The Police Chase
Episode 3 of White Lines begins with Zoe and Boxer being stopped by the police. However, Boxer convinces her to race away while we see interwoven scenes of her at the police station, talking to Joanna on the phone. Back in the present, Boxer starts throwing the cocaine out the window as the police cars race after them. Eventually, they’re stuck between a whole group of cars. “How did you learn to drive like that?” Boxer asks incredulously. Zoe shrugs “Manchester?” Back in Manchester 1996 we see Axel packing up his things and leaving while refusing to tell his Dad where he’s going. As we cut back to the present, in the police station Zoe faces 2-5 years behind bars for reckless driving and must report to the station every 3 days until a verdict is given. Boxer interjects at this point and gives the officers his address where she’s staying. Meanwhile, Oriol learns that the investors are starting to back out of the casino deal. Conchita calms him down though and convinces her son that he’ll be okay. As they sit together, she asks whether he knows who killed Axel, to which he replies “Yes, probably.” In hospital, Marcus confronts Zoe about the drugs and tells her the Romanians are after him and his daughters. She promises to bring the drugs back, prompting her to head back on the dirt road she raced up earlier in the day. As she and Boxer talk, he mentions how Oriol and Axel had minor disagreements in the past; someone burnt down Axel’s club. As we cut back to the past, we see Axel phoning home before meeting Kika and Conchita at their house for the first time. In the present, Andreu visits Kika and tells her he had no idea who killed Axel. It turns out her Father abandoned her when she was 17 and as they talk, he mentions how he didn’t want her wrapped up in the world of drugs, which is why he carted her off to Boston. Meanwhile, Boxer leaves Zoe to deal with the missing drugs herself while he gets ready to work. As he looks set to leave, she admits to him that she can’t handle problems well. As she phones through and tells Marcus he can’t find the drugs, he promises to hunt her down and kill her. With an hour left until the Romanians visit Marcus’ daughters, and Marcus out of time, he begrudgingly allows Zoe to help by picking up his daughters and taking them to safety. She manages to get a lift from Kika and together, grab Matilda and Tanny from school and start driving off. On the way out of town, the girls find their dog Pancho in the middle of the road and the kids suddenly bolt after kicking it up, running away from the car. Meanwhile, Oriol tries to spin the story that Cristobal was the one who killed Axel. Taking his contact with him, Oriol plans to threaten Cristobal into a public confession. Tying him up to speakers, they start playing loud techno while he’s forced to listen to the deafening noise. The men stand with noise-cancelling headphones on and start turning the volume up. Oriol takes the reigns of the mixer and begins turning the volume up even louder until he bursts Cristobal’s eardrums. Boxer heads out to the middle of the water and speaks to the Romanians on their boat. With his back turned, one of them looks set to knife him but instead, Boxer is ready and stabs the first through the neck with a hook, stringing him up. He then harpoons the other and starts clearing up the blood after disposing of the bodies and dumping them at the bottom of the ocean. As the episode closes out, Zoe heads back to the police station and admits everything. As we approach the halfway point of White Lines, the mystery surrounding what happened to Axel is starting to deepen while more of his past comes to fruition. With clear divides growing at home between him and his Father, along with a whole string of people that may be behind his murder, big question marks surround what really happened to Axel. Given the proficiency in which Boxer disposed of the two Romanians, could he the be one who killed Axel? It seems unlikely now that Marcus is the one responsible but the series also has a fair few problems when it comes to its depiction of the police. Given the early car chase in the episode, it seems a bit of a stretch to believe the police didn’t see the clouds of white powder billowing from their car, let alone seeing them throw the packages of cocaine out. Still, the series continues to offer up some entertaining scenes nonetheless and the music is certainly on-point too. The heady cocktail of trance, house and classical works surprisingly well and the mystery is interesting enough to keep you watching through this one. It may not be the best mystery of the year, but it’s certainly an intoxicating one, a show that keeps you guessing what’s going to happen next in the best possible way.
