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The Professionals 3.09 Weekend in the Country
It's been an age since I did one of these, so here's an episode review for The Professionals.
Overview
So, Sue and Carol came to visit the other week and we watched Weekend in the Country together, and agreed that although there's a lot to enjoy in the episode, which offers loads of pretty visuals, food for thought and scope for the imagination, it is let down by certain weaknesses and contrivances.
The story in a nutshell is this: Bodie and Doyle are enjoying a relaxing weekend in the country with their girlfriends when they have the misfortune to run into a gang of armed thugs on the run from a heist-gone-wrong; the thugs promptly take them all hostage along with the mother and brother of Doyle's girlfriend, with whom they are staying. Unarmed and unable to come up with any clever plans of escape (or even of raising the alarm), they must play along with the gunmen and attempt to contain the situation until help eventually arrives in the form of Cowley and his latest sidekick, Sally, who saves the day.
Observations
Random thoughts while watching:
Let's get the obvious weaknesses of the episode over and done with. The story relies on a lot of contrivances that veer toward the lower end of plausibility – starting with the initial premise that Bodie and Doyle would go for a quiet weekend in the country together with a girlfriend's mother in the first place. It is also hard to believe that they travelled there by train rather than by car, leaving them effectively stranded – there's no way Cowley would allow that; he'd want them able to return to London at a moment's notice, as his attempt to pull them back in during the story demonstrates.
Bodie and Doyle are also strangely passive throughout their captivity, by their standards. This can be explained, of course – they are unarmed and outnumbered and have four innocent lives to protect. But there are opportunities throughout the story for them to take action of some kind, opportunities that would be horribly risky, perhaps…but no more so than anything they've done in any other story. And knowing that they've taken those chances in other stories, in similar situations, makes it slightly less plausible that they would remain so very passive for so very long in this one. The concept is strong, but dragging it out over such a long period of time weakens it. I do enjoy how calm and measured they both are throughout, though, maintaining their cool, containing the situation and keeping everyone else calm.
Okay, on with the story.
I'm not sure how convinced I am by the genteel lifestyle our Lads are toying with as the episode opens – fishing and horse riding – but hey, the story required them to be hanging out relaxing in the country. And once we've accepted the premise that they've come to stay with a girlfriend's mother at her country pile in the first place (as opposed to, for instance, a more traditional dirty weekend away with no mothers or children just a few rooms away at all times), we can accept the premise that they'd also toy with the lifestyle, as there's not a lot else to do out there in the middle of nowhere.
It's kind of intriguing to reflect on the fact that Doyle's weekend away with his current girlfriend (Judy) involves meeting and spending time with her mother and brother, which implies a reasonably serious relationship – I can't imagine many of his casual flings get to that point, although admittedly I also can't imagine that many of his casual flings have country piles to visit for the weekend, which is a nice sweetener for the 'meeting the mother' pill! It's a shame that the relationship is more of a plot device than anything else, but they do get a couple of nice moments together – not so much romantic, but throwaway little moments of unspoken communication, working together through the crisis, which may not be much but do support the idea of this never-seen-before-or-again relationship. Untapped potential, as it were. I'm not sure I'm convinced that she's his type, we don't get to know enough about her, but I'm willing to be convinced, as it were.
Speaking of which, the Professionals is very much of its time, but this is one of the rare episodes where I can see clearly just how the same concept would be approached by a similar show today, because there's just so much potential here for romance and angst, which is the stuff modern TV is made of. So, if made today, this episode would no doubt be the culmination of a several episode arc in which the relationships with the two girls would have been built up slowly, to ensure that viewers were familiar with them and cared about them. We'd have seen Doyle meet Judy (through a case? She works in Defence, so it's plausible), we'd have seen Bodie meet Liz (through Judy perhaps? Are the girls friends double-dating friends?), and we'd have seen the relationships build and grow for a good few episodes before the Lads were invited out to the family pile for a weekend away, only for it to turn into high drama. The story of this episode would then be squarely focused on the emotions and relationships, the same basic set-up approached from a very different angle, intensely character-focused, after which the fallout would be picked over for an episode or three in the wake of the crisis, seeing both relationships disintegrate under the strain of what had happened, or something. Modern television fashions demand intense emotional drama and this story concept is full of potential for angst, so would be milked for all it's worth, and it would be great. But despite the weaknesses mentioned above it also works perfectly well here as a standalone drama, focused mainly on the professional aspects: seeing how the partners react when caught off-guard and forced to improvise desperately, while although emotions are not to the forefront we are both told and shown enough to understand the dynamics between the various characters. Some of the dialogue is woeful but all the actors put in great performances.
There's some really cute banter between the Lads and their girls before the plot kicks in. Hey, gotta enjoy the domestic moments while they last!
One of the things that I really enjoy about this episode is what a lovely weekend Cowley has. How often do we see him enjoying downtime like that? I also really like the way the news reports about the armed gang on the run are woven throughout Cowley's b-plot, so that we know it's on the periphery of his radar, even if he keeps tuning it out and turning it off because it isn't a CI5 case and is therefore of no interest to him. Until he puts two and two together, that is, and that's when we know he's absorbed all that information anyway, however little attention he appeared to be paying it at the time.
When the armed but wounded robber Albert Case first takes the Lads and their girls hostage, it bugs me every time that Doyle kicks the picnic basket into the lake. It shouldn't, because duress and all that, but still – littering! And that was a useful basket!
I do enjoy how rueful Bodie and Doyle are over the irony of the situation and the fact that neither one of them has any weapon of any kind with them. This was their weekend off and they intended for it to be a proper weekend off, a complete break from all things CI5 – and so they find themselves caught completely off-guard and are scrambling to catch up for the whole of the rest of the episode.
Ray Burdis's robber Vince really is an odious little slimeball, isn't he? Some of the dialogue he is given is absolutely dire, but he makes it work, bringing a frisson of simmering sexual danger to his scenes with Bodie's girlfriend Liz from the moment he claps eyes on her, and that dynamic lends an extra edge of gritty realism to the episode throughout. The other two crooks, Albert and Georgie, they're pros, mind-on-the-job, too experienced to let themselves get distracted by a pretty face, but Vince is a real loose cannon and capable of just about anything. It's just a pity more isn't made of her relationship with Bodie and his reaction to seeing her singled out for such dangerous interest, after his first attempt to defend her honour ends in him getting a real kicking from both Vince and Georgie.
Poor Bodie does tumble downstairs rather beautifully, though.
Mmmm. Diligent Doctor Doyle volunteering for the first aid signals a slight change in tactics for the Lads. Up till then they've been maintaining a watching brief, playing it cool, not volunteering any information, but after Vince's first little kerfuffle with Liz up in the bathroom while she was collecting first aid supplies, Doyle switches to a slightly more proactive setting by offering to take care of Albert's gunshot wound himself, which takes the spotlight back off the civilians. It always amuses me that he claims army training for his first aid skills, just because it gives me a mental image of Bodie protesting about his partner stealing his backstory! It's the most plausible explanation to give, though, without inviting a whole bunch of questions, so it makes sense to use that story – ex-army buddies who've stayed friends is a nicely plausible backstory for the partners all round, in fact, so it's a wise move for Doyle to make.
"Well, that's fine. You just lie there and die, mate." Ha. That line always kills me. Doyle does have such a short fuse and quick tongue.
Doyle does a good job with the kitchen sink surgery, considering he really, really absolutely definitely should not be doing anything of the sort, improvising with whatever tools he has to hand with only his girlfriend to act as nurse.
It amuses me no end that robber Georgie seems to have nicked half of Bodie's wardrobe…
I really like that Judy's little brother Daniel, who can't be more than 12 years old, has the initiative to find a plausible excuse to get out of the room, tries to make a call for help, and then escapes out of the window when he's busted using the phone. He doesn't get very far, of course, and the potential danger his actions expose the others to is the reason Bodie and Doyle haven't attempted anything similar, but I really like that the kid has the initiative and the nerve to at least try to do something. Good for him.
Bodie does have his eye out for potential weapons most of the time, but his efforts (with the rabbit shooting neighbour in the woods and the fire irons) are pretty clumsy and frankly deserve to fail.
With Doyle's impromptu surgery on Albert over and young Daniel having set the cat among the pigeons by trying to escape, it is Bodie's turn to step up to switch the focus away from the civilians once more by offering his services as a motor mechanic to see what he can do about Mrs Shaw's broken down land rover.
Mrs Shaw reckons the car has only been out of action since she used it to collect Daniel from school, whenever that was, but it's so covered in dust and dirt you'd be forgiven for thinking it had been off the road for months. Also, I'm a bit confused by her saying the car's been broken down since she used it to collect Daniel from school because we saw them being dropped off by someone (a friend? Taxi?) just before they walked into the house to find an armed gang there, and Daniel is wearing his school uniform, so…I dunno what's going on with the timeline there.
Another little detail that is woven throughout the episode as a b-plot is the job we never get to see, some VIP visitor who arrives in the UK early requiring security from CI5. Cowley has several conversations with female agent Sally about it over the course of the weekend, because Cowley is never off duty even when he's having a relaxing weekend off, and I like it because it's so rare for us to catch a glimpse of CI5's more run-of-the-mill jobs, the kind of thing they must have going on in the background all the time, away from the glamour and excitement of the more explosive affairs our Lads usually find themselves up to their eyeballs in.
Also, I really like Sally. While everyone else is supposedly enjoying a weekend off, poor Sally is stuck on duty and doesn't even get so much as a good night's sleep. She doesn't get any of the glory she deserves in this episode, either!
Bodie makes a handy mechanic in a pinch, it seems, just as Doyle makes a useful doctor in a pinch. CI5 clearly trains its agents to be multi-functional! Bodie also does a good job of keeping a lid on loose cannon Vince while he's out in the garage – it's just a shame Vince doesn't stay out there the whole time, but Albert and Georgie are well aware that he's the weak link, so won't leave him alone with Bodie for long, just in case.
It's a bit of a cheek for Cowley to assume that the out-of-order contact number Bodie and Doyle gave for their weekend away must mean an unpaid bill!
Sally gives her call sign as 6.2 – isn't that also Murphy's number? Continuity error…or we can fanwank that perhaps Murphy takes over the number after Sally has moved on?
"You may be an angel of mercy, but I've got a funny feeling you could be the dangerous one," Albert tells Doyle, and it's a really interesting line…that is completely not followed up on by the rest of the episode, which leaves the audience wondering just what he meant. It's a decent episode that does pretty much exactly what it set out to, but there's a lot of wasted potential here.
Poor Liz has to keep fending Vince off – Albert and Georgie do a really bad job of keeping him in line. Good for her, slicing his arm open when he tries it on in the kitchen, just a shame she didn't manage to do more damage!
It always amuses me when Bodie and Doyle tell people they are civil servants, because it's completely true – but what everyone always forgets is just what a huge and varied range of occupations are covered by that vague description!
It can be quite fun to sit through this episode trying to figure out what Bodie and Doyle could do differently, if they decided to take a bit more action (or, you know, if the writers had opted to tell a different kind of story) instead of maintaining this watching brief and attempting to simply contain the situation – what if they did X, how would that play out, what if they did Y, how might that change things? Could they overpower a gunman here or there and get away with it, or would that only make things worse? And so on. Bodie gives it his best shot at nobbling the robbers by fixing the car so that it'll get them away but won't get them very far…but it backfires on him when they decide to take young Daniel with them and then the car breaks down earlier than he'd intended.
It does amuse me, though, that after working so hard all night to try to escape from the cellar they've been locked into, our intrepid heroes find themselves face to face with the armed gang again, not having anticipated that they might come back.
I really love how quickly Cowley puts two and two together, once it is finally clear that Bodie and Doyle are actually missing and not contactable. As soon as he hears the location of where they went to stay, you can see the alarm bell go off in his head – and then one telephone conversation with the local police sergeant about the peculiar circumstances in which Judy Shaw's horse was killed is all it takes for him to put the pieces together. And that hunch is strong enough for him to act on.
He takes Sally with him, even though she's been working all weekend and has been up all night – no rest for the weary!
I'm more amused than I should be by the robbers anxiously checking the newspaper to see if their escapades have dropped off the front page.
Cowley's lucky Judy didn't get picked up by another car doing her hitchhiking routine with Georgie, while he was faffing around switching seats in the car and plotting his strategy.
Sally recognises Judy on sight – but Judy doesn't recognise Sally. That's potentially interesting. Was Sally in charge of discreetly vetting the girlfriends, perhaps…? Or is she just better with names and faces than Judy, who is under a lot of duress and wouldn't be expecting to see a familiar face in that situation?
There aren't many out-and-out partner moments in this episode – Bodie and Doyle work apart for most of the episode, despite being under one roof. But there's a brilliant little moment when Bodie sees Sally getting out of the car that's just pulled up and remains oh-so-casual about it while Doyle nonchalantly leans forward to block Albert's view, so that Bodie can then freely mouth Sally's name to warn Doyle that the waiting game is over at last. Nicely done.
Georgie has already been taken out by Sally and Cowley at the road, leaving only two gunmen in the house, one of whom is wounded. So when Vince takes Mrs Shaw down to the door to answer Sally's knock, that's Bodie and Doyle's cue to finally take action, Doyle disarming Albert while Bodie rushes downstairs to see to Vince…as if Sally didn't have it all under control anyway.
Sally saves the day – always good to see the female agents coming out on top, even if Bodie does then take over and rob her of her thunder.
I am very amused by the looks on Albert and Vince's faces when they realise they've been holding a pair of 'sort-of cops' hostage all weekend. Busman's holiday indeed!
Quotable Quotes
LIZ: Food's ready. Where are the young lovers?
BODIE: Oh, I think she's showing him round the family spread.
LIZ: That won't take long. Most of it went in death duties.
BODIE: Ah, the poor rich. Ah well, we're men of simple tastes. A new Ferrari once in a while should keep him happy.
HARRY: More violence.
COWLEY: Aye, nothing changes.
HARRY: Except for the worse.
DOYLE: You got anything on you?
BODIE: Nope, not even a scout badge. You?
DOYLE: Nothing. Would you ever believe this?
BODIE: He'll keel over in a minute.
CASE: Manners maketh man. They didn't do a lot for me.
DOYLE: Listen, you want that seen to, you'd better let me look at it.
CASE: You? What can you do?
DOYLE: Just might be able to save your life.
CASE: You know about first aid?
DOYLE: Yeh.
CASE: Why didn't you say?
DOYLE: You never asked me.
CASE: Where'd you learn it? The boy scouts?
DOYLE: Army.
CASE: Oh, peacetime Army?
DOYLE: No, no, no, the other one was before my time, wasn't it?
CASE: Oh, don't be flash.
DOYLE: Well, that's fine. You just lie there and die, mate.
CASE: Scrubbing up. Shouldn't you be in all green?
DOYLE: I shouldn't be doing this at all. You should be in hospital.
CASE: We all know that.
BODIE: Yeah, I know a bit about motors.
VINCE: Oh, another expert?
BODIE: Suit yourself.
VINCE: Army, I suppose.
BODIE: Yeah.
VINCE: Oh, you drove a tank, did you?
BODIE: That's right. How'd you guess?
COWLEY: Yes, we'd all like to relax. I've got an engagement for this evening. Look, get Doyle to go out to the airport and advance the security arrangements accordingly.
SALLY: But he's on leave, sir.
COWLEY: Then send Bodie.
SALLY: I'm afraid he's off, too, sir. They're away together.
COWLEY: Och, yes, yes, I remember. Well, haul both of them back. Tell them the honeymoon's over.
SALLY: I'm afraid we haven't been able to contact Bodie or Doyle.
COWLEY: That mean they're on their way back to town?
SALLY: No, sir. The number they left is out of order.
COWLEY: Out of order or an unpaid bill? Knowing that pair, I don't suppose they even tried to check.
CASE: You may be an angel of mercy, but I've got a funny feeling you could be the dangerous one.
GEORGIE: So where'd you learn this caper, then?
BODIE: Here and there. I always had an interest.
GEORGIE: Do a bit of driving, do you?
BODIE: Yeah, fair amount.
DOYLE: How is it?
CASE: Feels on fire. I wouldn't mind another drink.
DOYLE: Well, that won't do you any good at all, will it.
CASE: What d'you care?
DOYLE: Not a bit. Just interest in my new trade; I should've taken it up.
GEORGIE: So what game are you in, then?
BODIE: Guess.
GEORGIE: I dunno. Bank clerk. Commercial traveller.
BODIE: Do better than that, can't you?
GEORGIE: I give up.
BODIE: I'm a civil servant.
GEORGIE: I wasn't far out. Sounds bloody dull.
BODIE: We have our moments, you know.
CASE: What d'you do for a living? Still in the Kate Carney?
DOYLE: The Army? No, I'm a civil servant.
CASE: And 'im?
BODIE: Same.
CASE: Dead boring.
BODIE: I'd've thought doing time was dead boring.
COWLEY: Your weekend turned into a bit of a busman's holiday.
CASE: You're cops.
DOYLE: Yeah, something like that.
CASE: Out of the frying pan.
DOYLE: Yup, 'fraid so.
The Verdict
Overall and taken as a whole, Weekend in the Country isn't an episode I tend to think of as any kind of favourite, but it's nonetheless an entertaining and engaging episode to watch, even if it doesn't seem entirely sure what it wants to be and so doesn't perhaps make the best use of its concept.
Overview
So, Sue and Carol came to visit the other week and we watched Weekend in the Country together, and agreed that although there's a lot to enjoy in the episode, which offers loads of pretty visuals, food for thought and scope for the imagination, it is let down by certain weaknesses and contrivances.
The story in a nutshell is this: Bodie and Doyle are enjoying a relaxing weekend in the country with their girlfriends when they have the misfortune to run into a gang of armed thugs on the run from a heist-gone-wrong; the thugs promptly take them all hostage along with the mother and brother of Doyle's girlfriend, with whom they are staying. Unarmed and unable to come up with any clever plans of escape (or even of raising the alarm), they must play along with the gunmen and attempt to contain the situation until help eventually arrives in the form of Cowley and his latest sidekick, Sally, who saves the day.
Observations
Random thoughts while watching:
Let's get the obvious weaknesses of the episode over and done with. The story relies on a lot of contrivances that veer toward the lower end of plausibility – starting with the initial premise that Bodie and Doyle would go for a quiet weekend in the country together with a girlfriend's mother in the first place. It is also hard to believe that they travelled there by train rather than by car, leaving them effectively stranded – there's no way Cowley would allow that; he'd want them able to return to London at a moment's notice, as his attempt to pull them back in during the story demonstrates.
Bodie and Doyle are also strangely passive throughout their captivity, by their standards. This can be explained, of course – they are unarmed and outnumbered and have four innocent lives to protect. But there are opportunities throughout the story for them to take action of some kind, opportunities that would be horribly risky, perhaps…but no more so than anything they've done in any other story. And knowing that they've taken those chances in other stories, in similar situations, makes it slightly less plausible that they would remain so very passive for so very long in this one. The concept is strong, but dragging it out over such a long period of time weakens it. I do enjoy how calm and measured they both are throughout, though, maintaining their cool, containing the situation and keeping everyone else calm.
Okay, on with the story.
I'm not sure how convinced I am by the genteel lifestyle our Lads are toying with as the episode opens – fishing and horse riding – but hey, the story required them to be hanging out relaxing in the country. And once we've accepted the premise that they've come to stay with a girlfriend's mother at her country pile in the first place (as opposed to, for instance, a more traditional dirty weekend away with no mothers or children just a few rooms away at all times), we can accept the premise that they'd also toy with the lifestyle, as there's not a lot else to do out there in the middle of nowhere.
It's kind of intriguing to reflect on the fact that Doyle's weekend away with his current girlfriend (Judy) involves meeting and spending time with her mother and brother, which implies a reasonably serious relationship – I can't imagine many of his casual flings get to that point, although admittedly I also can't imagine that many of his casual flings have country piles to visit for the weekend, which is a nice sweetener for the 'meeting the mother' pill! It's a shame that the relationship is more of a plot device than anything else, but they do get a couple of nice moments together – not so much romantic, but throwaway little moments of unspoken communication, working together through the crisis, which may not be much but do support the idea of this never-seen-before-or-again relationship. Untapped potential, as it were. I'm not sure I'm convinced that she's his type, we don't get to know enough about her, but I'm willing to be convinced, as it were.
Speaking of which, the Professionals is very much of its time, but this is one of the rare episodes where I can see clearly just how the same concept would be approached by a similar show today, because there's just so much potential here for romance and angst, which is the stuff modern TV is made of. So, if made today, this episode would no doubt be the culmination of a several episode arc in which the relationships with the two girls would have been built up slowly, to ensure that viewers were familiar with them and cared about them. We'd have seen Doyle meet Judy (through a case? She works in Defence, so it's plausible), we'd have seen Bodie meet Liz (through Judy perhaps? Are the girls friends double-dating friends?), and we'd have seen the relationships build and grow for a good few episodes before the Lads were invited out to the family pile for a weekend away, only for it to turn into high drama. The story of this episode would then be squarely focused on the emotions and relationships, the same basic set-up approached from a very different angle, intensely character-focused, after which the fallout would be picked over for an episode or three in the wake of the crisis, seeing both relationships disintegrate under the strain of what had happened, or something. Modern television fashions demand intense emotional drama and this story concept is full of potential for angst, so would be milked for all it's worth, and it would be great. But despite the weaknesses mentioned above it also works perfectly well here as a standalone drama, focused mainly on the professional aspects: seeing how the partners react when caught off-guard and forced to improvise desperately, while although emotions are not to the forefront we are both told and shown enough to understand the dynamics between the various characters. Some of the dialogue is woeful but all the actors put in great performances.
There's some really cute banter between the Lads and their girls before the plot kicks in. Hey, gotta enjoy the domestic moments while they last!
One of the things that I really enjoy about this episode is what a lovely weekend Cowley has. How often do we see him enjoying downtime like that? I also really like the way the news reports about the armed gang on the run are woven throughout Cowley's b-plot, so that we know it's on the periphery of his radar, even if he keeps tuning it out and turning it off because it isn't a CI5 case and is therefore of no interest to him. Until he puts two and two together, that is, and that's when we know he's absorbed all that information anyway, however little attention he appeared to be paying it at the time.
When the armed but wounded robber Albert Case first takes the Lads and their girls hostage, it bugs me every time that Doyle kicks the picnic basket into the lake. It shouldn't, because duress and all that, but still – littering! And that was a useful basket!
I do enjoy how rueful Bodie and Doyle are over the irony of the situation and the fact that neither one of them has any weapon of any kind with them. This was their weekend off and they intended for it to be a proper weekend off, a complete break from all things CI5 – and so they find themselves caught completely off-guard and are scrambling to catch up for the whole of the rest of the episode.
Ray Burdis's robber Vince really is an odious little slimeball, isn't he? Some of the dialogue he is given is absolutely dire, but he makes it work, bringing a frisson of simmering sexual danger to his scenes with Bodie's girlfriend Liz from the moment he claps eyes on her, and that dynamic lends an extra edge of gritty realism to the episode throughout. The other two crooks, Albert and Georgie, they're pros, mind-on-the-job, too experienced to let themselves get distracted by a pretty face, but Vince is a real loose cannon and capable of just about anything. It's just a pity more isn't made of her relationship with Bodie and his reaction to seeing her singled out for such dangerous interest, after his first attempt to defend her honour ends in him getting a real kicking from both Vince and Georgie.
Poor Bodie does tumble downstairs rather beautifully, though.
Mmmm. Diligent Doctor Doyle volunteering for the first aid signals a slight change in tactics for the Lads. Up till then they've been maintaining a watching brief, playing it cool, not volunteering any information, but after Vince's first little kerfuffle with Liz up in the bathroom while she was collecting first aid supplies, Doyle switches to a slightly more proactive setting by offering to take care of Albert's gunshot wound himself, which takes the spotlight back off the civilians. It always amuses me that he claims army training for his first aid skills, just because it gives me a mental image of Bodie protesting about his partner stealing his backstory! It's the most plausible explanation to give, though, without inviting a whole bunch of questions, so it makes sense to use that story – ex-army buddies who've stayed friends is a nicely plausible backstory for the partners all round, in fact, so it's a wise move for Doyle to make.
"Well, that's fine. You just lie there and die, mate." Ha. That line always kills me. Doyle does have such a short fuse and quick tongue.
Doyle does a good job with the kitchen sink surgery, considering he really, really absolutely definitely should not be doing anything of the sort, improvising with whatever tools he has to hand with only his girlfriend to act as nurse.
It amuses me no end that robber Georgie seems to have nicked half of Bodie's wardrobe…
I really like that Judy's little brother Daniel, who can't be more than 12 years old, has the initiative to find a plausible excuse to get out of the room, tries to make a call for help, and then escapes out of the window when he's busted using the phone. He doesn't get very far, of course, and the potential danger his actions expose the others to is the reason Bodie and Doyle haven't attempted anything similar, but I really like that the kid has the initiative and the nerve to at least try to do something. Good for him.
Bodie does have his eye out for potential weapons most of the time, but his efforts (with the rabbit shooting neighbour in the woods and the fire irons) are pretty clumsy and frankly deserve to fail.
With Doyle's impromptu surgery on Albert over and young Daniel having set the cat among the pigeons by trying to escape, it is Bodie's turn to step up to switch the focus away from the civilians once more by offering his services as a motor mechanic to see what he can do about Mrs Shaw's broken down land rover.
Mrs Shaw reckons the car has only been out of action since she used it to collect Daniel from school, whenever that was, but it's so covered in dust and dirt you'd be forgiven for thinking it had been off the road for months. Also, I'm a bit confused by her saying the car's been broken down since she used it to collect Daniel from school because we saw them being dropped off by someone (a friend? Taxi?) just before they walked into the house to find an armed gang there, and Daniel is wearing his school uniform, so…I dunno what's going on with the timeline there.
Another little detail that is woven throughout the episode as a b-plot is the job we never get to see, some VIP visitor who arrives in the UK early requiring security from CI5. Cowley has several conversations with female agent Sally about it over the course of the weekend, because Cowley is never off duty even when he's having a relaxing weekend off, and I like it because it's so rare for us to catch a glimpse of CI5's more run-of-the-mill jobs, the kind of thing they must have going on in the background all the time, away from the glamour and excitement of the more explosive affairs our Lads usually find themselves up to their eyeballs in.
Also, I really like Sally. While everyone else is supposedly enjoying a weekend off, poor Sally is stuck on duty and doesn't even get so much as a good night's sleep. She doesn't get any of the glory she deserves in this episode, either!
Bodie makes a handy mechanic in a pinch, it seems, just as Doyle makes a useful doctor in a pinch. CI5 clearly trains its agents to be multi-functional! Bodie also does a good job of keeping a lid on loose cannon Vince while he's out in the garage – it's just a shame Vince doesn't stay out there the whole time, but Albert and Georgie are well aware that he's the weak link, so won't leave him alone with Bodie for long, just in case.
It's a bit of a cheek for Cowley to assume that the out-of-order contact number Bodie and Doyle gave for their weekend away must mean an unpaid bill!
Sally gives her call sign as 6.2 – isn't that also Murphy's number? Continuity error…or we can fanwank that perhaps Murphy takes over the number after Sally has moved on?
"You may be an angel of mercy, but I've got a funny feeling you could be the dangerous one," Albert tells Doyle, and it's a really interesting line…that is completely not followed up on by the rest of the episode, which leaves the audience wondering just what he meant. It's a decent episode that does pretty much exactly what it set out to, but there's a lot of wasted potential here.
Poor Liz has to keep fending Vince off – Albert and Georgie do a really bad job of keeping him in line. Good for her, slicing his arm open when he tries it on in the kitchen, just a shame she didn't manage to do more damage!
It always amuses me when Bodie and Doyle tell people they are civil servants, because it's completely true – but what everyone always forgets is just what a huge and varied range of occupations are covered by that vague description!
It can be quite fun to sit through this episode trying to figure out what Bodie and Doyle could do differently, if they decided to take a bit more action (or, you know, if the writers had opted to tell a different kind of story) instead of maintaining this watching brief and attempting to simply contain the situation – what if they did X, how would that play out, what if they did Y, how might that change things? Could they overpower a gunman here or there and get away with it, or would that only make things worse? And so on. Bodie gives it his best shot at nobbling the robbers by fixing the car so that it'll get them away but won't get them very far…but it backfires on him when they decide to take young Daniel with them and then the car breaks down earlier than he'd intended.
It does amuse me, though, that after working so hard all night to try to escape from the cellar they've been locked into, our intrepid heroes find themselves face to face with the armed gang again, not having anticipated that they might come back.
I really love how quickly Cowley puts two and two together, once it is finally clear that Bodie and Doyle are actually missing and not contactable. As soon as he hears the location of where they went to stay, you can see the alarm bell go off in his head – and then one telephone conversation with the local police sergeant about the peculiar circumstances in which Judy Shaw's horse was killed is all it takes for him to put the pieces together. And that hunch is strong enough for him to act on.
He takes Sally with him, even though she's been working all weekend and has been up all night – no rest for the weary!
I'm more amused than I should be by the robbers anxiously checking the newspaper to see if their escapades have dropped off the front page.
Cowley's lucky Judy didn't get picked up by another car doing her hitchhiking routine with Georgie, while he was faffing around switching seats in the car and plotting his strategy.
Sally recognises Judy on sight – but Judy doesn't recognise Sally. That's potentially interesting. Was Sally in charge of discreetly vetting the girlfriends, perhaps…? Or is she just better with names and faces than Judy, who is under a lot of duress and wouldn't be expecting to see a familiar face in that situation?
There aren't many out-and-out partner moments in this episode – Bodie and Doyle work apart for most of the episode, despite being under one roof. But there's a brilliant little moment when Bodie sees Sally getting out of the car that's just pulled up and remains oh-so-casual about it while Doyle nonchalantly leans forward to block Albert's view, so that Bodie can then freely mouth Sally's name to warn Doyle that the waiting game is over at last. Nicely done.
Georgie has already been taken out by Sally and Cowley at the road, leaving only two gunmen in the house, one of whom is wounded. So when Vince takes Mrs Shaw down to the door to answer Sally's knock, that's Bodie and Doyle's cue to finally take action, Doyle disarming Albert while Bodie rushes downstairs to see to Vince…as if Sally didn't have it all under control anyway.
Sally saves the day – always good to see the female agents coming out on top, even if Bodie does then take over and rob her of her thunder.
I am very amused by the looks on Albert and Vince's faces when they realise they've been holding a pair of 'sort-of cops' hostage all weekend. Busman's holiday indeed!
Quotable Quotes
LIZ: Food's ready. Where are the young lovers?
BODIE: Oh, I think she's showing him round the family spread.
LIZ: That won't take long. Most of it went in death duties.
BODIE: Ah, the poor rich. Ah well, we're men of simple tastes. A new Ferrari once in a while should keep him happy.
HARRY: More violence.
COWLEY: Aye, nothing changes.
HARRY: Except for the worse.
DOYLE: You got anything on you?
BODIE: Nope, not even a scout badge. You?
DOYLE: Nothing. Would you ever believe this?
BODIE: He'll keel over in a minute.
CASE: Manners maketh man. They didn't do a lot for me.
DOYLE: Listen, you want that seen to, you'd better let me look at it.
CASE: You? What can you do?
DOYLE: Just might be able to save your life.
CASE: You know about first aid?
DOYLE: Yeh.
CASE: Why didn't you say?
DOYLE: You never asked me.
CASE: Where'd you learn it? The boy scouts?
DOYLE: Army.
CASE: Oh, peacetime Army?
DOYLE: No, no, no, the other one was before my time, wasn't it?
CASE: Oh, don't be flash.
DOYLE: Well, that's fine. You just lie there and die, mate.
CASE: Scrubbing up. Shouldn't you be in all green?
DOYLE: I shouldn't be doing this at all. You should be in hospital.
CASE: We all know that.
BODIE: Yeah, I know a bit about motors.
VINCE: Oh, another expert?
BODIE: Suit yourself.
VINCE: Army, I suppose.
BODIE: Yeah.
VINCE: Oh, you drove a tank, did you?
BODIE: That's right. How'd you guess?
COWLEY: Yes, we'd all like to relax. I've got an engagement for this evening. Look, get Doyle to go out to the airport and advance the security arrangements accordingly.
SALLY: But he's on leave, sir.
COWLEY: Then send Bodie.
SALLY: I'm afraid he's off, too, sir. They're away together.
COWLEY: Och, yes, yes, I remember. Well, haul both of them back. Tell them the honeymoon's over.
SALLY: I'm afraid we haven't been able to contact Bodie or Doyle.
COWLEY: That mean they're on their way back to town?
SALLY: No, sir. The number they left is out of order.
COWLEY: Out of order or an unpaid bill? Knowing that pair, I don't suppose they even tried to check.
CASE: You may be an angel of mercy, but I've got a funny feeling you could be the dangerous one.
GEORGIE: So where'd you learn this caper, then?
BODIE: Here and there. I always had an interest.
GEORGIE: Do a bit of driving, do you?
BODIE: Yeah, fair amount.
DOYLE: How is it?
CASE: Feels on fire. I wouldn't mind another drink.
DOYLE: Well, that won't do you any good at all, will it.
CASE: What d'you care?
DOYLE: Not a bit. Just interest in my new trade; I should've taken it up.
GEORGIE: So what game are you in, then?
BODIE: Guess.
GEORGIE: I dunno. Bank clerk. Commercial traveller.
BODIE: Do better than that, can't you?
GEORGIE: I give up.
BODIE: I'm a civil servant.
GEORGIE: I wasn't far out. Sounds bloody dull.
BODIE: We have our moments, you know.
CASE: What d'you do for a living? Still in the Kate Carney?
DOYLE: The Army? No, I'm a civil servant.
CASE: And 'im?
BODIE: Same.
CASE: Dead boring.
BODIE: I'd've thought doing time was dead boring.
COWLEY: Your weekend turned into a bit of a busman's holiday.
CASE: You're cops.
DOYLE: Yeah, something like that.
CASE: Out of the frying pan.
DOYLE: Yup, 'fraid so.
The Verdict
Overall and taken as a whole, Weekend in the Country isn't an episode I tend to think of as any kind of favourite, but it's nonetheless an entertaining and engaging episode to watch, even if it doesn't seem entirely sure what it wants to be and so doesn't perhaps make the best use of its concept.
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