CHOOSE LIFE (IRVINE WELSH'S CRIME, SERIES TWO)

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Three months after making its ITVx debut and securing a Saturday night slot on ITV1 not long afterwards, 'Irvine Welsh's Crime' is back on the streaming service for a second run.

Originally released in 2021 on Britbox, the first series starred Dougray Scott as a haunted and driven Edinburgh cop Detective Ray Lennox.

It was a typically prickly concoction from the 'Trainspotting' creator and his partner in crime writing, Dean Cavanaugh.

Few mainstream cop shows on British television have dealt with addiction, paedophilia and masculinity in such graphic detail.

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Those unfamiliar with the first series or Welsh's novel and movie 'Filth' should know Lennox is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict working in an Edinburgh homicide unit.

Series one saw him and Joanna Vanderham's up and coming DS Amanda Drummond assigned to an investigation into the disappearance of a missing schoolgirl.

The investigation brought them face to face with an arrogant serial killer, John Simm's Gareth Horsborough (aka The Confectioner) who was determined to get into Lennox's head and unearth some uncomfortable skeletons from his past.

While Drummond and Lennox got their man, the effort took a huge mental toll on him - sending him spiralling back into addiction and fracturing a romance with Angela Griffin's gas company executive Trudi Lowe.

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Lennox also had to contend with the sudden death of his Hearts Football Club mad father, Ewan Stewart's John in the first series and a revelation about his mum, Ellie Haddington's Avril that rammed home just how dysfunctional his family was.

Series two finds Lennox tentatively returning for duty several months after his boss, Ken Stott's DCS Bob Toal granted him sickness leave.

He is back on the wagon but he's no less fragile.

Lennox attends regular therapy sessions with Laura Fraser's psychiatrist Sally Hart who he was referred to in the previous series.

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Even with this help, Lennox has to negotiate a family life that remains as stressful as ever.

Not only is his relationship with his mum strained but he has fractious exchanges with his sister, Emma Currie's Jackie whose marriage to a restaurateur has gone stale and whose two sons often clash with each other.

Jackie's relationship with her youngest, Gabriel Scott's university student Fraser is also tetchy and it gets so strained he moves in with his uncle.

The dynamic in the Edinburgh Serious Crimes Unit has also changed.

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Drummond has been promoted and has managed to see off Jamie Sives' thuggish DI Dougie Gilman who has been kicked out for sexual harassment.

He has been replaced by the more devious, ambitious but no less misogynistic DS Tommy Stark,played by David Elliott, who has a rather feckless sidekick, Brian McCardie's DS Norrie Erskine.

After years in the job of head of the Serious Crime Unit, DCS Toal is feeling spent and is edging towards retirement, with Lennox, Drummond and Stark all touted as possible contenders to take over from him.

When a former colleague of Lennox's, Rebecca Root's academic and transgender activist Lauren Fairchild is assaulted, it opens the door to another investigation into the Scottish capital's murky underbelly of prostitution and pornography.

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Lennox, Drummond, Stark and Erskine get wind of a cover up by a posh Edinburgh hotel of an attempted murder on an Establishment figure.

With Establishment figures murdered and messages carved on their bodies, Lennox and Drummond take charge of the investigation and are keen to decipher what links each incidenf.

However the investigation is complicated by office politics, with Stark and Drummond trying to outmanoeuvre each other as they jockey for Toal's position.

When a threat is also issued to Lennox's team by the killer,  the investigation takes on a greater sense of urgency.

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Lennox also has to confront some old demons when The Confectioner summons him to prison with more information about his crines.

Once again, Welsh and Cavanaugh conjure up a grim, grimy and gripping thriller that tackle corruption, seediness and broken masculinity.

There's an even stronger sense of rage in their writing this time, with Welsh and Cavanaugh railing against the poor quality of leadership not just in policing but in institutions generally, the blind eye turned in Britain to corruption and cronyism among the elite, the easy manufactured rage of populism and the anti-trans agenda.

However in tackling these themes, they are smart enough not to get too preachy and at the heart of the show they deliver a compelling serial killer mystery whose hero is also wrestling with his own crimes.

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At times, Welsh and Cavanaugh revert to well worn serial killer tropes - John Simon's Hannibal Lecter-esque The Confectioner trading information from jail, theatrical murders they could have been straight out of David Fincher's 'Seven'.

And while it is not a serial killer trope, the exchanges between Lennox and his psychiatrist feels at times a little too much of a facsimile of the Tony Soprano and Dr Jennifer Melfi relationship in 'The Sopranos'.

The show is at its strongest, though, when Lennox is having to navigate huge challenges in his own life that impact his ability to crack the case - his childhood traumas, his complicated family background, the impact of the violence and corruption he sees in Edinburgh society every day at work.

The drama's lead actor Dougray Scott is also one helluva strong card.

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Charismatic and complicated, he portrays Lennox as a smart, capable but fragile soul who often makes mistakes and who you fear could self-combust any minute.

However he is also capable of moments of real brilliance.

Lennox is clearly the most talented detective in the room but in a world where knowing how to play the game matters, you don't get rewarded in the workplace for talent. You have to want it.

s the most fascinating and complex hero to grace British TV screens since Robbie Coltrane's Fitz in Jimmy McGovern's ITV psychological crime drama 'Cracker'.

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But his isn't the only rich character or performance.

Ken Stott's DCS Toal really grows in this series and is no longer reduced to the stock role of the perpetually exasperated boss.

Toal's affection and admiration for Lennox shines through and there's a real sense that he sees him as his natural successor.

Vanderham shows vulnerability too as Drummond's path to the top is threatened by a past relationship.

Elliott comfortably takes over from Sives as the crime unit's resident, corrupt neanderthal - although Stark is much more ambitious and devious than Gilman ever was.

He's Begbie with a badge.

Brian McCardie intrigues as the shifty Erskine, while Derek Riddell makes a welcome return as the Nigel Farage-style, right wing, populist politician Richie Gulliver who has a nasty private life.

Laura Fraser is effective as Lennox's psychiatrist, while John Simm revels in the odiousness and arrogance of his serial killer The Confectioner and being the hero's chief tormentor.

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Emma Currie and Ellie Haddington also contribute to the sense of dysfunction in Lennox's life.

However the addition of Scott's own son Gabriel to the cast as his nephew, Fraser is a plus.

Rebecca Root's appearance as a former colleague of Lennox's and transgender campaigner is also groundbreaking and fresh. 

Dylan Blore also cuts an intriguing figure as a contemporary of Fraser's, Victor Maslow.

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Not everything is perfect, though.

A comic subplot about Sarah McCardie's lesbian DCI Gillian Glover "helping" an awkward junior colleague overcome his self-consciousness about his virginity really grates and feels unnecessary.

Despite this, 'Irvine Welsh's Crime' keeps on track as one of the most fascinatingly twisted police procedurals that Britain has ever produced.

A lot of it is down to Scott and his castmates' performances.

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A lot is also down to David Blair and Trygve Allister Diesen's steady direction and David Liddell and Ashley Rowe's cinematography which makes the most of the show's damp and dark Edinburgh settings.

However the biggest factor is the quality of the writing.

It is worth all the effort just for the final pay off line in this series and the way Dougray Scott delivers it.

Hopefully, we won't have to wait too long for another series 

(Series two of 'Irvine Welsh's Crime' was made available for streaming on ITVx on September 21, 2023)