Ripper Street

A young woman is found brutally murdered, the hallmark signs of the Ripper upon her. One time H Division boss, Chief Inspector Frederick Abberline believes it Jack's return, but Reid -- the precinct's new man in charge -- suspects a different evil at work. When Jackson learns that Long Susan's girls have been drawn into the murky world of Victorian pornography, the team must use all of their brawn, brains and brilliance to track down the fiend responsible before another girl is killed.

A beloved toy maker is beaten to death for a mysterious brass box and the coins in his pocket. The Whitechapel Vigilance Committee presents a 14 year-old culprit who refuses to deny the charge, leading Reid and Drake into the savage world of merciless child gangs. Jackson's drinking and gambling have led to the loss of the pendant that ties him to his American past -- a past that he and Long Susan fear will now be exposed.

H Division and the Independent City of London force are thrown together when the panic surrounding a sudden cholera outbreak leads them to scour both boroughs to find some underlying pattern amidst the rising tide of sickness and death. As Jackson's lab fills with bodies -- and with no clear correlation between the victims to be found -- the team work against the clock. Meanwhile Emily Reid seeks patronage for her charity efforts, unaware of the resistance she will meet.

The brutal clearing of a local slum for the underground railway reveals an indecipherable murder scene and an unreliable slum girl witness. Lucy Eames, beautiful and disturbed, is the unlikely key to a byzantine web of conspiracy. As Reid closes in on the killer, it becomes clear that the condemned slum is home to dark secrets that someone is desperate to protect.

A string of brilliantly masterminded robberies draw the attention of Reid and his team. While Jackson works to trace the thieves' hardware, Drake is confronted with a spectre from his past in the form of his onetime Colonel -- returned to London to seek redress for the unjust treatment of the Empire's soldiers. As Reid closes in on the brash robbers and their ultimate target, Drake finds his loyalties put to the ultimate test.

As the dock strike of August 1889 takes hold of the city, the killing of a Jewish anarchist leads Reid and the team into the merciless chicanery of the British government's fight against distant empires and global terrorism.

An international shipping magnate arrives in town with his Pinkerton retinue to complete the acquisition of an ailing London shipping line. Meanwhile, the murdered body of an engine inventor draws Reid's attention just as Jackson and Long Susan's past comes back to haunt them.

Reid is adrift.  His team is in pieces and Leman Street is shaken to its foundations following recent events. A kidnapping offers him cause to assemble his men and tackle the white slavery ring operating in their midst. But Reid is gripped by a growing obsession that leads back to a terrible secret from his own past.

When a sergeant from K Division is found, hurled from a Whitechapel window on to the iron railings below, Reid is quick to act. An investigation leads DI Reid and the H-Division to the newly emergent Chinatown - where Jackson discovers evidence of a new and devastatingly powerful opiate. Reid fears a new kind of hell is to be released on to his streets.

Only hours after she gave birth, a nameless young woman is found murdered in a stairwell at The London Hospital. The only suggestion of her identity is the strange protrusion at the base of her spine -- a vestigial tail. This takes the team into the netherworld of circus freak shows and back to The London Hospital to seek help from its most celebrated resident, Joseph Merrick.

Long Susan finds herself sympathising with a group of kidnappers with radical aims.

Reid sends DC Flight undercover into Whitechapel's Irish community.

Investigations into the slaying of a Telegraph Boy lift the lid on a secret vice racket.

The domestic happiness that Drake has enjoyed is disrupted by a friend from Bella's past.

Jackson's reckless elder brother arrives in Whitechapel carrying a valuable uncut diamond.

Reid and Drake are powerless to resist a final reckoning with K Division's Jedediah Shine.

Four years have passed. Time that has seen Reid, Drake and Jackson split and isolated from one another. But when the robbery of a goods train leads to a cataclysmic locomotive disaster on Leman Street itself, the men and their resentments, are reunited to seek its cause. Meanwhile, Long Susan has made good on her promise to take control of Obsidian Estates, and has turned it into a legitimate business of huge philanthropic ambition.

A routine murder inquiry in a curiosity shop reveals a secret underground cell. The murder itself may have links to Long Susan’s burgeoning property empire, Obsidian Estates, but Reid is far more concerned as to the identity and whereabouts of that cell’s prisoner, a young girl kept there for many years. It is an investigation which is to confront him with both his greatest shame; and his greatest hope.

Chief Inspector Abberline asks Drake to take over the helm of H Division. But Drake is far from keen to preside over his friend’s desk. The inexplicable death of a clairvoyant takes our team into a world of devious charlatans capitalizing on the grief of a sorrowful community. Further questions arise when Drake and Jackson meet a grieving widow, who unlocks the heart of a deceptive scheme.

As a lost girl wanders the dangerous streets of the East End alone, Detective Inspector Drake must try to find his old friend Edmund Reid and bring those responsible to justice. While there are still questions to answer about the death of Horace Buckley, the team of H Division unites to locate the girl.

A destructive gang of youths unleash hell upon the streets, but it’s not until daylight breaks that the true horror of their brutal work is revealed. The trail leads the team of H Division into the heartland of one of the city’s oldest trades – the London Breweries – where conflicted loyalties reign, and grief and anger create a potent concoction.

The dark and corrupt streets of Whitechapel are witnessing a new breed of tourist; one from the higher realms of society wanting salacious entertainment. Yet Lady Montacute’s curiosity means she now stands before the men of Leman Street charged with the vicious stabbing of a local woman. Over one long rainy night, H Division must unearth the true culprit before the weight of the authorities bears down upon them.

The murder of a chemist leads the team into the shadowy underworld of illegal abortionists and a backstreet racket which conceals a nefarious scheme. And when one of Long Susan’s business ventures is on the cusp of ruin, she realizes she needs to regain control – despite the patriarchy’s attempts to undermine her every effort.

An American journalist is killed in Whitechapel and his exclusive story threatens seismic consequences for Whitechapel residents. As the team of H Division inch ever nearer to the truth about the train robbery, the revelations expose some disturbing home truths, and life altering decisions have to be made.

Three years have passed. Reid is drawn back to Whitechapel to investigate a case made by Jackson and Drake that has condemned his old associate Isaac Bloom to the hangman’s noose. And Bloom is not the only one set for the rope: Long Susan awaits her fate in Newgate Prison, punishment for her part in the Leman Street locomotive disaster. But does Jackson have a plan to save her, before it’s too late? Drake, meanwhile, looks into the case of an Indian man found murdered at the docks, as the forces of Britain’s colonial empire descend upon London to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.

With the help of Major Al-Qadir, Drake continues to investigate the mysterious murder of a young Indian-born lawyer. However things get tricky for Drake and his men when it becomes clear that their investigation is stepping on Special Branch’s toes. Things aren’t going smoothly for Jackson and Long Susan either as their original plan to save her from the rope has fallen through: can Jackson come up with another idea in time? Meanwhile, despite his better judgement Reid continues to dig into the conviction of his old friend Isaac Bloom who is soon set to face the hangman’s gallows

It is Reid’s first day back at H Division and the police force he once commanded is now under Inspector Drake’s authority. Despite his initial anxiety, it soon becomes clear that Reid’s investigative instinct is as sharp as ever. He is drawn to a distressed woman who claims to have lost her child from the workhouse, but when it becomes apparent that she is losing her wits he begins to question her testimony. Meanwhile, Susan fails to stay hidden in the dangerous dockside world of Abel Croker, and Rose begins to realize that becoming a mother to another woman’s child is no easy feat.

One month has passed since Inspector Reid returned to H Division. Drake and Reid are once more in harmony but it’s now Jackson’s turn to feel the pressure as a murder has links to a man who aided Long Susan’s escape from Newgate. Can Jackson help Reid and Drake solve the case without the truth about Susan emerging? The fate of a young woman depends on it. Meanwhile, Susan works to carve a place for herself at the docks. She begins to reveal more of her dark past to her villainous guardian, Abel Croker.

Just as it seems that Reid and Drake have found their working dynamic once more, they are forced to engage with a difficult murder case that threatens to open old wounds. A young man has been found murdered and the investigation takes our heroes to the Thames Ironworks and into the brutal world of Victorian football. When the case connects to a young worker named Thomas Gower, a man who was saved from the hangman’s noose many years ago by Drake, fissures begin to emerge between Drake’s and Reid’s instincts. Jackson, meanwhile, is coming under increasing pressure from Long Susan over their son.

When a young man close to Drake’s heart is discovered murdered, it exacerbates the considerable rift that has developed between Reid and Drake, and threatens to throw H Division as a whole into turmoil. As if this weren’t enough, Drake faces pressure from another quarter: with his wife Rose convinced that the woman the world saw hang, Long Susan, still lives – and is determined to prove it. Jackson and Long Susan, meanwhile, set about organizing the customs house heist - that they hope will help them finally effect their flight from Whitechapel.

As a new serial killer plagues Whitechapel, Reid and Drake become convinced that his crimes are being covered up by another party. Together they follow a trail of corruption that leads to the heart of Scotland Yard, and to Assistant Commissioner Dove. But as our heroes prepare their case, Dove discovers a terrible secret from Reid and Drake’s past: ammunition for a battle which has only just begun. Jackson and Long Susan, meanwhile, prepare for their escape, but attempts to fence their stolen booty soon send them crashing into Leman Street: their fates once more bound Reid and Drake’s.

Just days after the cruel murder of Bennet Drake, and despite being outlaws, his old friends Edmund Reid, Homer Jackson and Long Susan are drawn together to avenge his death.

After the public humiliation of Frank Thatcher, Shine re-doubles his efforts to capture Reid and Jackson. Meanwhile, Long Susan asks an old friend to help get her son back.

Augustus Dove seeks to hide his murdering brother deep in the Hackney Marshes. Meanwhile, tension rises between Reid, Long Susan, Jackson and Mimi.

Thatcher's role comes good and the race is on to track Nathaniel Dove down - but will Augustus cover his brother's tracks? Jedediah needs Drummond's help to unearth Reid.

It seems that Augustus Dove has won and all is lost for Reid - but is it? As Jackson and Long Susan prepare to leave London, can they bring themselves to leave their friend behind?

Reid has one final enemy to defeat and must find sufficient forensic evidence to prove that Dove killed Robin Sumner - but will he ever live peacefully in nightmarish Whitechapel?

A behind the scenes look at the making of Ripper Street.

Go behind the scenes of Ripper Street, Series 4.