption. After public outcry concerning the Ripper crimes, and under heavy pressure, the WYC brings in Hunter to the Ripper investigation, much to the chagrin of Bill Molloy (Warren Clarke). Hunter had previously worked on the Karachi Club massacre, a case he had to abandon due to his wife's miscarriage. The two cases are linked by Officer Bob Craven (Sean Harris). Hunter suggests that the Ripper investigation is being side-tracked by the Wearside Jack tapes and feels that the real Ripper has been interviewed and missed.

Peter Hunter suspects, when reviewing the Ripper cases that the killing of one victim, Clare Strachan, is a copy-cat murder. Hunter, Helen Marshall and John Nolan (Tony Pitts) receive information on the murder of Clare Strachan from BJ, who is introduced to Hunter by Reverend Laws. Hunter learns that Strachan was likely a prostitute working for Eric Hall, a now-dead policeman. Hall's wife requests that Hunter meet her, and after visiting her house, (finding Reverend Laws also present), Hall's wife provides Hunter with proof of Hall's work as a pimp, and that she gave Hall's documents to Maurice Jobson. Jobson claims to have lost the files, and Hunter interrogates Prentice and Alderman about the case. Alderman lets slip that the Strachan murder was probably performed by Hall, and covered up to look like a Ripper murder.

Hunter returns home for Christmas, but near the end of the vacation, his house is burned down. When he returns to West Yorkshire, he is taken off the ripper case. Hunter criticizes Jobson for no longer "being on the same side." Nolan, talking to Hunter later, tells Hunter it would probably be best for him to leave, and that he will take care of the case. Hunter, determined, tracks down BJ and threatens him, demanding clear information. BJ reveals that masked policemen burst into the Karachi club minutes after Dunford's revenge, killing all civilian survivors and finding Bob Craven and Tommy Douglas wounded by Eddie. Clare and BJ, two of the waiters at the club, witnessed the whole scene while hiding behind the bar, and were spotted by Angus and Craven as they fled the premises. BJ is, therefore, the only surviving witness of the Karachi double massacre, which forces him to flee town. BJ also implies that Craven was the murderer of Clare Strachan.

Peter Hunter returns to Millgarth Station, Leeds to reveal this new information to Nolan; Nolan takes Peter down to the cells where Nolan says Craven is. Hunter enters the cell to see Bob Craven slouched back in a chair, a bullet through his head. Nolan reveals that he took part in the Karachi Club shootings and shoots Hunter dead. Detective Inspectors Dickie Alderman and Jim Prentice make it look like Hunter and Craven shot each other. Joan Hunter is seen comforted by Reverend Laws after Hunter's funeral.

This episode was shot on 35 mm film and broadcast with an anamorphic aspect ratio of 2.35:1. It is directed by James Marsh.
[edit]

1983

This episode describes a redemption of sorts for three main characters. In doing so, it reveals or implies all of the significant hidden plot points in the previous two episodes; it is for this reason that flashbacks are much more prevalent here than in episode two. It also sheds light on the figure of Reverend Martin Laws from Fitzwilliam (Peter Mullan), who had appeared throughout the series. The events of this movie begin with the disappearance of a fourth girl.

Maurice Jobson's pangs of conscience are a major plot point in this episode. It is established that Jobson, who in the previous two episodes was mostly a silent supporting figure, was in fact deeply reluctant in his participation in most of the corruption and criminal activity within the West Yorkshire Constabulary and that he was the one who tipped off Dunford about the arson in the Gypsy camp, in which he took part against his will under pressure by Bill Molloy. It is also revealed that he knew about the innocence of the mentally challenged man who was accused of the murders of young girls in the first episode, Michael Myshkin (Daniel Mays), and that he realized at least as early as 1974 that the Constabulary was protecting high-profile figures, including Dawson, from a thorough investigation concerning their shady activities. These flashbacks are brought about by Jobson's investigation of the recent missing girl, and his decision to go back and investigate previous cases. In a parallel plot development also taking place in the present, Jobson falls in love with a medium (Saskia Reeves) who seems to be in possession of valuable information concerning the latest crimes.

John Piggott (Mark Addy) is a public solicitor whose late father (nicknamed "the pig") was a notorious member of the Constabulary. His inquiries lead him to Leonard Cole (Gerard Kearns), the young man who found the swan-stitched victim in episode one and who is now being framed for the disappearance of a young girl named Hazel Atkins. Cole is finally tortured and murdered by the police, his death disguised as a suicide. Piggott's investigation, informed by his visits to the imprisoned Michael Myshkin, finally leads him to a mine shaft hidden in a pigeon shed near Laws' home, where he makes a discovery of horrific implications. It is revealed that a paedophiliac and child-murdering ring was run in West Yorkshire by Laws, who abducted lost children under the guise of securing their well-being on behalf of his parish. It is implied that only when children with known, stable families were abducted was the criminal structure partially compromised -- perhaps the main reason for the constables' indirect assistance in Dawson's demise. Laws counted on the complicity and even direct collaboration of high-ranking officials in the WYC. It is also revealed, through Piggott's imagination and flashbacks by other characters, that the clients of this ring included significant figures of society, among them businessmen such as Dawson and policemen such as Piggott's father.

Finally, it is also revealed that BJ was the first child abducted by this criminal enterprise, and almost certainly the only one who survived. He ends up returning to Laws' home to enact revenge, but in the last moment finds himself unable to do so due to Laws' mind-numbing, domineering influence on him. Seconds before Laws is about to trephine BJ with an electrical drill, Jobson appears with a shotgun and shoots the reverend three times, killing him. He then opens the hidden entrance to the mine shaft just in time for Piggott to emerge from it with a still-living Hazel Atkins in his arms. BJ flees southward by train, reflecting on his upbringing, his experiences, and his "escape" from the past of West Yorkshire.

The third episode of the trilogy aired on 19 March 2009 on Channel 4. It was shot using the Red One digital camera. It was directed by Anand Tucker.

Please Seed

- woollytorrent -