Blue Lights: A recap of series three

We've already had two epic series of BBC crime drama Blue Lights, but fans will be pleased to know a third has now arrived, with a fourth also in the making!

After bosses shared some first look photos from series three and the trailer earlier this year, series three started on Monday 29th September.

When did series 3 come out?

The first episode aired at 9pm on Monday 29th September on BBC One, with weekly episodes every Monday night until 3rd November.

Sharing a new clip from the upcoming series on 17th September, bosses wrote: 'Blue Lights is back!

'Watch the new series of #BlueLights on #iPlayer from 29 Sep 🚨🚓

'A group of response officers are thrust into a sinister world hidden behind the veneer of middle-class life, the world of the accountants and lawyers who facilitate organised crime. The old political and criminal order has gone and a new global gang rule Belfast, bringing danger closer to home for our officers than ever before'. (sic)

Lindsay Salt, BBC Director of Drama said: “We were bowled over by the reaction to Blue Lights and I’m really pleased to be confirming our commitment to bring two more series of our beloved Belfast drama to air. Adam and Declan have brilliant ideas about where to take the characters next and I can’t wait for viewers to see what’s in store.”

Is there a trailer?

Yes! The first trailer for Blue Lights series three dropped on Sunday 7th September, alongside the caption: 'A group of response officers are thrust into a sinister world hidden behind the veneer of middle-class life, the world of the accountants and lawyers who facilitate organised crime. The old political and criminal order has gone and a new global gang rule Belfast, bringing danger closer to home for our officers than ever before.'

Check it out below:

What happened in Blue Lights series three?

Episode one: The Party

The third series is set two years after the rookie cops began life on the beat at the start of series one – and one year after the end of series two. Grace and Stevie’s relationship (Sian Brooke and Martin McCann) has continued to blossom since we last saw them and Stevie is asked in the first episode to do a trial shift as a skipper.

Episode one sees the crew called to a house party, where a toddler is found watching movies on a tablet, while people partied loudly around her. After witnessing partygoers doing drugs at the property, the officers made the call to remove the child from the situation for her safety and later end up looking after her back at the station.

Meanwhile elsewhere at a high-class event, an accountant called George McLelland (Conor Mullen) is rushed to hospital after overdosing on cocaine and collapsing on the floor.

Out on the street, Grace stumbled across a 17-year-old girl that she recognised from her days as a social worker. The girl, called Lindsay Singleton (Aoife Hughes), appeared to be hanging around with a drug runner called Sandy McKnight (Jack McBride-Marshall), who was taken in for questioning, after he tried to run away. He was later interviewed by the organised crime department.

Unable to get the young girl out of her mind, Grace visits the foster care facility where the girl had been living to see how she’s doing, but she wasn’t there. She is later found hanging around the park on her own and was reluctant to accept help from the police.

The drug runner is later revealed to be involved with some pretty dangerous people and is asked to visit Matchett’s Mill, along with Lindsay, later the same night. He makes an excuse to keep her safe and heads there alone. But before he can go, the organised crime team at the police station intervene and ask him to become an informant for them.

It’s then revealed the young drug runner answers to the same dealers that supplied drugs to the accountant who took an overdose – a man by the name Donal Fogerty (Charlie Maher).

At the end of the first episode, Grace and Stevie can be seen heading over to Matchett’s Mill following a reluctant tip-off from Lindsay. After calling for back-up, they were told to stay away, to avoid compromising the runner’s position as an informant. It ends with Donal Fogerty seemingly pushing the young runner from the roof, as punishment for getting himself questioned by police.

Episode two: Skipper

At the start of episode two, we see Lindsay packing a bag to run away, before she’s accosted by Donal Fogerty near her school. The dealer then warned Lindsay against running away and offered her a job in Dublin.

Meanwhile a complaint is made against officers Tommy Foster (Nathan Braniff) and Shane Bradley (Frank Blake) for accessing personal information on George McLelland’s mobile phone, while he lay in a hospital bed. Tommy denied the allegations but his statement is thrown into question, after CCTV footage is accessed from the hospital, showing Tommy watch Shane using the phone. The pair later fight in the station corridor.

Stevie steps into his new role, to much applause from his colleagues – while Annie (Katherine Devlin) and Aisling (Dearbhaile McKinney) are called out to a serious crash nearby. When Stevie inputs the two vehicle registration plates into the system back in the control room, it’s discovered one of the drivers is known to the police. He dies while being comforted by Aisling, who is left very shaken from the incident.

Also in episode two, George McLelland (the now-recovered accountant who overdosed on cocaine) is forced into sending dodgy money between bank accounts, by drug dealer Donal. When George asks to step away from now on, Donal threatens him with a video featuring George and young Lindsay, who it’s revealed he “met in a club”.

Tina McIntyre (Abigail McGibbon) also makes a re-appearance in series three, where it’s revealed she ‘handed the keys to the town’ to the organised crime group now running drugs through the area.

When delivering the news to the parents of the young driver, Ciaran O'Boyle (Paul Storrs), that their son has died in a car accident, a dangerous situation erupts outside. The father is revealed to be a dissident republican – and a van filled with criminals pulls up outside, putting the police officers in his house in danger.

Meanwhile a bomb is found under the Chief Superintendent Nicola Robinson’s car (Andrea Irvine) during a routine check.

Episode three: The Bird

As the threat to the police remained high in episode three, tensions among staff were strained. The bomb discovered under the Chief Superintendent’s car is made safe, however elsewhere, Annie pulled out a gun on an innocent plumber outside her mum’s home, who she believed was acting suspiciously.

Drug dealer, Donal, is seen shipping a team of people off on boats, before telling his superior, Dana Morgan (Cathy Tyson), that young Lindsay won’t make it to Dublin like he’d promised. We later see him try to kidnap her outside her children’s home, which Grace and Stevie manage to intercept.

Meanwhile, Inspector Helen McNally (Joanne Crawford) undergoes a vetting interview for a role in Intelligence that DCI Collins (Michael Smiley) put her up for.

In this episode Annie’s mum passes away after an illness, which we see Annie struggle to come to terms with.

Officers also attend a residential property after a phone call is received from a child there. It turns out the house belongs to Chief Inspector Gavin Bunting (Richard Clements) from the neighbourhood department. Mr and Mrs Bunting insist the child made the call by accident, but when they turn to leave, the mother mentions the name Angela, a name which is internationally recognised as a cry for help.

Aisling later returned to the house alone after management decided not to investigate further. There she found the husband shouting angrily at his wife, before appearing to choke her. Aisling then entered the property and struck him with her baton.

Episode four: The Parting Glass

This episode centres around Lindsay and her opportunity to open up to police about the abuse she’s suffered at the hands of Donal and his gang. It’s discovered she’s been trafficked among wealthy men and forced to move drugs around. It’s during an emotional conversation that Grace opens up about her own past, which saw her end up in the care system.

Annie attends her mother’s funeral, but is called away in a hurry after a bullet is delivered in a box with the funeral flowers. The team back at the station put together a makeshift funeral instead and live stream the event, so she could attend safely from a distance.

We also continue to see Aisling struggle with the after-effects of watching a young man die in a car accident. She’s called in by senior staff after her reckless decision to visit a domestic threat alone. They ask her to hand in her gun and send her home while they decide how to proceed.

But Aisling continues to put herself in dangerous situations, then choosing to visit the house where the parents of the car crash victim live, despite the earlier threat of dissident groups watching the house. While there, Aisling is handed a list of names, which Tommy later puts in as intelligence against the group. Controversially, he also reports her to her seniors for her erratic behaviour. She’s sent away to recover, but tells Tommy as she leaves that it’s over between them.

In this episode, we also see former head of the local organised crime group, Tina McIntyre, meet with Dana Morgan, who is now calling the shots. Tina asked Dana to bring her back into the group. Tina is also seen meeting with police DCI Collins in secret – leading viewers to question whether he was working for the organised crime gang (OCG). He manages to convince the police to withdraw objection for Mo McIntyre’s release (Michael Shea) at his upcoming bail hearing. Fans may remember Mo is currently on remand for Police Constable Gerry Cliff’s murder (Richard Dormer), in season one.

Episode five: Ordo ab Chao

George McLelland is arrested for rape after Lindsay identified him, among others, as a man she was forced to ‘entertain’ during a party. She also reveals she delivered the cocaine which caused him to collapse at the party in season one.

While he was in for questioning, George revealed to his solicitor where he planned to lie low, following his bail, and his solicitor (also working for the OCG) shares this information with the crime ring, who put a target on the car taking him home, driven by Grace. This is understandably a fraught situation for her partner and skipper, Stevie, who listens on as the Intelligence team guide Grace’s car to safety, taking out the shooters with armed response officers. Following the incident, the threat level is raised across the city.

Elsewhere, Shane, Annie and Tommy are thrown into a dangerous situation when a woman who has taken cocaine in a restaurant begins to act paranoid and starts to threaten officers. In a scuffle, Shane is stabbed in the thigh with a broken wine glass and Annie has to fight to save his life while taking advice from a 999 call handler.

Later at the hospital, Shane’s father joined Annie, as she was told the doctors have managed to stabilise him, but he may still lose his leg.

Episode 6: World of Our Own

In the final episode, we saw Donal Fogerty force Tina McIntyre to meet him at a quarry, where she believed he planned to end her life. Having put her affairs in order before she headed off, Tina told her son Mo that she’d send somebody to protect him. In a surprising twist at the quarry though, a shooter appeared on the hill who takes out Donal and his footman just as he was about to shoot Tina. The shooter is then revealed as season two’s Lee Thompson (Seamus O'Hara), a loyalist who became more and more dangerous as the series progressed.

Although the immediate threat by the dangerous crime ring (fronted by Fogerty) has been neutralised, the season ends with Tina McIntyre and Dana Morgan meeting in a park, suggesting they would continue on the same path united.

Meanwhile Shane has managed to regain feeling in his leg and later returned to the police station where he was greeted by a very funny rendition of his favourite song, Westlife’s ‘World of Our Own’.

Helen is promoted into a position which aligns both intelligence and frontline policing. Meanwhile Chief Superintendent Nicola Robinson has returned to the station, after the threat to her family is considered over – and Grace and Stevie share a romantic breakfast after a difficult few weeks in their relationship.

Check out the first look photos from Blue Lights series three below:

Will there be more series?

Blue Lights, which is filmed and set in Belfast, was so popular after the first series that bosses announced the news it had been renewed for a third and fourth, before series two actually aired.

Whilst fans were patiently awaiting series two, BBC bosses wrote on social media: '🚨 Blue Lights series 3 and 4 CONFIRMED! The BBC has ordered two more six-part series of the critically acclaimed Belfast-based police drama'. (sic)'

When was filming?

In a post on Instagram on Friday 7th February 2025, the BBC revealed filming was underway. The post read: 'It’s official - cameras are now rolling in and around Belfast on Blue Lights series 3!

'Cathy Tyson and Michael Smiley have joined the cast as filming begins on the third series of the multi award-winning Belfast-based drama.'

In mid-April, fans spotted the show being filmed at Amelia Hall in Belfast City Centre, check out the photos below:

Who are the new characters?

Cathy Tyson (Boiling Point and Dune: Prophecy) and Michael Smiley (Bad Sisters and Censor) joined the cast of Blue Lights for the third series of the multi award-winning Belfast-based drama.

On Wednesday 3rd September, bosses confirmed Cathy Tyson had joined the cast as a private members club owner, Dana Morgan, and Michael Smiley as new intelligence officer Paul ‘Colly’ Collins.

The critically acclaimed show also stars returning cast Siân Brooke (Grace), Martin McCann (Stevie), Katherine Devlin (Annie), Nathan Braniff (Tommy), Joanne Crawford (Helen), Andi Osho (Sandra), Frank Blake (Shane), Abigail McGibbon, (Tina) Dearbháile McKinney (Aisling) and Andrea Irvine (Nicola).

Appearing on The One Show alongside co-star Siân Brooke, Katherine Devlin, who plays the role of Annie Conlon, said: "It's my favourite season, to be honest," as she discussed what fans can expect.

What channel is it on?

Just like the first two series, Blue Lights series 3 aired on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.

The first three series of Blue Lights are available to watch on BBC iPlayer now.

Now read:

Everything you need to know about BBC's crime drama Blue Lights

BBC bosses confirm Blue Lights is getting a 3rd and 4th series

The best TV crime dramas to binge watch right now

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