(Warning: this article contains spoilers and theories about future spoilers)
By its own recent standards, last night's Line of Duty was a bit of a dud. Lots of talking, lots of summation, a brilliant Tedism ('Jesus, Mary and Joseph and her wee donkey') but little in the way of action or clarity.
Still this episode managed to plant the seeds of perhaps one of its maddest theories yet: that Marcus Thurwell (a retired bent copper based in Spain played by Jimmy Nesbitt) is not dead - as seemingly revealed at the episode's finale - and in fact, he had somehow infiltrated Spanish police and was actually involved in the raid on Casa del Thurwell.
Allow us to rewind just a little bit. We're first introduced to Marcus Thurwell as the former SUI in the killing of Lawrence Christopher. Thurwell was last seen in Spain and there is a strong suspicion in last week's episode that he raised Jo Davidson as his daughter. Police in Sevilla have decided to arrest Thurwell via an armed late night raid on his bungalow, and have been kind enough to provide a video and audio link to AC-12 back in the UK.
The raid does not go to plan. Police kick in a locked door and find 'dos muertos'. A police officer wearing what looks like mascara tells us that its the body of 'Marcus Thurwell' and 'Senora Thurwell'. Viewers are not given a close-up of the bodies and its impossible to make out any details given the night vision camera that's being used. All we can really ever see for certain is the face of the leading Spanish policeman.
Here's where the theories begin. As soon as the episode ended, people hurried online to theorise that the eyes of the commanding officer looked an awful lot like the face of Nesbitt's character.
Driving this theory is the feeling that there's no way an actor as high-profile as Nesbitt would be used as a face for two mere episodes before disappearing from the show for good. It does seem bizarre, but there are a few massive holes in this theory.
For one, Greek actor Pano Masti is credited in role of Capitan and clearly resembles the man speaking to camera.
Lots of people online saying that the Spanish Policeman was James Nesbitt.... the Capitan was credited as Pano Masti. #LineofDuty #JamesNesbitt pic.twitter.com/rP9O1veeGM
— Matt Sole (@matt_sole) April 25, 2021
The second problem is simply down to logic. For it to be true means Thurwell would have had to have got wind of the raid, organise a gang, kill a police unit and seamlessly carry out a completely believable Navy SEALS-style break-in in the middle of the night. Line of Duty is all about red herrings, and this feels like the biggest one of the season.
We do believe that this won't be the last we see of Thurwell - why else conceal the identity of the body? - but it seems highly unlikely that he was actually involved in that raid last night as a policeman.
That said, how do you say 'bent copper' in Spanish?
SEE ALSO: Post-It Note Close-Up Suggests Terrible Truth Stalking Jo Davidson
