In Review: Ripper Street – The Beating Of Her Wings

Synopsis: A murder inquiry in a curiosity shop reveals a secret dungeon and signs of a captive.

Review: This episode pretty much sees Edmund Reid head towards a second meltdown.

The episode starts when Long Susan’s solicitor Capshaw introduces the proprietor of an old fashioned curiosity shop to their new debt collector.  It gets a bit emotional and Capshaw accidently murders the store owners wife – leaving the proprietor no choice but to flee the scene.

When Reid and Drake get called to the scene all that remains is the owners murdered wife, but upon further investigation we learn of a secret room, which has been a prison to Ried’s missing daughter.

Reid’s daughter has been taken by Capshaw and has been cared for by Long Susan and the Doctor that is running her hospital.

By close of the episode Reid’s daughter is still alive, but Long Susan and her solicitor Capshaw have misinformed a Reid that the prisoner in the store was his daughter who apparently died in their care. The leads Reid and Drake to track down the store owner at which point Reid loses all control and beats the man to death while Drake and Jackson helplessly watch on from behind a locked door.

We get an absolute powerhouse performance from Matthew Macfadyen here and some great supporting work from both Jerome Flynn as DI Drake and Adam Rothenberg as Captain Jackson. Special mention also has to go to John Heffernan who plays the deliciously devious solicitor Ronald Capshaw.

This new series seems to be getting darker and darker with each new episode, but not in a bad or unbelievable way.