BBC1
Has it really been 6 episodes of this? By Any Means has been a moderately alright show. Everyone is fine in it, it’s never nausey and it knows exactly what kind of show it wants to be – one rather a lot like Hustle. The scrote of the week for the final episode is drug lord Jamie Caine (Nick Moran) who keeps on walking away from beating people to death in broad daylight because he’s got a bent copper feeding him info allowing him to get at witnesses – that and so much else beside. Angry Helen is angry but the brass don’t want to put Jack Quinn and the BAM squad on Caine. Her boss gives her a direct cease and desist order but Angry Helen ain’t trying to hear that. She gives the case to Jack with an understanding that if it goes tits up then the conversation never happened.
It’s a race against the clock as Caine is about to flood the gamer market with a bitching new designer drug cocoa dust which threatens to make them even less attractive to women. He’s knocking the back out of 17 year-old every holer Robin Tyler, who by coincidence is Charlie‘s ex-girlfriend’s little sister. It’s a good in for Charlie so after trashing one of Caine’s pill factories they stick Robin undercover but given that she’s a 17-year-old child and not very bright she’s really shit at it. She gets rumbled HARD. Ruh-roh!
It’s a race against the clock as Caine is about to flood the gamer market with a bitching new designer drug cocoa dust which threatens to make them even less attractive to women
Caine and his thugs take Robin and Charlie for a ride to a shitbox warehouse so the interrogation can begin. He shoots the every holer in the head which is a real shame because she was sexually attractive – now she looks terrible, I’m not even lying. Charlie takes one to the dome as well but it takes more than a fatal gunshot wound to stop him. When the BAM squad arrive he tells them the location of the big drug deal. OK smartarse how many fingers am I holding up? Fucking amateur.
He shoots the every holer in the head which is a real shame because she was sexually attractive – now she looks terrible, I’m not even lying.
After breaking up to the drug trafficking party Jack pursues, catches and pummels Caine before pointing a gun in his direction and you know what? Caine isn’t a bit bothered by any of it. He explains how he’ll do anything to get what he wants but Jack has to stop where the law says to because he’s a cop isn’t he? You’re a cop, right Jack? “It’s a grey area” he responds and we fade to black with a gunshot.
So if this gets a second season we can expect Jack on trial for murder and Charlie, the Malala Yousafzai of undercover police, struggling to come to terms with life minus half a kilo of frontal lobe. He’ll be fine. The writers seem to cope alright.
The verdict: Thinning the gaming herd can’t really be a bad thing can it?
Marks out of 10: 7