Code of Silence: A Tale of Terrible Decisions
As I devoured the first half of Britbox's new summer series Code of Silence, I was hooked. The show follows Alison (Rose Ayling-Ellis), a deaf woman who uses her remarkable lip-reading ability to help the police infiltrate a criminal gang planning a high-stakes jewelry heist. With her quick wit and sharp instincts, Alison seems like the perfect asset for the team.
However, as the series progresses, it becomes clear that Alison's eagerness to prove herself often gets the better of her. She takes on a bartending job at the pub frequented by the gang, and even strikes up a romance with their computer hacker, Liam (Kieron Moore). At first, I assumed that this was just setup - that Alison would learn from her mistakes and grow into a sharp, capable informant.
But that never happens. Alison's decision-making is consistently disastrous, leading to a bodyguard's death, a police officer's serious injury, and nearly blowing the entire operation. Her choices are reckless, impulsive, and often downright stupid. She doesn't seem to grow or learn from her mistakes; instead, she stumbles from one blunder to the next.
What's maddening is how quickly the series devolves into other characters rescuing Alison from herself. It feels like a regression to the damsel-in-distress trope that I thought we'd long since moved past in mainstream dramas. The writing does little to help Alison - instead of a layered, complex heroine, we get a reckless, impatient character flailing from one bad decision to the next while the characters around her save the day.
Let's break down some of Alison's most egregious mistakes:
Strike One: Falling for Liam
Alison falls head over heels for Liam, the very man she's supposed to be informing on. They hook up in the hotel targeted for the heist, and she seriously considers running away with him once he pulls it off. It's a rookie mistake, and one that sets off a chain reaction of disastrous events.
Strike Two: Using Her Hearing Aid as a Live Bug
While informing on Liam, Alison unwittingly lets him hack her phone so that her hearing aid becomes a live bug. This hands him her conversations with the police, allowing him to send them to a fake location while the real heist goes down elsewhere. It's a mistake that puts everyone at risk, and one that Liam predictably uses to his advantage.
Strike Three: Trying to Stop the Burglary Alone
Alison figures out what Liam has done, but rather than alerting the police, she tries to stop an armed burglary by herself. She thinks that if she just asks nicely, they'll give up. But of course, things don't go according to plan.
The result is a dead bodyguard, an injured officer, and Liam still escaping with the necklace. The spiral continues from there, with Alison agreeing to meet Liam despite knowing he's a fugitive. Does she alert the police that she's about to rendezvous with their target? Of course not. She meets him only to say she won't run away with him and then lets him walk.
When she immediately gets abducted and held hostage by Braden - the man Liam double-crossed - Liam has to swoop in again, sacrificing himself to save her and tipping off the police in the process. In other words, the cops succeed in spite of Alison, not because of her.
The Aftermath
By the finale, Alison is inexplicably rewarded with a $50,000 payout and told she should study criminal forensics, even though she's failed at nearly every turn. Her deafness isn't the issue - her recklessness is. She repeatedly meddles, ignores orders, and barrels into danger, leaving others to clean up the mess.
It's infuriating. Rose Ayling-Ellis delivers a strong performance with what little she's given, but the writing does her no favors. For a series that began with so much promise, Code of Silence ends up as one of the most frustratingly regressive dramas I've seen in a long time.