History Series / RipperStreet

* DeadpanSnarker: Chief Inspector Abberline. Most characters have moments of this but he's the king of it.

* SnuffFilm: Sir Arthur Donaldson in "I Need Light" is attempting to create the world's first snuff film.

* TheReasonYouSuck: Epic one delivered by Best as his [[spoiler: death speech.]] Flight also delivers a stinging one to the crowd harassing Joseph Merrick (aka the Elephant Man) in Season 2's "Am I Not Monstrous?":

--> '''Croker''': You need to take a look about. There is a city out there queuing to cheer its Queen as she parades through it. But what is that Queen? She is an Empress. But her empire is not solely England, boy. It is the world. And therefore, the world comes to London and London becomes the world. This is not because Englishmen are good, or pretty, but because we understood quicker than all that good trade makes for greater power. Power, which you will always lack for, boy, until you understand that there is but one boat that floats in this world, and it is this: You roll with the future times, or the future times will roll over you. (stabs him) …It was a Burmese silk captain showed me that. Slip a knife between a man's ribs without him even feeling it. See what a man might learn, if he opens his heart to the world, boy? But you, as we know, are an ignorant fellow.
** In the same episode, there's a darker version of this trope given by Special Service Inspector Constantine to an Indian nobleman who's a proud officer in the British army (and who throughout the episode had been rebuking younger Indian men who were protesting against the British occupation of India). In-universe it's meant as a nasty TheReasonYouSuck speech, but towards the modern audience it works more as a TakeThat truth bomb about the history of their country:

--> '''Constantine''': And you imagine he shall give two tosses, do you? He's the Colonial Secretary and you're the colonial. You are to him no more than a trained circus pony. Best you understand that. Here is the lesson, Major: They dress you in this… costume, and puff you full of a confected self-importance, the purpose of which is only this: That we here in this country may slowly bleed your country dry - whilst your back is turned parading in our honour.

* BadassBeard: A good few, this being the late 19th century. Arthurton and Abbeline are the most prominent. Gabriel Cain in "A Stronger Loving World" also sports a rather magnificent one.
** Though Edmund Reid, who historically did have a beard, goes clean-chinned.

* BuryYourGays: [[spoiler: Fred Best]] was the only regular character who wasn't straight, unlike the main 3 straight guys he never got a romance storyline[[note]] other than a brief encounter with a teenage sex worker that was just in the plot to provide blackmail material; and a man who was implied to have been his lover, but who only showed up in the show as a corpse [[/note]], and he gets killed off to motivate the main characters at the end of season 3. [[note]] If one is charitable, one can believe that this was not because he was unimportant enough to be expendable and the writers didn't know what to do with him, but because the actor got a major role in ''TheLastKingdom''. Though who knows which came first. [[/note]]

* RealityEnsues: In "A Man of My Company" after the stockholders of the shipping company find out that [[spoiler: a ''woman'' designed the new engine that could save the company]] they react exactly the way a bunch of late Victorian old men would react and throw a collective fit. It's implied that this allowed [[spoiler: Mr. Swift to get the company.]]

Among the factories, rookeries, brothels and pubs, Detective Inspector Edmund Reid (Matthew Macfadyen) and Detective Sergeant Bennett Drake (Creator/JeromeFlynn) team with US Army surgeon and former Pinkerton detective Captain Homer Jackson (Adam Rothenberg) to investigate the killings.

* KnightTemplarBigBrother: Blush Pang's brother

* ShellShockedVeteran: Deconstructed hard in "The Weight of One Man's Heart". Faulkner and his fellow veterans, haunted by the horrors of war, lash out violently at a society they felt hasn't given them their dues and a bloodbath ensues.

* DoublingForLondon: The London street scenes are actually filmed in Dublin. Most of the 1880s East End has long been demolished.

* [[spoiler: DownerEnding]]: By the end of the show, [[spoiler: every last major character from the early seasons (except Reid [[note]] and Rose, though she was explicitly suicidal when she left [[/note]]) is dead, and the later-introduced significant characters have left Whitechapel and Reid for good. Reid himself is last seen all alone, burying himself in his work, and is implied to self-imprison himself in the district of Whitechapel for the rest of his life to atone for crimes he should have gone to prison for.]]

* TimeSkip: Of five years between seasons 2 and 3.

* YouCalledMeXItMustBeSerious: Jackson calls Susan by her real name, Caitlin, when trying to defend his actions in investing in a doomed mining scheme. Susan is having none of it, though. She uses his real name, Matthew, as she calls him out.

* AndTheAdventureContinues: The last episode, "What Use Our Work", ends with one of the officers coming in and announcing that a man has locked himself up with four hostages and is threatening to kill them if he sees any cops. The scene ends on Reid getting up from his chair and turning to Drake and Jackson with a simple, "Shall we?"