Contains spoilers for the latest episode of Line of Duty (episode 5)
First we were all experts in police acronyms, now Line Of Duty has us all talking about homozygosity as if we're DNA scholars, as we all dig deeper into Jo Davidson's involvement with the OCG and her connection to Tommy Hunter.
To roll back a bit, we're here to tell you that most of us missed a vital Line Of Duty clue. Remember the 'Mother of God' cliffhanger moment as we all waited with bated breath to find out who Jo Davidson was related to?
Well actually, it turns out Ted's exclamation could've had as much to do with the identity of Jo Davidson's relativeas the relationship itself.
In all looking upside down at the television to strain at the picture that actually ended up being Davidson, we got distracted. And in the reveal that the relative with Tommy Hunter on Sunday, you might've missed AC-12's comment that 'There's an unusually high percentage match and runs of homozygosity'.
What homozygosity can signal is incest. Homozygosity is 'The state of possessing two identical forms of a particular gene, one inherited from each parent'.
However, the social media chatter about Tommy Hunter'srelation to Jo Davidson and homozygosity got even louder in recent days after several viewers zoomed in on the post-it note attached to AC 12's board in episode 5.
The post it read 'Jo Davidson's DNA has been identified at Farida Jatri's house. A match has been made to TOMMY HUNTER stating she is both his niece and daughter.'
In Episode Six, Jo revealed more about her background in her interview with Hastings, Arnott and Carmichael, and it’s pretty dark. Her mother was indeed Tommy Hunter’s sister, and she knew hunter as Uncle Tommy, but she was unaware that he was also her father - she’d been told that her mother was raped when she was 15 by another man, who was a bent copper (it’s implied that the man she believed to be her father was Marcus Thurwell).
Hunter sent her mother back to Glasgow to have Jo, but when she was 16, he tracked the pair down - he’d heard Jo was doing well in school, and wanted her to join the police for him. Her mother, known as Samantha Davidson, her own mother’s maiden name, realised that neither of them would be able to escape Hunter’s hold, and took her own life.
Davidson was coerced into joining the police as a teenager to do their bidding, but is desperate to prove, especially to Kate, that she’s not bent. However, like many other characters embroiled with the OCG, she refuses to reveal anything that might implicate her, and appears fearful of her life. SHe’s placed in a prison cell surrounded by CCTV, but is still intimidated by the prison guards who we’ve seen working for the OCG in previous episodes and seasons - injuring Farida Jatri and Linday Denton.
Lessons learnt from this particular plot point revelation? Never slip up on your googling of wtf every word in Line of Duty means. And never, ever, discard the post-it notes dotted around the set.
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