ITV's police drama The Blame has concluded its six-episode run, revealing that DI Tom Radley, played by Douglas Booth, killed teenager Sophie Madsen. The finale exposes a web of corruption, cover-ups, and career-driven deceit within the police force.
The series starred Booth and Michelle Keegan as DI Tom Radley and DI Emma Crane, detectives investigating systemic corruption and misogyny in the force after Sophie's body is found in the quiet town of Wakestead. Suspicion initially falls on her ice skating coach, while Emma begins to question who she can trust as Tom becomes implicated in the case.
Tom's confession and motive
Episode five ended on a cliffhanger, with Emma discovering that a police officer had been luring women to their home to assault them, after sickening WhatsApp messages - based on real-life police chats - were exposed. Sophie had been conducting her own investigation into the force and found herself at the home of Head of Digital Forensics Neil Shergill. Emma also ended up there, drugged and vulnerable, before Tom saved her.
Sophie had learned that Shergill had been drugging and raping women for years, luring them under the pretence of helping them. She escaped after he spiked her drink, but not before finding images he had taken of his victims. Unable to trust Shergill, she turned to Tom for help, which ultimately led to her death.
When Emma confronts Tom, he confesses: he killed Sophie. Tom had learned that Shergill sexually assaulted a woman but, instead of reporting it, used it to advance his own career. He also framed his former partner Kapil for a promotion. Tom killed Sophie when she said she was going to take evidence about Shergill's lies to the police, knowing he would be implicated for covering it up.
Final twists and aftermath
Tom also reveals that Shergill killed another victim, Amber Dodds - not Stanley Vogel, the man Emma put behind bars after falsely planting evidence. In the final episode, DC Lewis discovers evidence suggesting Emma had been hiding something about Amber Dodds's death and questions whether she can be trusted.
Speaking to journalists before the series aired, Douglas Booth said of the script: "I read the script and stupidly read it before I went to bed and I couldn't sleep until one in the morning, it just hooked me. It gripped me and Tom just seemed like a very complex character."
He added: "He's a guy that's really trying to do the right thing, trying to do the good thing, but almost as the story goes on, you'll learn that everyone in the story has maybe certain things they're hiding from themselves and other people. He gets trapped in this toxic system, he's trying to do the right thing and he just gets trapped. It's like a moral injury that festers and rots him to the core inside. You get to see how that's explored throughout the series."
The Blame is available to watch on ITVX.
