Love/Hate

Darren has no choice other than to turn back to his former mentor, John Boy Power.

Meanwhile John Boy himself is spiralling. He's literally haunted by the death of his brother in the form of a mysterious ghostly figure he keeps seeing on the security CCTV system at his apartment stronghold. Profits are down in the ailing Irish economy and the police are closing in. John Boy plans to get his money out of the country and to retire to Spain... but his increasing cocaine use is making him more and more unpredictable and paranoid. Things go from bad to worse as consignments of drugs are lost in a hotel bust and at the docks, the latter sparking a gang war with rival gang leader Fran. John Boy becomes increasingly erratic and violent, dragging his cohorts deeper into his dark and twisted world: despite his wife Trish being pregnant, trusty lieutenant Nidge is trapped in an unhealthy sexual relationship with Fran's wife which ends in brutal tragedy, while John Boy's own girlfriend Debbie blackmails fellow soldier and new Dad Tommy for drugs after an ill-advised sexual liaison.

John Boy decides to double cross his partner which unleashes full scale gang war.

As the gang war steps up, Darren's debt is called in: he is forced to commit murder. The enormity of his crime causes Darren too to unravel, destroying his relationship with the love of his life Rosie. But it's not the last life that he will be forced to take in order to be free of his obligation... as John Boy careers out of control it's patient Nidge who steps out of the shadows and offers Darren what just might be his only way out.

As tensions come to a head the gang threatens to implode. Luke's obsession with Mary is becoming more dangerous, while Siobhan's panic attack at the airport could get Tommy killed. Paranoid John Boy finally tips over the edge of sanity when he finds Debbie taking heroin and he orders Darren to kill her supplier. But the unlikely pretender to the throne, Nidge, offers Darren a way out. Once again Darren sets out with a gun in his hand to take a life - but whose?

At the funeral, Nidge swiftly fills the power vacuum and gets the gang back to business as usual. Rosie has realised what her lover has become, and Darren is devastated when she breaks up with him. Meanwhile Mary finally realises the extent of Luke's psychosis as she finds him lurking in her bedroom at night. Once again Darren is faced with the prospect of taking a life - this time that of his best friend.