Summary
It was never going to have a happy ending, but Criminal Record caps off Season 2 with the most morose chapter possible, in which the day is saved but at considerable cost.
I’m not a soothsayer, but I could have told you weeks ago that Criminal Record wasn’t going to have a happy ending. The signs were there. Art imitates life, after all, and given that the contemporary issues — far-right extremism, social media manipulation and gaslighting, tense race relations, and morally compromised systems of government and law enforcement — that have formed the building blocks of Season 2 are still very much ongoing, it stands to reason that Episode 8, “Nobody Dies”, would end the same way. Sometimes, the bad guys get to win. And often, even when the “good guys” get their way, it comes at a pretty extraordinary cost.
You can tell things have gone badly wrong when June and Hegarty, who historically despise each other, are finally on the same page. And that page is pretty lonely. It’s the one you arrive at when the realities of the job have cost you the few remaining scraps of normality that you had left. The harshest truth to swallow in this finale — for June, anyway — is that Hegarty was right all along. In the end, she simply became a version of him. All she had to sacrifice were all the things that she thought made her different.
Cosmo Cuts A Deal
Following his arrest in the previous episode, Cosmo begins “Nobody Dies” being interrogated by June and Hegarty. Since he’s being held on suspicion of terrorism, and the outcome of the interrogation might influence an ongoing attack, he doesn’t have any legal counsel. Still, though, he’s smug. He claims that his various plans for multiple concurrent terror attacks are simply random ideas for his online specials. He pretends not to know anything about Marco Rivelli’s flat. And the bomb going off in the woods — well, that was Billy, wasn’t it?
Cosmo seems to have an answer for everything, but the thing about performative agitators like him is that they’re inherently cowards. They like the spotlight, and they think they’re capable of actions that match their rhetoric. But when the chips are down, Cosmo is exactly how he describes himself to June and Hegarty when he’s making excuses — an entertainer. All it takes is someone pointing out the logistical realities of setting off massive bombs in a multicultural nation like Britain to give Cosmo pause for thought. The bomb the authorities find in the back of an abandoned van is three times bigger than the one in the woods. That won’t only kill Britons, but foreign nationals as well, perhaps some from countries with extradition treaties. Cosmo’s in London now; tomorrow, he might be in Guantanamo Bay.
So, predictably, Cosmo shows his belly and makes a deal. He reveals details of the attacks — a synchronised hit of a halal street market, a hotel housing asylum seekers, and an immigration centre — in return for indefinite immunity from prosecution, the kind of deal usually reserved for high-value assets. Unless he commits a crime that carries a life sentence, he’s untouchable.
The Plan Goes Awry
Hegarty wants to go for the deal and hope that Cosmo’s intel is good. June doesn’t want to make a deal with the devil, but knows she has no choice. It takes her a while to get there, but she eventually arrives at the same inevitable destination. If they don’t give Cosmo what he wants, people will die, potentially in great numbers. June authorises Cliff to make the deal.
At the very least, Cosmo’s information checks out. With Subject 5 — whose name I never caught, I think it was Andy — having been shot dead in the street off-camera earlier, we’re primarily concerned with Nigel, who’s trying to blow up the immigration centre, and Kieran, who’s trying to blow up the hotel. The former is more up for it. He manages to assault an officer and drop off his backpack in a side room, and his finger is literally on the trigger when armed police finally manage to corner and shoot him dead.
With that crisis averted, Kieran has gone off-script at the sight of the authorities and dipped into a primary school, where he, too, is hovering dangerously over the button that’ll activate the bomb in his own backpack. But as has always been obvious, he isn’t built like that. He eventually turns himself in, repeating “I changed my mind,” as if all will be forgiven.
Was It Worth It?
Like I said at the top, Criminal Record Season 2 doesn’t have a happy ending. Just because the bombs weren’t detonated doesn’t mean that Cosmo didn’t already do tremendous damage to the country, and his influence doesn’t stop there. When a tearful June calls Leo, he tells her she should get her own place. Their relationship has come to a pointless end, mostly thanks to a lack of proper communication. Just when it looks like they might be getting through to one another, Leo, who is in June’s car, explodes. Someone rigged it with an explosive.
I use the term “someone” loosely. Six weeks later, Cosmo is a free man and a minor celebrity doing public “shows” we don’t see the contents of but can probably imagine. When Hegarty goes to see him, Cosmo taunts him about Leo’s death, claiming he heard through the grapevine that it might have been one of his fans. It’s almost a confession, but obfuscated enough that, given the deal he made, he knows he can’t be held to account for it. Hegarty and June are running him as an asset rather than handing him off to the intelligence services, though it’s clear that neither is particularly keen on putting up with him.
But is it worth it? Is the moral tradeoff of protecting someone like Cosmo worth the potential upside of any information he might provide? Was the loss of Leo, the loss of Rohaan, worth it? It’s impossible to say. But given that June and Hegarty are drinking alone, with nobody in their lives except each other, the writing seems to be on the wall.
