Set in Canterbury, where Alison Woods (Rose Ayling-Ellis) works in the kitchens of a police canteen and is brought in by detectives to lipread in a high-stakes surveillance investigation of a dangerous gang when all official lipreaders are unavailable, ITVX’s recent Code of Silence is not just any crime thriller. It’s a grounded, emotionally complex exploration of d/Deafness, identity, access, and marginalisation, where Alison’s skill makes her valuable – but her value doesn’t protect her from the same systemic barriers faced by many d/Deaf people.

“[The series] raises a pressing question: Accessible for whom?”

Alison is no flawless protagonist: she’s brave, yes – but also impulsive, and sometimes reckless. She gaslights the detectives, flouts orders and meddles under the pretext of being “told to get information” – even when that puts herself and others at risk. She manipulates and is manipulated – especially in her relationship with gang member Liam Barlow (Kieron Moore). The romance is compelling and complicated; they lie to and cover for each other, manipulate one another, and share blurred motivations.

Yet Liam’s attempts to learn BSL and his sensitivity to understand Allison’s needs are a nuanced touch, and are portrayed with care, depicting the small but transformative changes such efforts can make. There’s mutual affection between Allison and Liam, but also secrecy, deception, and moral compromise. On another note, the portrayal of their sexy romance is also arguably important, asserting how d/Deaf and disabled characters are very much desirable and worthy of love and intimacy, while being careful not to fetishise.

Some moments do stretch plausibility – like Allison lip reading an entire conversation for Liam’s criminal motives – but the emotional stakes remain grounded. Each character has something personal at stake, and is driven by more than just the mission at hand. Everyone has something to lose.

Like many shows aimed to include hearing audiences, Code of Silence provides burned-in captions for British Sign Language (BSL) and lip-reading sequences – yet ironically not for spoken dialogue. This problematic subtle reversal flips the usual expectations of accessible media and raises a pressing question: Accessible for whom?

The show visually represents lip-reading in a stylised but linguistically effective way: raw letter fragments morph into coherent words, contingent on context and guesswork. It draws attention to the uncertainty and cognitive load involved in lip-reading – particularly with plosives and visually ambiguous consonant lip patterns. Sound is not just heard – it’s seen, interpreted, sometimes misread.

d/Deafness is not exploited as a dramatic device or tokenistic addition, but treated as the complex lived experience that it is, hitting home for many d/Deaf viewers, including myself. Throughout the show, accessibility is embedded in the logistics and fabric of daily life. Whether it’s Alison hovering over a video call instead of making an audio call (as understanding someone requires full view of facial expressions and lip-reading), or needing to see someone’s face to understand them. Accessible communication as such are not quirks, they’re necessities, and the show treats them as such accurately reflecting the d/Deaf community’s reality in our society. Pubs, music, background noise – all become sites of both exclusion and nuance. Allison admits that yes, the bar music makes communication harder, but she also enjoys the beat. This layered portrayal resists stereotypes about d/Deaf people.

“d/Deafness is not exploited as a dramatic device or tokenistic addition, but treated as the complex lived experience that it is”

Code of Silence pulls no punches when depicting the very real barriers being d/Deaf in a hearing world, and the consequences of inaccessibility. Alison and her mother face eviction from their home, with her mother stumped with a four month wait for Access to Work entitlement for a BSL interpreter for training for a much needed new job.

Discrimination appears in both overt and systemic forms. Gang member Braden’s hostility during a home visit is menacing, but so is the courtroom bias that deems d/Deaf witnesses unreliable. As Helen coldly remarks: “Juries might not rate her as a witness on account of her being deaf. So easy for her to misunderstand.” These issues aren’t shoehorned in as ‘educational’ standpoints, but emerge organically from the storylines, treated with the normalcy and gravity they deserve. And this is the point. Deafness isn’t a subplot. It’s a reality.

“Discrimination appears in both overt and systemic forms”

The show does well to include a spectrum of communication styles within the Deaf community: some characters use BSL only (like Alison’s mother, and her ex Eithan), whereas Alison uses BSL, lip reading, and speech. There’s no single Deaf experience. The series respects and reflects that.

There’s an assumption in parts of the industry that if a story incorporates underrepresented communities, it must sacrifice entertainment value or creative excellence. Code of Silence flatly disproves that. It’s tightly written, emotionally layered, and genuinely thrilling. Its representation doesn’t diminish its quality – it enriches it. When critics find fault in didacticism, or conversely when they express a sense of awe-struck fascination over the series’ incorporation of d/Deafness, it’s worth asking – who is the assumed prioritised viewer here? Maybe for once, it’s not all about the hearing world, but about centering the Deaf one, giving us meaningful representation and a sense of belonging. Perhaps it’s about creating for the d/Deaf community to see ourselves, fully and without compromise.

As Alison says: “All I wanted was for people to give me a chance, the same chance as anyone else.” That quiet plea underpins the entire series and a vital message it radiates.