SummaryDetective Chief Inspector John Luther (Idris Elba) returns to work after being suspended in another case, but soon finds his personal and professional lives becoming precarious yet again.
SummaryDetective Chief Inspector John Luther (Idris Elba) returns to work after being suspended in another case, but soon finds his personal and professional lives becoming precarious yet again.
The presentation may be Hitchcockian at times, but there is nothing fun or arch or cartoonish or even particularly original in the violence that permeates Luther. It is, quite simply, terrifying, and we are meant to take it as seriously as Luther himself does.
There's also a procedural element in the middle hours, with Luther focusing on individual cases in each installment, that doesn't hold up quite as well. Even those installments, however, have their chilling moments, before the final two episodes take off and regain the premiere's momentum.
As was the case with the second season, Season 3 of Luther is only four hours long, and the drama would probably be more satisfying if it didn't try to cover so many bases in that limited running time.
It allows the mind to roam across many questions while the story unspools efficiently before you, asking little in the way of mental or emotional investment and giving much in the way of solidly old-fashioned whodunnitry. Pairs well with apple crumble and custard or large slabs of Dairy Milk.
The show’s concept has long revolved around how everything Luther has been through has left him haunted, but now, in the fifth season, it does little more for viewers than leave them numb.