Virdee Ending Explained: Pawa, Saima, & Riaz and Harry’s Secret

Warning: contains Virdee finale spoilers.

A rooftop. A banging view over Bradford city centre. Two compostable cardboard cups of chai, and a steely nod. That’s how BBC One crime thriller Virdee, based on the five-book series by AA Dhand, came to an end. Lead DCI Harry Virdee (Staz Nair) had survived a deranged campaign of murder from a past enemy, but at what cost? His wife Saima (Aysha Kala) no longer trusts him, and he’s now even more indebted to his criminal kingpin brother-in-law Riaz (Vikash Bhai) than before.

One positive for Harry was a tentative reunion with his estranged father, an Indian Sikh who’d cast Harry out from the family eight years ago for marrying Saima, a Muslim woman with Pakistani heritage. After refusing to ever acknowledge his young grandson Aaron, Ranjit Virdee bent to the pleas of their other family members, and eventually swallowed both his pride and his prejudice to meet with Harry and to clasp his hand.

With major final spoilers, let’s dig in to the Virdee ending and see where it leaves Harry, Saima, Riaz and co. for a potential second series.

Harry Now Officially Part of Bradford West?

Harry had been indebted to Riaz since he’d had taken the blame for a murder Harry committed in self-defence in 2001. During that year’s Bradford Riots, Riaz’s mother was knocked unconscious by racist thief Paul King, whom she and Riaz had caught stealing from the till of their family shop. Paul attacked Riaz, who froze, and Harry arrived and protected him, accidentally stabbing King in the neck with a pair of scissors during the fight. To maintain his honour, Riaz insisted on lying that he was the killer.

Riaz went to prison and came out a criminal who worked for his drug-dealing former cellmate Jai Pawa (Ramon Tikaram). He, Pawa’s wife Sophie (Nicola Burley) and Harry – now a police officer – informed on Pawa, who was imprisoned in India. Unbeknownst to Harry, during the operation to arrest Pawa, Riaz and Sophie had stolen £30 million’s worth of his heroin to set up their own drug-dealing operation.

In the years since, Harry and Riaz have maintained an uneasy truce, communicating via secret burner phones and using one another for information. In series one though, Riaz’s right-hand-man Enzo insisted that if the crew were to help Harry save his kidnapped wife Saima, they needed him to come over to their side and work for them fully (a bit rum, considering that Saima is also Riaz’s sister). Harry agreed, which means that in a potential second series, he’ll be a fully corrupt officer working for Riaz’s organised criminal gang.

DS Khalil Amin: Spy?

Harry being a Bonafide member of Bradford West in future is a problem because in the final episode of series one, Harry’s new partner DS Khalil Amin was recruited by the United Kingdom Crime Agency to inform on corrupt activity in Bradford Police. Harry is therefore working with somebody tasked with rooting out corrupt officers in the pay of organised crime groups. Khalil already knows that Harry has a secret source of criminal intel because in episode one, he realised that Harry didn’t get Ateeq’s location from the low-level drug dealer he pretended to have heard it from. The question is: will Khalil shop his partner to his new boss?

What Did Jai Pawa Want?

Revenge against everybody who had wronged him, and to use his intel on Harry’s murder of Paul King (see above) to destroy the career of the officer who arrested him. When Riaz was inside for King’s murder, he shared a cell with Pawa and told him the truth – that Harry was actually King’s killer and that he had taken the blame. Pawa used this to try to coerce Harry into confessing to murder as part of his vengeance plan.

Pawa first bribed a prison officer in the Punjab to help him escape his cell, and then travelled to England to commit a campaign of terror against the people who had betrayed him and orchestrated his imprisonment: the accountant who’d given evidence against him in court; Harry, the police officer who’d made his name by arresting him; Bradford’s Chief Constable Jonthan Boardman; Riaz, the lieutenant who stole from him and usurped his position in the criminal world; and Sophie, his ex-wife who was not only part of Riaz’s scheme to get him out of the picture, but also Riaz’s secret lover.

Pawa killed his former accountant and set up shop in the basement of his house, breeding parasitic wasps he then used ritualistically in a series of murders. He killed Priti Parmer, a young drug dealer who’d recently switched sides from Vasil Sharma’s organisation to work for Riaz and Bradford West, then he released a toxic gas into an LGBTQ+ nightclub, kidnapped the Chief Constable’s son Alistair, and kidnapped Harry’s reporter niece Tara, and left a message to Harry and Riaz on her skin reading “420” – the address of the old corner shop where Harry had killed Paul King. Harry saved Tara and Alistair, but Pawa had also kidnapped Harry’s wife Saima, and threatened to kill her unless Harry confessed to King’s murder.

Saima escaped, and Riaz shot Pawa dead, then placed his body next to that of Vasil Sharma, whom Riaz had also shot dead, to stage the murders as drug-on-drug violence. Now Riaz and Sophie are the only kingpins in Bradford left standing.

Will Riaz Regret Sparing Ateeq Farooqi’s Life?

The teenage drug-dealer whom Harry saved from the Vasil Sharmy crew in episode one is a tricky character whose loyalties are unclear. After his kidnap, he petitioned to work for Bradford West, earning a face-to-face meeting with Riaz by helping Enzo (Tomi May) to steal over £1 million from the rival gang. Riaz took a chance on him, but the whole plan was a set-up so that Vasil Sharmy’s gang could take out Riaz at a time and place set up by Ateeq (who clearly had misgivings about it, but went along with it anyway). Ateeq arranged the hit, Sharmy’s assassin shot at Riaz, but didn’t kill him. Riaz shot Sharmy in retaliation but spared the life of Ateeq because of his moral rule about not involving underage kids in criminal activity. Now that Riaz is the biggest fish in Bradford’s criminal pond, will Ateeq prove a loyal lieutenant or a dangerous rival?

What Next for Harry and Saima?

What sets DCI Harry Virdee apart from DCI John Luther (his predecessor in the handsome-detectives-who-operate-outside-the-law genre) is his functional, loving and supportive marriage with Saima. Intelligent and independent, Saima did her own sleuthing in Virdee series one, and discovered that her brother Riaz wasn’t just a successful cash-and-carry owner but a drug-dealer and murderer. She also discovered that her husband Harry knew all about Riaz’s criminal operation, and the two had been secretly swapping intel.

At the end of series one, Saima and Aaron are living separately from Harry, and she tells her husband “I don’t know who you are anymore, I don’t think I ever did.” Saima doesn’t yet know that Riaz took the blame for Paul King’s murder, but Harry’s niece Tara heard him and Riaz talking about King, so is close to discovering the truth.

Harry Reunited With his Father

After being petitioned by Saima’s father, Harry’s dad Ranjit finally conceded to reunite with the son he’d banished from the family years earlier for marrying a Muslim woman of Pakistani heritage. In Virdee’s final moments, Harry and his dad sat together on a park bench. “You made me a stranger,” Harry told his father, and the pair clasped hands, suggesting a brighter future for the father and son.

A second series of Virdee hasn’t been officially announced at the time of writing, but we’ll keep you posted if that happens.

All episodes of Virdee are streaming now on BBC iPlayer.

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