Code of Silence – episode 2
Jun. 7th, 2025 08:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessAlison didn’t tell the detectives what the gang were saying about why Liam hadn’t come to the last meeting, or much of anything, just as they were ordering the driver (the weak link) to change his phone, which meant that the detectives were out of the loop some more. (We got to see the Hulk attacking the driver after learning he’d been reluctant to change his phone as ordered because of a woman.)
At the pub, Alison learned it was owned by Hulk, and saw him tell Liam to go meet a contact and to take someone with him. She told the detectives this, who were not impressed with her going to the Tap in the first place, let alone getting a job there. They asked if she’d only interacted with Liam and Hulk at work, she hummed and hahed and then found out she was busted. They had a picture of her with Liam at the hospital and had realised she’d been the reason he’d failed to go to the meeting. Understandably, they sacked her from working for the police, although equally obviously, this meant she was reliant on the money from the pub.
They dramatized the interaction of disability and class really well, by adding that to Eithan, the ex, turning up at Alison’s workplace and not really respecting her saying it was over between them. He got sniffy about her working at a pub again, (this was before she’d got sacked from the canteen, and seen how much a course in forensic lipreading cost, I think), but as she pointed out, his parents had been able to get tutors for him and pay a deposit for his housing. Meanwhile, she and her mother were scrabbling for jobs – her mum would get one in this episode, but had to sort out an interpreter for her training. Alison didn’t inform her she’d been sacked from the police job – let alone why. But, through Eithan, she finally learned that there was an attempt to redevelop the estate she and her mum lived on for luxury properties with far fewer affordable housing. Alison would later admit to Liam that her hearing father had bolted and things were economically tough.
Liam…turned up at Alison’s, having fixed her bike, (her mum was brazenly signing ‘he’s good looking’, and in the midst of their signing, Liam was realising something of deaf people’s experience of communicating in a hearing world) and asked her out to London. Knowing it was for this meet, she went, and got some intel about where the job was.
She and Liam were also getting to know each other, and there was a definite sizzle there, even though he was paranoid because he was working on some kind of job, and she was indeed investigating him. She had an answer for his questions about her questions and observation skills, but he was increasingly aware of the latter. They were both pretty enough to stand up to the super close-ups. Also, way to leave him wanting more by stepping away when he leaned in for the kiss.
When Alison informed the DS about what she’d learned in London, she got back in with the detectives, and it was useful enough that they agreed to let her be an informant, although as the DI emphasised the danger, my sense was that Alison still wasn’t entirely taking it in, because of her need to prove herself.
And so, when she thought she had a chance to lipread at the pub, she took it, and nearly gave herself away by texting then and there. Hulk saw her and force Liam to demand she showed the phone – she somehow made it seem like her texts with her mum about last night’s date were the last thing she’d done, but Liam must have known he’d crossed a line with the Alison he thought he knew.
I was reminded by the moment where we saw Alison take out her hearing aids at night of how well the sound design works at subtly taking hearing viewers into an approximation of Alison’s audio world. There was another moment where Liam asked something to Alison’s back, and I was howling, ‘She can’t hear you!’ Which is to say it continues to be involving.
At the pub, Alison learned it was owned by Hulk, and saw him tell Liam to go meet a contact and to take someone with him. She told the detectives this, who were not impressed with her going to the Tap in the first place, let alone getting a job there. They asked if she’d only interacted with Liam and Hulk at work, she hummed and hahed and then found out she was busted. They had a picture of her with Liam at the hospital and had realised she’d been the reason he’d failed to go to the meeting. Understandably, they sacked her from working for the police, although equally obviously, this meant she was reliant on the money from the pub.
They dramatized the interaction of disability and class really well, by adding that to Eithan, the ex, turning up at Alison’s workplace and not really respecting her saying it was over between them. He got sniffy about her working at a pub again, (this was before she’d got sacked from the canteen, and seen how much a course in forensic lipreading cost, I think), but as she pointed out, his parents had been able to get tutors for him and pay a deposit for his housing. Meanwhile, she and her mother were scrabbling for jobs – her mum would get one in this episode, but had to sort out an interpreter for her training. Alison didn’t inform her she’d been sacked from the police job – let alone why. But, through Eithan, she finally learned that there was an attempt to redevelop the estate she and her mum lived on for luxury properties with far fewer affordable housing. Alison would later admit to Liam that her hearing father had bolted and things were economically tough.
Liam…turned up at Alison’s, having fixed her bike, (her mum was brazenly signing ‘he’s good looking’, and in the midst of their signing, Liam was realising something of deaf people’s experience of communicating in a hearing world) and asked her out to London. Knowing it was for this meet, she went, and got some intel about where the job was.
She and Liam were also getting to know each other, and there was a definite sizzle there, even though he was paranoid because he was working on some kind of job, and she was indeed investigating him. She had an answer for his questions about her questions and observation skills, but he was increasingly aware of the latter. They were both pretty enough to stand up to the super close-ups. Also, way to leave him wanting more by stepping away when he leaned in for the kiss.
When Alison informed the DS about what she’d learned in London, she got back in with the detectives, and it was useful enough that they agreed to let her be an informant, although as the DI emphasised the danger, my sense was that Alison still wasn’t entirely taking it in, because of her need to prove herself.
And so, when she thought she had a chance to lipread at the pub, she took it, and nearly gave herself away by texting then and there. Hulk saw her and force Liam to demand she showed the phone – she somehow made it seem like her texts with her mum about last night’s date were the last thing she’d done, but Liam must have known he’d crossed a line with the Alison he thought he knew.
I was reminded by the moment where we saw Alison take out her hearing aids at night of how well the sound design works at subtly taking hearing viewers into an approximation of Alison’s audio world. There was another moment where Liam asked something to Alison’s back, and I was howling, ‘She can’t hear you!’ Which is to say it continues to be involving.
