Batman: The Animated Series – The 15 Best Episodes

Looking back, the early nineties were the best of times and worst of times for Batman fans. In 1989, fans got their first big-budget Hollywood Batman movie, followed by the 1992 sequel Batman Returns. Both of these films boasted A-list talent and made huge money. But they weren’t really interested in Batman, at least not […]

The post Batman: The Animated Series – The 15 Best Episodes appeared first on Den of Geek.

Warning: spoilers for Blue Lights series 2.

The message in the Blue Lights series two finale could hardly seem clearer. After six episodes of being assaulted, petrol bombed and shot at on their turbulent Belfast patch, police officers Grace and Stevie finally give in to their feelings and drive off into the night while Dolly Parton’s  “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” perkily assures us that “Everything’s gonna be alright/It’s gonna be okay.” 

Phew. Thank heavens! If there’s one thing Siân Brooke’s Grace and Martin McCann’s Stevie deserve in Blue Lights, it’s for everything to be alright and okay. He’s a widower who nursed his beloved wife through cancer; she’s a former social worker and single parent whose only son has moved away, and they both do a job so stressful it’s a wonder that they don’t spontaneously burst into flames at the start of every shift. If these two can find solace in each other in the back of a Belfast cab, then work away. 

But hang on a moment. Just before the finale credits roll, Grace and Stevie’s cab turns off and the Blue Lights camera keeps going, moving forwards and up. Dolly Parton’s promise of a clear blue morning disappears and as the night-time Belfast skyline is held in frame, the only sound is of police sirens. Is everything gonna be alright, gonna be okay?

Siân Brooke laughs. “You don’t often see it all working out happy families, but [Blue Lights creators Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson] might have different ideas,” she tells Den of Geek via video call.

Grace and Stevie’s taxi ride ending isn’t “totally resolute”, says Brooke. “It’s been two series of will-they-won’t-they? I’ve had the question so many times ‘Are they going to get together?!’, so I think they needed to give them something, but you still don’t know whether or not this is a proper commitment or just…”

A one-night hook-up?

“It could be, you just don’t know. They wanted to leave it in a place where yes, these two are evidently mad about each other, and finally they’re showing that to each other, but then also there’s an opportunity for it to go any which way.”

In answer to the question of what’s next for Grace and Stevie, Brooke denies all knowledge of what the plan is and laughs. “Where’s that taxi taking them? Series three!” 

No guarantees of safety can be made for Grace and Stevie as the story continues (series three and four were commissioned at the same time) stresses Brooke. In the violent and unpredictable world of Belfast’s criminal underworld, will the characters even survive? She can’t say. “I mean, look what happened to Gerry,” she says in reference to Richard Dormer’s beloved character, killed in the line of duty during series one. Humbly, she hopes that her character will make it “at least a little way into series three.” 

If I were a betting man, I’d put the house on it. Grace is one of Blue Lights’ masterstrokes. Her upright presence has become, over two series, a planet around which the show’s other satellites orbit. She isn’t just – in Brooke’s words – a mother-hen to fellow new recruits Tommy (Nathan Braniff) and Annie (Katherine Devlin), Grace is an almost-emblematic figure representing decency.

“We started filming Blue Lights when we came out of Covid, and for me [Grace] flies the flag of somebody who has a really strong moral compass and isn’t afraid to speak their mind if it means that they maybe get side-lined for a promotion or whatever it is.”

What Brooke isn’t saying but seems to be suggesting is that after the cowardly evasions, self-serving lies and ineptitude on display in high office during the pandemic, as well as the serious crimes committed by members of the police service in recent years, that honest, brave and “inherently empathetic” Grace Ellis is a comforting figure to watch, and a reassuring one to imagine going about her job. 

“She’s braver than I am, ballsier than I am, cheekier than I am – all the things I’d love to be. I feel very lucky to play her.

“It says so much about her that at the age of 40-something, as a si