This article contains spoilers for Criminal Record Season 2 Episode 3.
By its third episode, Criminal Record stops pretending this is only a murder investigation. “Snakes and Ladders” pushes the season fully into counterterrorism territory, raising the stakes from one stabbing at Suffolk Square to the possibility of something far larger and far more devastating.
The episode opens with Billy still operating undercover inside Cosmo Thompson’s (Dustin Demri-Burns) world, now carrying even more pressure as both sides begin testing how much they can trust him. His return to the gym is a particularly effective sequence, especially the brutal fight scene that works less as action and more as initiation. Billy is not just proving himself physically—he is proving whether he belongs there at all.
The constant surveillance surrounding him gives the episode a suffocating quality. Every conversation, every movement, every hesitation feels loaded because someone is always listening. That tension only grows stronger once Cosmo arrives. The show smartly avoids turning him into a cartoon villain. Instead, he is charismatic, performative, and deeply dangerous precisely because he knows how to make extremism feel like purpose.
His scenes work especially well because the threat is often hidden behind humor. Whether he is joking about violence or mocking public narratives around Suffolk Square, Cosmo understands the power of performance. His online persona, “The Cosmonaut,” is not just propaganda, it is recruitment disguised as entertainment. That makes him far more unsettling than a more traditional antagonist.
Meanwhile, June Lenker (Cush Jumbo) continues to operate as the emotional and moral center of the series. Her growing discomfort with Dan’s methods becomes one of the episode’s strongest threads. Being asked to lie to Ashley about Billy’s whereabouts is a small moment on paper, but it reveals something much bigger: June is being pulled deeper into compromises she would rather not make.
That conflict becomes even sharper during the memorial for Rohaan. Allowing Margo Whitaker to proceed publicly despite a threat feels like an enormous gamble, and June’s frustration is completely justified. The series handles this tension well because there is no easy answer—protecting people and proving danger often require contradictory choices. Dan sees strategy; June sees risk.
Peter Capaldi continues to make Daniel Hegarty fascinating because the character is never fully readable. His argument that imagination is the missing piece behind every intelligence failure stands out not only because Capaldi delivers it with quiet force, but because it perfectly captures the paranoia driving the entire season.
That moral ambiguity becomes even stronger when the story of Billy’s prison escape suddenly reaches the press. The episode smartly lets suspicion settle everywhere. Did Dan leak it to protect the operation? Even June begins questioning him directly, and the tension in that conversation reinforces how delicate their alliance really is. Their partnership works precisely because neither of them fully trusts the other.
The memorial sequence itself is excellent television. The tension builds not through action, but anticipation. Every bag, every rooftop, every unfamiliar face feels like a possible trigger for disaster. When Cosmo’s stunt turns out to be propaganda rather than direct violence, it almost feels worse. He understands that public narrative can be more powerful than a physical attack. By turning Rohaan’s death into conspiracy theater, he gains exactly what he wants: attention, division, and legitimacy.
If the episode has a weakness, it is that the number of moving pieces can occasionally feel overwhelming. Between political pressure, prison leaks, Ashley, Billy’s infiltration, and the growing bomb plot, some scenes risk becoming overly dense with information. At times, the audience is asked to keep up with mechanics faster than emotion. Still, the strength of the performances keeps the story grounded enough that the complexity rarely becomes alienating.
The final scene delivers one of the episode’s most chilling moments, transforming quiet suspicion into undeniable threat. When Cosmo casually removes Billy’s necklace—which contains a listening device—under the excuse of “fixing his look,” the tension shifts immediately. Billy loses his direct connection to Dan’s team and is now completely alone inside Cosmo’s world.
Back at the station, the panic is immediate. As Sian struggles to clean the damaged audio feed, Dan and the team are forced to listen through fragments, with no certainty about what is happening inside that flat.
When the audio finally sharpens and Cosmo says, “It’s time to burn the fucking place down,” the episode lands on its most ominous note yet. Billy’s hesitant “depends what you’ve got in mind” reveals both fear and survival instinct, while Cosmo’s response — “Tick, tick, tick. Boom!” — confirms that this is no longer just paranoia or empty rhetoric. The threat is real, and whatever comes next will be far bigger than Suffolk Square.
