No resurrection, but bodyguard finale is a blast

The final episode of Bodyguard, the magnificent nail-biter, served us up plenty of satisfying twists, not least of which was Pippa Haywood’s Chief Superintendent Lorraine Craddock – bodyguard David Budd’s boss – turning out to be the rotten apple.

But the dramatic resurrection of Keeley Hawes’ character Julia Montague, who’d died, or so it had been reasonable for us to assume in episode three’s bomb attack, wasn’t one of them.

A good many fans, by all accounts, had expected it to be.

Even the show’s creator, Jed Mercurio, had begun teasing us with hints to that effect.

But no, it turned out he really had killed Julia off.

That’s assuming, of course, that he’s not holding back such a twist for halfway through a third or fourth series.

At this stage it’s rather hard to see how it would make much sense to reveal that, hey, guess what, Home Secretary Julia is actually alive and well.

Faking your own death – or even agreeing to let a bunch of nefarious figures fake it on your behalf – has rarely been considered a great career move for a politician.

But then if you’ve followed all four series of Line Of Duty (a show which, incidentally, has the edge over this one) you’ll know how much Mercurio enjoys playing the long game, biding his time when it comes to dropping his bombshells.

So I guess we shouldn’t make too many assumptions just yet.

Either way, you certainly wouldn’t rule out Bodyguard – easily the year’s most gripping British drama, attracting regular audiences of 10 million plus – matching that other show for staying power.

Whether, on reflection, Richard Madden’s David Budd was ever really likely to come a cropper in last night’s episode (surely not, with the whole show effectively built around him) is more or less irrelevant.

It was enough for us to fear that he just might, strapped inside that suicide vest, desperately pleading his innocence.

And giving this concluding episode an extra 15 minutes’ airtime was a smart decision, allowing that scene to be paced to perfection.

It meant Budd’s on-screen ordeal could be agonisingly prolonged, lending it an almost-real time feel.

The poor man was trapped in that deadly device for 42 tortuous minutes.

That scene also brought fully into focus at last the relationship between Budd and his estranged wife Vicky.

Until this point, Sophie Rundle’s character had felt like something of a bit-part player, the state of the pair’s relationship hard for us to get a handle on.

Now, in what could have been Budd’s final moments, a frantic Vicky’s intervention became pivotal.

Perhaps the episode’s final moments, fast-forwarding a few weeks and finding the couple seemingly on the verge of reconciliation, were a tad too happily-ever-after for some tastes.

But bear in mind the story still has several tantalising loose ends.

So things aren’t quite that disappointingly neat.

Not wishing to put pressure on Mercurio, but series two can’t come quickly enough.