Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Trigger Point’ Season 2 On BritBox, Where A Bomber Terrorizes Law Enforcement And Lana Tries To Get Back To Work

Two years ago, Season 1 of the ITV series Trigger Point debuted to good reviews on Peacock, with most citing the outsized amount of tension the show provided viewers, despite how silly the dialogue and plotting was. The second season — both Season 1 and 2 are now showing on BritBox — is no different. But is all that tension still enjoyable?

TRIGGER POINT SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Lana Washington (Vicky McClure) rides in the back of a taxi, a bag with a Heathrow tag on it is next to her.

The Gist: Lana is returning to London from a six-month sabbatical from her job in the explosive disposal unit of the Metropolitan Police. She’s been in Estonia training Ukrainian troops in “expo” work, and she’s been trying to get back in the right state of mind after a traumatic year. Her mentor got blown up, as did her brother, who turned out to be part of a terrorism cell. Lana doubted her ability to be calm under the extreme pressure of disarming explosives.

But she’s back and she immediately goes to give a talk to Metro Police bigwigs about bombs used in the city in recent years, when a power plant explodes a few miles away. Even though she’s not officially on duty yet, she and her partner Danny (Eric Shango) are closer to the scene than Hassan Rahim (Nabil Elouahabi), the expo team’s interim lead during Lana’s absence, so they head there.

Also at the scene is DCI Thom Youngblood (Mark Stanley), Lana’s former boyfriend, and his new partner, DS Helen Morgan (Natalie Simpson). A new commander, John Francis (Julian Ovenden), also arrives, and questions Rahim if Lana is OK to take the lead on this operation.

Lana spots two linked devices behind a fence the fire department needs to get past in order to rescue who’s inside (including the man who shut down the detection systems). There’s definitely tension around some malfunctioning equipment, but the devices are defused just in time. At the same time, drone footage of the bombing is sent out online.

But when the Met Police follow the leads to where a drone was launched, an abandoned parking garage, Lana, Thom, Helen and fellow expo John Hudson (Kris Hitchen) find out the hard way that they’ve been lured into a trap.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Trigger Point reminds us of Line Of Duty, which McClure starred in, as well.

Our Take: Creator Daniel Brierley set such a frantic pace during the first season of Trigger Point, it was hard to imagine the show being able to keep up the tension in the second season. But during the first episode of the new season, Lana defuses three devices with seconds to spare, and spares one colleague from getting blown to bits. But, as we saw in the first season, Brierley and his writers aren’t afraid of blowing up someone else on the team who was (or was at least supposed to) be a big part of the story.

We won’t say who got blown up, but the person was someone who Lana ended up not trusting in Season 1, and was surprised to see back on the expo squad. The prospect that they’d have to learn to work together was a juicy bit of story to explore, but that’s not to be. However, there are plenty of other complicating factors in Lana’s life to make clipping the right wire on a device that could killer her feel like relaxing activity by comparison.

For instance, Thom seems to have moved on from Lana romantically, but again has decided to look within the Met Police for a mate. There’s a scene, though, that shows that the two of them never really addressed their feelings for one another, so that’s going to be a complex issue. Lana still has to deal with the fallout of her brother’s death. And, oh by the way, a terrorist ring is going after the Met Police and showing people like Lana in public drone videos on the internet. So, no pressure there.

Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.

Parting Shot: We see Lana go into an elevator, traumatized more by Thom embracing Helen than by IED she defused minutes before that.

Sleeper Star: Eric Shango’s Danny seems to be the stable influence that Lana needs in her life, especially after her mentor Joel got blown to bits the prior year.

Most Pilot-y Line: The number of times that Commander Francis barreled his way into a scene at the parking garage, only to be told it wasn’t safe for him to go forward, was almost comical.

Our Call: STREAM IT. As long as the episodes of Trigger Point‘s second season continue to show Lana and the rest of the expo squad escape one tense situation after the other — and occasionally fail — the show will continue to be entertaining, even if the overall terrorist plot is just meh.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.