After the slow, purposeful build-up of the previous five episodes (is Spector faking amnesia, and if so, why?) The Fall came to a blood-splattered, nasty, brutal end, and one that was all the more shocking for its realistic violence.
While the final scene could have been predicted – Spector dead and Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson) back home in London alone – the route writer/director Allan Cubitt and his cast took to get there was horrifically unexpected, to say the least.
It all starts calmly enough, picking up in the police interview room where Spector fills his lawyers in on what happened the night of Susan Harper's murder in 2002 – the crime David Alvarez is serving time for. Talking with police officers Tom Anderson (Colin Morgan) and Stella and his lawyer, Spector reveals the details of her death as a sex game gone wrong, an accident that led him on the path to murder.
As Spector relates the story, Dornan's placid, restrained performance once again draws you in, and we watch just as Stella does for a glimpse of something, anything, to give us a hint of what is to come. Dornan's measured delivery as Spector's anger simmers beneath the surface, and Anderson's quiet, determined accusations as the cameras switch between them are mesmerising. Bloody hell, the whole season could have been the two of them in a room and we would have been riveted.
The quiet, almost emotionless exchange between them serves to lull us into a false sense of security – they've got you now, Spector, there's nowhere to hide – so it comes as a major WTF moment when her whispered needling of him ("You just want to be noticed… to have special treatment") causes him to explode in a shocking, violent act that leaves the viewer's jaw well and truly on the floor.
Upsetting as it is, it's a clever move that gets us all frantically guessing as to what the hell could happen next. Spector watches Doctor Larson's security procedures (locking his car keys away in a locker) – could he be planning an escape? What is Katie (Aisling Franciosi) going to do with a sharp bone she steals from her dinner? Is Dr O'Donnell (Richard Coyle) the only doctor at Belfast hospital?
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Cubitt keeps us guessing as he checks in with characters such as Katie and Spector's daughter, before bringing us back to Spector, who has now gone full creepy, quoting poem 'The Man Of Double Deed' ("And when my heart began to bleed; 'Twas death, and death, and death indeed") to suggestible mental patient Bailey (Conor MacNeill).
It all builds up to a gripping can't-look-away-but-desperately-want-to finale that Stella almost predicts when she talks to Katie about Spector's rage.
It's a credit to Cubitt's taut, slow-burning writing that the harrowing, brutal events that lead to the end of Spector's life and the end of The Fall are unexpected but yet make complete sense. And that we see how other people (Burns, Rose Stagg) are coping without having it all tied up in a neat bow.
While Gillian Anderson's superb, icy police officer may one day return (there have been rumours of a follow-up series for her), it's fair to say that we'll never see anything quite as engrossingly twisted as the combination of Stella and Dornan's hypnotising Spector on our screens.
A worthy send off for the series, and surely BAFTA nominations on the way for Cubitt and his cast.
Freelance film & TV writer, Digital Spy
Critic and writer Jo Berry has been writing about TV and movies since she began her career at Time Out aged 18. A regular on BBC Radio, Jo has written for titles including Empire, Maxim, Radio Times, OK!, The Guardian and Grazia, is the author of books including Chick Flicks and The Parents’ Guide to Kids’ Movies.
She is also the editor of website Movies4Kids. In her career, Jo has interviewed well-known names including Beyonce, Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Kiefer Sutherland, Tom Cruise and all the Avengers, spent many an hour crushed in the press areas of award show red carpets. Jo is also a self-proclaimed expert on Outlander and Brassic, and completely agrees that Die Hard is a Christmas movie.
