The Tower season 3 is a gritty crime thriller starring Game of Thrones favourite Gemma Whelan and based on Kate London’s third novel and adapted by screenwriter Patrick Harbinson, who promises this will be the best series yet.
The third series picks up just under two years after The Tower season 2 left off, and we immediately find ourselves on Gallowstree Lane, the London street that this series of the show is named after.
The drama unfolds quickly as two teenage boys are seen walking along in the dark, past a convenience store, where they are met with two other males walking towards them. One of the boys is stabbed in his upper thigh and his friend screams for help as the men with the knife run away.
Meanwhile, DS Sarah Collins (Gemma Whelan) is woken by her phone and she tells her partner, Julie, that she has been called into work because another teen has been murdered on the streets of London.
We also see a quick glimpse of DC Lizzie Adama, whose baby son, now around a year old, is woken by the sound of police cars going past the house.
As she arrives at the scene of the stabbing, Sarah is told by DC Elaine Lucas that the boy was found with no ID or phone and that an off-duty paramedic tried to save him, but when he gave his phone to the injured boy’s friend to call an ambulance, he just ran off with it. The paramedic is in shock, heartbroken he couldn’t save the teenager, and asks Sarah how many more of these senseless killings we are going to see on the streets.
We later find out the murdered teen’s name is Spencer Cardoso and he was just 15 years old.
Over at Farlow Police Station, Lizzie is getting to work and sees some CCTV footage of gang member Ryan Kennedy beating someone up in a fight in a shopping centre.
Meanwhile, DI Kieran Shaw (Emmett Scanlan) is still working undercover on Operation Perseus in a bid to put London drug kingpin Shakiel Oliver behind bars. We realise that the same teenager, that Lizzie is looking to question about the shopping centre GBH charge is also the same teen that saw his friend die in the knife attack the previous night. DS Mark Angel calls Shaw and asks if they should tell the homicide team investigating the murder who was with Spencer when he got killed, but Shaw says no, they need to keep Ryan’s name out of it, otherwise if Shakiel’s roadmen are flagged as being involved it could involvement could jeopardise their undercover operation.
Elaine gives Sarah the audio from the 999 call that was made when Spencer was killed, and they’re left frustrated when Ryan doesn’t tell the operator his name, only that Spencer had been stabbed. But while Sarah and her team are no closer to working out who was with Spencer when he was killed, Lizzie arrests Ryan for GBH and takes him in for questioning, at this point oblivious to the fact she is talking to the teen that Sarah is looking for.
Sarah tells her boss, DCI Tim Bailie that she wants to hold a press conference to see if they can get any more information about Spencer’s murder. He isn’t keen, knowing that it will shine a light on the Met that they don’t want, and she accuses him of turning a blind eye when a teenage boy was killed, claiming if this was a white 15-year-old girl who had been killed on the streets then it would be a different story.
Lizzie gets nowhere while questioning Ryan as he is remaining tight-lipped about his gang involvement and the shopping centre GBH. But as she lets him go, she is suspicious when he walks in one direction out of the police station and his mum goes to the bus stop in the other direction. Lizzie watches Ryan getting in a flash white car and takes down the reg. Inside the car, Shakiel’s men ask what the police were quizzing him about and what he said. They ask Ryan if the police linked him to Spencer’s murder and he tells him no.
Meanwhile, Kieran goes to see Lizzie, who is at home with their son, Josh. He isn’t happy that she is trying to work while looking after their baby, and she tells him that she has to do something to clear her workload and that juggling a job and being a mum with limited childcare is tricky. She asks him to leave and eventually he does, but it is clear he is cooking up a plan.
Elsewhere, Ryan is cycling through a nice part of the city when he grabs a phone out of the hands of a man wearing an expensive suit and standing outside a fancy office. He takes it to see his friend Steve (who we know is undercover cop Steve Bradshaw) and gives him the phone in exchange for cash. He then tells him about what happened to Spencer, getting emotional and blaming someone called ‘Lexi’ for tricking them into being outside the shop the night that Spencer was killed.
It’s clear Ryan sees Steve as a father figure, especially when Steve feeds him dinner. As he leaves, Steve tells Ryan if he ever wants to talk, he is here for him, and we see that there is a hidden camera in the corner of the room, recording their every move.
As Lizzie arrives at work the next day she is told she has been transferred. Confused she arrives at her new office to find that she is now on Operation Perseus and has to sign an Official Secrets Act as this is the undercover operation that Kieran and Steve have been working on for two years to bring down Shakiel Oliver.
DS Mark Angel gives her the lowdown on her new role, telling her where they are watching the CCVT footage taken from Steve’s undercover work and transcribing it all. After watching the footage taken the night that Ryan went to visit Steve and talk about Spencer’s stabbing, she recognises Steve and realises this is the undercover operation that Kieran is running and that he got her the transfer because he knew it would make her life easier with baby Josh.
She confronts him in his office and although she is annoyed that he made the decision for her, she can’t deny that it will make life a little easier and promises him she will come back the next day.
Meanwhile at the press conference it looks like DCI Tim Bailie was right as people lay into the Met team telling them they don’t do enough when it’s a black teenager who is killed on the streets. Bailie is fuming with Sarah that the whole thing was a waste of time, but just as everyone is leaving Ryan’s mum turns up and reveals that she has noticed he has been acting oddly since the day Spencer was killed and she thinks her son is the murder witness.
Sarah calls Lizzie about her interview with Ryan the previous day, but she ignores her calls, knowing she can’t tell her anything because of the Official Secrets Act she has signed. In the end Sarah is so desperate to solve Spember’s murder that she goes to see Lizzie at home, who is a closed book with her,m desperately trying not to reveal anything that will throw Operation Perseus into jeopardy. In the end she feels bad for Sarah and gives her the reg of the car that she saw Ryan getting into after she released him.
Elsewhere, Kieran goes to see Steve in secret and it turns out to be Steve’s birthday. Kieran gives him a cake and shows him a video of his kids singing happy birthday to him, and Steve is moved, telling Kieran he misses his family. Kieran and Steve talk about how they are getting closer to Shakiel and Kieran reminds Steve that if there is ever a time he feels like his cover is at risk, he will pull him off the job and return him to his family. But Steve admits he is in too deep and won’t waste the last two years of undercover work to quit now.
However, his resilience (and acting skills, pretending to be someone he isn’t) are put to the test when drug kingpin Shakiel demands to see him and he tells him he is suspicious about the police as they don’t seem to be doing much about Spencer’s murder. He tells Steve that he thinks they have got an undercover operation going on, but Steve keeps a poker face and when Shakiel tests him by asking if he wants to get more involved with his business, he says yes.
Kieran finds himself in trouble with his wife, Mary, who in season 2 forgave him for sleeping with Lizzie and having a baby with her. At home, while he is in the shower, Mary answers his phone and it is Lizzie calling to talk about work. Realising that this means Kieran and Lizzie are working together again, Mary throws Kieran out of their family home.
Later, we see Ryan buying a knife from a man on the street, using the money that Steve gave him in return for the stolen phone. We also see Lexi, the woman that Ryan told Steve set them up the night Spencer was killed, making a phone call. She asks for drugs, but to pay for them she puts herself in danger by going on the streets and selling herself. However, the episode comes to a dramatic end when she thinks she has a customer when car lights flash at her – but, as she approaches the vehicle, the driver speeds up and hits her.
The Tower season 3 airs every night from Monday, September 2 until Thursday, September 5 at 9 pm on ITV1. You can also catch it via ITVX.