Ashes To Ashes - Episode 5

Love, guns and murder are on the menu in this week's Ashes to Ashes and Ray finds a new talent – chatting up men! Local bastard, Simon Neary, is wanted for a number of crimes, including drug dealing and pimping. But this isn’t any run-of-the-mill gangster – he happens to like the male form, much to the boys disgust!

Alex tries to befriend Simon’s ‘boyfriend’, Marcus (Russell Tovey, aka Alonso Frame in Doctor Who – Voyage of the Damned) to get information on him. Meanwhile Gene ruffs up one of his snouts, who works for Neary and who has been passing on information about a deal involving guns. It isn’t long until he turns up dead and Gene gets angry and threatens Neary.

Alex believes that if she can stop the guns from getting in, then there would be no ‘gang warfare’ in the future, thus stopping her from getting shot in 2008. Personally I thought this was a little silly of her, she wouldn’t be able to stop all the guns from getting in!

As Alex and Gene bicker, they go ‘undercover’ at a gay club with Alex accompanying Marcus. Neary doesn’t give too much away, apart from the impression he isn’t very nice and gets jealous quite easily! So it’s up to Ray, in the most hilarious scene yet, who chats up Neary! Again, the team hardly get anywhere as the gangster says something that Raymondo doesn’t like and he causes a scene and thumps a few clubbers!

It isn’t long until Alex persuades Marcus what kind of man his boyfriend is and after seeing him with Ray, he agrees to go undercover and ‘trap’ him. A ride to a disused warehouse later, where Neary has already shot the gun dealer and as he and Marcus have sex (which Gene and Alex are listening to on the radio via Marcus’s wire), he blurts out that he killed the snout. Things get more frantic and there’s a gunshot but it’s Neary who’s left in a critical condition.

Alex takes Marcus home to parents he hasn’t seen for 10 years. Presumably, the police haven’t reported that it was Marcus who shot Neary! It’s a rather touching moment, as it seems Marcus as the onset of an STD, which were rife during the 1980’s.

The episode runs at a decent pace with the usual funny moments in it! It does leave you wanting more but I would say that this episode is one of the more straight forward ones in the series, which means there is a lot more to come!

8.5/10

Next Week: Gene finally leaves the wine bar and goes drinking in a proper pub!