Please explain to a thickie like me (Spoilers)

1. Sir Philip was an enforcer for a gang of criminal money lenders before he became a respectable businessman. He used to cut off fingers and drive nails through wrists when people couldn't repay their debts. Jimmy had borrowed £50 from the gang to pay for an abortion for his girlfriend because he thought the baby was his. Someone, possibly Sir Philip, had driven a nail through Jimmy's wrist at one point.

2. The person killed was one of the gang. He had threatened to expose Sir Philip's past and was blackmailing him. Sir Philip reckoned that this would put him in the frame for Jimmy's murder even though he didn't do it.

3. Probably because they were all connected to him, but it was highly convenient for the investigation into his murder, wasn't it?

The husband of the killer was still fit and healthy back then. Shortly after the second murder, he crashed his car and became paralysed. He explained that this stopped him from having sex with any more men, and therefore stopped his wife killing any more of his boyfriends.


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remember: tv is called PROGRAMMING, items of news are STORIES

I can't keep any of this stuff straight really. Sometimes it helps to watch last week's episode first, but mostly I just like to watch Nicola Walker playing a cop.

It was a bit confusing because quite a bit happened off-screen.
From what I can work out:

Ex-racist woman's mum died when she was young. Her dad sexually abused her until she ran away from home to London where she fell into an abusive relationship with a violent skinhead. At one point she broke up with him, sobered up and tried to go straight. She moved into a proper lodging and this was when she met Jimmy, the victim. Jimmy started teaching her how to read & write. Skinhead came back on the scene and she went back to her racist violent ways. She found out Jimmy had 50 pounds (a lot of money in those days, equivalent to about 400 pounds today) and her & her skinhead bf went round and beat Jimmy up & stole it.
This put everything else into motion which culminated in Jimmy's death. Jimmy had borrowed the money from the gangsters for his gfs abortion. But on losing the money, the gangsters sent round their enforcer (the now politician) who hamnered a nail through Jimmy's wrist for non-payment. Jimmy stole the spyder car to try to hock off but no-one would touch it because it was rare and so obviously stolen. Jimmy had to go back to whoring to raise the now 100 pounds: 50 pounds for the abortion & 50 for the gangsters (likely a lot more as gangsters don't tend to offer low interest rates on their lendings) which led him to calling up cripple guy which led him to getting his head bashed in by crazy wife.

Ex-racist's phone number in Jimmy's diary was her landladys number for when Jimmy would go round to teach her reading & writing. This also showed she wasn't truly racist, just in a very abusive relationship with a racist.

Jimmy did some odd jobs for the Eastend crime family. This was why he had the high-ranking politician's name and number.

Jimmy's mum was Irish which of course meant she was extremely religious and which is why Jimmy went to church occasionally (the dirty old goat of a priest said at one point Jimmy only went to make his mum happy). This is why he had the priest's number.

He had the cripple's number because the cripple was a regular of Jimmy wheneverJimmy whored himself out as a Rentboy when he needed money.

Jo-Jo's number was there of course because she was Jimmy's gf.

I think that's all the numbers.

I don't really get why the son was so mean to his mother in the final episode. Was that ever explained? He suddenly snaps at her just before the police arrest her and his next scene, he's being a sadistic *beep* to her in the Rest Home. That was such an unpleasant scene. The way he smiled at her when he said, 'me again' then started tormenting her was really scary. I hope that never happens to me!