'Bulletproof' Season 2 Episode 1 Review: Steamy bathroom sex, crazy drug lords and new faces will have you hooked
Spoilers for 'Bulletproof' Season 2 Episode 1
The first episode of 'Bulletproof' Season 2 is here and it is a really thrilling ride. Detective Inspectors Aaron Bishop (Noel Clarke) and Ronnie Pike (Ashley Walters) are back with a bang and a crazy new story to tell, so let's get right into it.
An important sting operation is ruined because Chris Munroe (Jason Maza) forgot to turn his cellphone off. But in the aftermath, the team discovers a bag containing £2M in drug money. It's an important lead and Sarah Tanner (Lindsey Coulson) is determined to find whoever the money belongs to, partly to make up for the failed sting but mostly because she just really enjoys her job.
The episode introduces a host of new characters including NCA Deputy Director Richard Cockridge (Lee Ross) and new team members Scarlett 'Scooch' Hailton (Olivia Chenery) and Paige Pennington (Lucie Shorthouse). Scooch especially gets some time in the spotlight and we're pretty sure she will have an important role to play before the season wraps up. There's also a new face to an old character as well with Vanessa Vanderpuye taking over from Lashana Lynch as Arjana Pyke. She has a pretty fun interaction with Bishop early on and a hot bathroom scene with Pike as well. Though we definitely do miss Lynch on the show, Vanderpuye does a solid job and we are looking forward to seeing more of her. Meanwhile, there's a drug drought out on the streets causing criminals to get more desperate than ever, and people are starting to overdose on untested combinations of whatever drugs they can find. One of these OD victims is a friend of Arjana's and we get a pretty emotional scene with her and Pike.
Eventually, we're introduced to Ben Tavassoli's Mikey Markides, the youngest member of the Markides crime family and the guy whom the money belongs to. He's quite clearly unstable but Bishop manages to gain his trust and go undercover to steal the money back from the department. Unfortunately, the heist begins to go sideways when Mikey stops to go total 'Reservoir Dogs' and torture Munroe (who is disguised as a security guard) by burning his face. Luckily, the team manages to interrupt him before he can do any serious damage and just when it looks like their cover might be blown, Pike steps in to save the day.
A running theme in the first episode is how the criminals seem to be living a life of luxury while the good guys struggle to pay their bills. This is brought into sharp focus when Tanner has to pay for her father's healthcare and she steals from the captured evidence in order to foot the bill. That's bound to come back to bite her soon enough but in the meantime, the issue raised is an important topic and needs to be addressed.
In the final moments of the episode, Bishop gets a call from Mikey and finds out that he and Pike have now managed to earn a place in the Markides family's drug operation. One terribly worded apology to Munroe later, the boys celebrate with the team and prepare for what's to come next. It was a pretty great first episode with plenty of action and laughs to go around. And now that Bishop and Pike are going undercover, we can only imagine there's a lot more where that came from.
'Bulletproof' airs Wednesdays at 9 pm ET on The CW.