Line of Duty season seven: Where can they take AC-12 next?

No British crime drama of recent years can even feign to rival the thrilling corruption saga Line of Duty. From the premiere of its first season in 2012 to its sixth and most recent series in 2021, the BBC’s crown jewel of scripted television had viewers of all demographics gripped on its intricate and addictive twists and turns. The story followed AC-12, a team of internal affairs investigators hot on the tail of corrupt police officers. No bent copper is apparently too high-ranking or powerful to escape the clutches of the core team, the three musketeers we know and love: Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar), Kate Fleming (Vicky McClure) and Steve Arnott (Martin Compston).

But after many seasons of complex plotting, morally grey characters and countless shocking switch-and-bait moments (remember the “urgent exit required” text from season three that had you screaming “Mother of God” at the TV? What about when Dot shot Lindsay Denton in the car?), the most recent season finale comparatively drifted along like a sagging birthday balloon. Following the big reveal that Buckells was the bad guy all along, creator Jed Mercurio decided that he was little more than a cog in a machine. Systemic corruption is the problem, of course, not the possible existence of evil geniuses.

The depressing truth that our institutions are so broken that they have to be the ultimate Line of Duty punchline didn’t please everyone. It wasn’t just viewers who were left a little deflated by the series ending. Even the characters were. It all felt very much like a full stop to the show.

Not so, as the BBC has now announced the show will be back for a seventh season. In the new six-part series, police anti-corruption unit AC-12 has been disbanded and rebranded as the Inspectorate of Police Standards. Per the BBC, “anticorruption work has never been more difficult and in this challenging climate Steve Arnott (Compston) Kate Fleming (McClure) and Ted Hastings (Dunbar) are assigned their most sensitive case so far”.

All we know so far is that there will be a new character, Detective Inspector Dominic Gough, who is accused of abusing his position of trust to act as a sexual predator.

Here are our predictions for the mysterious seventh season...

This entry isn’t actually a prediction. It is an inevitability, like death and taxes. A simple fact of the Line of Duty universe. Over the course of the first six seasons, the actors would complain about having to memorise police jargon in the script, from CHIS (covert human intelligence source) to AFO (authorised firearms officer). “There was a line I had that contained five acronyms in one sentence,” Martin Compston once told The Independent. “Absolute torture.” Not having a deep knowledge of the inner workings of British policing, I’m not exactly sure what the new workplace acronyms could be. But here are a few that I’d like to see pop up after the gang have clocked off for the day. Jed, are you taking note? Perhaps Kate Fleming could go out for some VPRs (very pale rosés) with the girlies after work. Steve could go shopping for some new WAP (not in the Cardi B sense, unfortunately, but in the waistcoat apparel sense). And Hastings might shorten his catchphrase to JMJATWD (Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the wee donkey). Rolls right off the tongue, doesn’t it? Ellie Harrison

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The best thing about Line of Duty is its revolving door of bent coppers. Mercurio might enjoy unceremoniously killing them off (RIP Lennie James, Gina McKee, Keeley Hawes, Daniel Mays... the list goes on), but they are excellent quality while they last. All the guest stars tend to be stalwarts of British crime drama, and all have a certain feel to them. These are people you could believe bumping into at the pub, but who you could also imagine being neck-deep in a money-laundering operation and meeting a very sorry end before being stuffed into a freezer. Or eating porridge miserably while wearing a lanyard. That kind of thing. We know the new central guest character of the new season will be DI Dominic Gough, and we predict he could be played by one of these actors who has the aforementioned vibe: Adeel Akhtar, Eddie Marsan, Richard Madden. I suggest they all start getting to grips with their police acronyms right now. EH

Mercurio has always been a political writer, channelling his anger at institutional failure into gripping drama. So it’s almost certain he’ll weave recent developments in police corruption into the next chapter of Line of Duty. Since 2021, the Metropolitan Police has launched a major crackdown aimed at rooting out corruption within its ranks. In 2023, more than 1,000 officers – out of a workforce of approximately 34,000 – were either suspended or placed on restricted duties. Equally alarming, 275 were awaiting gross misconduct hearings, many of which involved allegations of violence against women and girls. This reckoning followed the shocking convictions of two former officers: serial rapist David Carrick and Wayne Couzens, the murderer of Sarah Everard. None of this will escape Mercurio’s attention – or his dramatic scrutiny. HE

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A bold reset feels inevitable, and that could mean the loss of one of the core trio: Hastings, Fleming, or Arnott. They’re all reprising their roles in season seven, but that doesn’t mean they’ll last the whole run. Dunbar seems the safest bet to stay, especially since he was the one to first tease the new season. That leaves one half of the central duo, Fleming or Arnott, potentially on the chopping block. Their tight-knit bond has been a cornerstone of the show, but both the BBC and Mercurio will likely be aiming for a reinvention to restore momentum and raise the stakes. With a fresh start comes risk, and Line of Duty has never shied away from a grim demise. HE

Though many fans would probably prefer that this storyline be simply left to die, like one of the show’s many guest stars, there could be life in the old girl yet. The season six finale was a huge anticlimax for a lot of viewers, as it finally revealed that “H” – the criminal mastermind who’d been enshrouded in mystery for literally years – was a pretty forgettable minor character, former detective superintendent Ian Buckells. Even Dunbar later said that Buckells was simply a “patsy”, taking the hit for the real “H”. “We just got the guy we could actually pin a charge on,” he said. “He’s a distraction.” So, could Mercurio be using this seventh season to correct the wrongs of the last, and give fans the big head honcho they’ve been waiting for? And who could it be, someone in the upper echelons of the police, or even government? EH