Criminal Record Season Two Review: Peter Capaldi's Devastating Performance Anchors Intense Crime Thriller
Cush Jumbo delivers an excellent performance in Apple TV's unsettling tale of police corruption, but former Time Lord Peter Capaldi, whose death-stare intensity is turned up to maximum, serves as the undeniable heart of this gripping crime drama. The second season of Criminal Record arrives with sirens blaring through London's crime-ridden streets, plunging viewers back into the murky world of Metropolitan Police investigations.
Capaldi's Unsettling Presence Dominates the Screen
Peter Capaldi returns as DCI Daniel Hegarty, baring his lower teeth while glowering through the windscreen of his vehicle with peerless intensity. Capaldi's scrunched-up, ossified presence defines the series, with his chin pressed into his chest, mouth slightly ajar, and eyes the colour of a deep bruise. This signature look proves devastatingly effective throughout the season.
The show's depiction of London as a city impervious to natural light creates a distinctive atmosphere, with conversations, interrogations, and confrontations conducted against backdrops of faulty streetlights and flickering tower-block television sets. The portrayal of systemic corruption permeates every scene, from the CID's dimpled glass doors to the foreheads of junior officers slick with an oily sheen of venality.
Lenker's Vulnerability and Hegarty's Manipulation
Cush Jumbo's DS June Lenker returns tormented by questions about control and authority, haunted by her failure to save a teenage boy murdered by far-right extremists at a political rally. Her combination of guilt and idealism proves dangerously unhelpful, leading to errors in judgment that Hegarty's nostrils twitch to detect.
After two years of radio silence, Hegarty sends Lenker a simple text message reading "coffee?" - an apparent attempt to rebuild what was, at best, an uneasy alliance. From his new position in intelligence, Hegarty has been monitoring a far-right group led by Cosmo Thompson, played with ferocious watchability by Dustin Demri-Burns as an athleisure-swathed charmer from the oi-oi-saveloy school of fascism.
A Tense Cat-and-Mouse Game Unfolds
Hegarty wants Lenker's help tracking Billy Fielding, a prison escapee from Thompson's group who Lenker believes responsible for the teenage boy's murder. "Help me run him down," rumbles Hegarty in his peaty, oak-aged voice. When Lenker splutters "You want me to work for you?" Hegarty responds with his ferrety death-stare turned to eleven, hissing "It's better than a mini-break."
The narrative follows relatively straightforward but beautifully paced storytelling, with twists emerging like handkerchiefs from a sleeve. The show's complexity lies in its characters, each existing in their own professional, emotional, and moral worlds - fragile planets circling one another as their weaknesses contract and expand.
Building Suspense and Moral Ambiguity
Now that viewers know not to trust either Hegarty or Lenker, the tension reaches even greater heights than in the first season. Suspense builds continuously throughout the episodes, creating a palpable sense of impending confrontation. The audience constantly wonders how long before the elastic tension finally twangs back.
Criminal Record offers quality television viewing for those whose idea of entertainment involves attempting to foil bomb plots while being chased through underpasses by gnashing extremists in cagoules. The series successfully combines character depth with thrilling police procedural elements, creating a compelling examination of corruption, guilt, and moral compromise within law enforcement.
