I'm still feeling a little bit spooked out after watching the final episode of 'Ashes To Ashes' last night, in a good way, that is. I've missed one or two installments of this third series (having seen all of the previous two but none of its parent show, 'Life On Mars') although that didn't affect my enjoyment of episode 8, which finally solved the ongoing mystery behind why DI Alex Drake (Keeley Hawes); a criminal psychologist from the 21st century, was somehow transported to the 1980's world of tough DCI Gene Hunt (Phillip Glenister). Hunt is an old school copper still living by the punch-now-interrogate-later school of policing he demonstrated in the '70's set 'Life On Mars' with policing partner, Sam Tyler (John Simm), similarly deposited into Hunt's world from our contemporary one and whose fate this final episode also reveals.
I was very impressed with how this finale played out and glad that I had avoided all the internet speculation on the series, which I think could well have spoilt it for me. Even though it's only speculation, I bet some geek following the show's hidden clues would have guessed the ending and posted it online. I preferred to just go with the flow and be surprised. I certainly was. I had no idea Gene Hunt would turn out to be a closet gay! No, but seriously, the main interest for me lay not in the will-they-won't-they tension between Drake and Hunt but in Drake (or 'Bolly Knickers'-Hunt's nickname for Alex, i.e. Bolly = Bollinger = posh drink = posh bird) returning to the real world, recovering from her bullet-in-the-head-induced coma there and getting back to her little daughter, Molly, finding out Gene Hunt's secrets along the way.
After two series of hinting and teasing, plus the seven episodes of this final series that show Hunt in a particularly bad light (exactly what did he have to do with Sam Tyler's disappearance, did Hunt kill him? What will become of Alex and the rest of Hunt's team?) creators Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharoah finally reveal the answers: Hunt didn't kill Tyler, he was already dead, (in the real world, at least, where we saw him jumping off a building at the end of the final 'LoM' to stay in Hunt's world) as are Hunt's associates, Shaz Granger, Chris Skelton and Ray Carling. Drake is the only one still alive in the real world and, therefore, the only one with any knowledge that their 1980's surroundings are...something else. Yet, up until now, even she didn't know exactly what, or where she was, initially thinking of Hunt, et al as "imaginary constructs" created by her comatose mind to keep her alive.
Alex and Gene's visit to a dilapidated farmhouse brings the revelation that Gene Hunt himself is dead (I got 'Sixth Sense' flashbacks at this point) in the real world, shot in the head at the very same farmhouse whilst still a young PC after attempting to take on intruders, thinking he was Gary Cooper at high noon. The gruff, tough, six-shooting Hunt we've come to know is just the mental image of what that young, idealistic, foolhardy copper thought a good lawman was. As far as I understood it, Hunt then created a 1970's, then '80's world where he was the sherrif, recruiting the lost souls of other dead cops to join him in his idealised fantasy.
Relishing all this is Jim Keats who, for the whole third series has been on Hunt's case, hellbent on exposing his apparently dodgy past (including the possible murder of Tyler) and trying to displace the trust of his loyal team. He almost manages it, too, revealing the artifice of Hunt's world to Shaz, Chris and Ray by giving them videos of their own real-world deaths and showing their staunch reliable boss for what he really is: of similar age and rank to twenty-something WPC Shaz and dead, like her and the others. Their illusion shattered, these three are almost tempted to accept Keat's 'transfer' to his (under)world. However, Alex Drake keeps the faith in their boss (despite him losing it in himself), inspiring Hunt to draw his team out of all the metaphysical madness and back into the fray to stop some Dutch "armed bastards" in an airstrip-set showdown, where Gene's beloved Audi Quattro is the worst casuality, in a way that gives new meaning to Gene's phrase, "fire up the Quattro!"
The team all agree to celebrate their victory by going to the pub and Hunt takes them to The Railway Arms. They enter, one by one; the open door letting out an ethereal inner light, as well as the strains of Bowie's 'Life On Mars' on the pub jukebox. This just leaves Alex and Gene some touching final moments as we realise that this is the 'boozer' where Gene last saw Sam Tyler, and is where Alex realises that she must now enter, having died in the real world, as Tyler did when he jumped off a building. Rather than some limbo between this life and the next, it seems that Gene's world is a sort of 1980's Police purgatory; or perhaps he is a modern Charon, the ferryman of Greek mythology, leading the souls of newly deceased coppers across the River Styx to the Underworld, or, in this case, The Railway Arms public house. Either way, he has driven his team to be the best they can be, to be 'Heroes' (as Bowie, again, sings over images of the characters during the end credits), and finally, to their eternal rest.
I loved how this episode used prosaic things like a pub to convey the profound concepts behind it. The character of Jim Keats (Daniel Mays), ostensibly a 'Disciplines & Complaints' officer, turns out to be the Devil in disguse as he tries to tempt Hunt's team away from the right and true path (I'm mixing Christian theology with Greek mythology but bear with me). Shaz, Chris and Ray are almost lead by Keats into a possible express elevator to Hell ("What was that?" cries Shaz, upon hearing tortured screams coming up from the bottom of the lift shaft). Keats' gurglings after Hunt punches him outside the pub at the end certainly sounded demonic, too. His team and nemesis dealt with, Gene is left alone, staring into the night sky as 'Life On Mars' plays - "It's the freakiest sha-ha-ha-ha-ow/take a look at the lawman/beating up the wrong guy/oh, man, look at those cavemen go!" Then, we're back in his office...a beleaguered new arrival bursts in, confused and raving - "have any of you seen my iPhone?!" he bellows. Gene opens his office door to introduce himself as only he can (although I couldn't quite tell what he actually said) and the after-life goes on...
