The Blame review: A timely drama about the crisis of confidence in policing

British procedurals are catching up with the crisis of confidence in policing. It’s been five years since Sarah Everard was killed by an off-duty Metropolitan Police officer, and six years after two PCs were jailed after taking – and then sharing on WhatsApp – photographs of murdered sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman.

While a controversial forthcoming BBC factual drama will tackle the Everard case head on, ITV’s The Blame takes a fictional route into similarly troubling territory, asking if the institution tasked with protecting women can be trusted to do so – and whether the threat might come from inside its own ranks.

Following the murder of 16-year-old ice skater Sophie Madsen (Matilda Freeman) in the town of Wakestead, DI Emma Crane (Michelle Keegan), a force of well-founded indignation, and DI Tom Radley (Douglas Booth) are sent to investigate.

The workplace warning signs accumulate quickly: inappropriate comments dismissed as banter, the complicity of silence and the group chats from which Emma is excluded. When an SD card containing footage of Sophie trying to report a sexual assault goes missing, the case takes on an even more sinister edge, with the teenager seen on the video being targeted by the very men who should have taken her complaint seriously.

Crime dramas have traditionally offered us variations on the 'good copper': maverick, dysfunctional, but ultimately on our side. The bite of The Blame comes from Emma’s belief that fellow officers have warped their authority against women. And this is not simply a matter of discarding a few bad apples. As in the Casey review of 2023, which found failings in the standards of behaviour in the Met Police, the culture here is one where misconduct has festered, this malignity enabled by colleagues opting to look the other way.

But even the most corrupt police station needs someone for viewers to stand beside. Emma and her ally, DC Lewis Brimah (Nathan Mensah), provide that point of identification, pushing back against the misogynists in their midst. The worry is that having such a decent officer at the centre might make the problem seem confined to a few rogue individuals, rather than being something more deeply rooted. However, midway through, the drama adds some moral shade by calling Emma’s conduct in a previous investigation into question. Might she not be quite as unimpeachable as we’d assumed?

The nagging worry that Emma too may have something to answer for makes her a far more complex figure, while also serving as a salutary reminder that past sins have a knack for being found out. Flashbacks reveal the old frustrations Emma and Tom carry into the present, while also giving Sophie’s story room to breathe. By taking us back to the months before her death, the drama allows us to glimpse the person she was, rather than reducing her to a body at the centre of an investigation. These scenes offer clues, certainly, but also something more poignant: a sense of the life that has been brutally taken away.

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The feeling of injustice deepens with the messages exchanged by serving detectives, made more chilling by the fact that the offensive language comes from real-life transcripts. It’s a stark reminder that the prevailingly corrosive mindset hasn’t been dreamt up by a devious dramatist but is instead drawn from the actual exchanges of those who are supposedly safeguarding us.

The six-part series, adapted from Charlotte Langley’s 2023 debut novel of the same name, also does an admirable job in keeping us guessing – even when the finale appears to have solved its mystery with 30 minutes still to go. Those who have honed their sense of narrative mathematics will work out that what presents itself as a climax is merely the end of act two. But the real question isn’t simply "Who killed Sophie?". It’s also "What kind of police force would allow this to happen – and how far might the stain spread?".

Impressively pointed and frequently unsettling, The Blame is timely television with a remit that extends beyond the identity of a murderer. By the time the end credits roll, the case may be closed, but the culture is still very much under investigation.

The Blame is available to watch in full on ITVX.

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Authors

David Brown is Deputy Previews Editor at Radio Times, with a particular interest in crime drama and fantasy TV. He has appeared as a contributor on BBC News, Sky News and Radio 4’s Front Row and has had work published in the Guardian, the Sunday Times and the i newspaper. He has also worked as a writer and editorial consultant on the National Television Awards, as well as several documentaries profiling the likes of Lenny Henry, Billy Connolly and Take That.