1-06. You Should Have Got Here Sooner.

Lonely is attacked after breaking into the wrong flat...

Air Date: Aug. 12, 1967. Written by: James Mitchell, Terence Feely. Directed by: Piers Haggard. Produced by: Terence Feely, Lloyd Shirley.


THE PLOT:

Lonely is badly beaten by a man named Loder (Derek Newark), who keeps asking the bewildered thief where "it" is. Lonely admits that he had robbed an abandoned flat just before, and that he had come face-to-face with a man who was clearly terrified during the robbery.

The trail leads Callan to Pollock (Jon Laurimore), a Russian asset he captured years earlier, who has recently escaped from custody - and who is now being played by Hunter and Meres, who are determined to discover where Pollock hid a valuable formula...

Meres, caught off guard.

CHARACTERS:

Callan: "If anybody's going to beat (Lonely) up, it's me!" This episode is the closest Callan's come to admitting a bond with Lonely. As soon as he sees the thief has been beaten, he takes him back to his place to keep him safe and to help him recover.  He also doggedly follows the scant clues... which inevitably leads him directly into the middle of Hunter's operation. He shows no particular interest in the Pollock case, promising Hunter that he will stay away as long as Hunter's men lay off Lonely - but he can't resist finding Loder and delivering a quick lesson.

Hunter: Not for the first time, we see that Hunter may tolerate the sociopathic behavior of Meres and other subordinates, but he doesn't particularly approve of it. He defends his people to Callan, observing of Lonely's beating that it's "an occupational hazard." But he shows no sympathy for Loder or Meres when Callan exacts reprisals, even observing that the men are getting what they deserve.

Lonely: When he first walks in on Loder searching his home, he assumes the big man is a police officer - and he's clearly not intimidated in the slightest, demanding to see the man's warrant card and asking for his name. He's a "very good burglar," as Meres later admits, and he's used to dealing with police. It's only when Loder turns out not to be police that he realizes that he's in over his head, and falls back on his more accustomed subservience.

Meres: The sadism glimpsed in The Death of Robert E. Lee is even more evident here. Even after Hunter makes a deal with Callan to lay off Lonely, Meres goes to visit the thief. Ostensibly, he's warning Lonely off, but he knows this is unnecessary. He has himself acknowledged to Hunter that Lonely won't go to the police. He's here to display his own power over someone Callan's been protecting, and the grin he wears as he prepares to deliver pain shows just how much pleasure he's getting out of it.

Callan makes a deal with Hunter for Lonely's safety.

THOUGHTS:

The final episode of Series One, and thankfully it still exists! You Should Have Got Here Sooner is a good episode, not least because there's not an ounce of fat on it. Running a mere 45 minutes, it offers a well-paced if admittedly cookie-cutter spy plot while at the same time giving excellent material to all four of the regular characters.

The episode's only serious failing is that the guest cast is quite forgettable. Loder is Meres without the veneer of class, and it's clear that even Meres regards him with contempt. There are indications that Pollock was driven to betray his country by idealism, but that's never particularly explored.  The romance between Pollock and young Sue (Pinkie Johnstone) is equally thinly-sketched. And the less said about Sue's strained relationship with her standard-issue domineering mother (Anne Blake), the better.

Happily, the episode only spends as much time with the guest cast as is needed to establish and further the spy plot. The real story has little to do with Pollock's escape - that's just there to create a situation in which Lonely is in jeopardy.  The focus is on Callan's protection of Lonely, and the ways in which he interacts with Hunter, Loder, and Meres to ensure the safety of his asset ("friend" would a big stretch).

There's even some question as to how much of Callan's motivation has to do with personal attachment to Lonely, and how much has to do with him protecting himself.  Callan puts it in exactly those terms to Hunter: "Meres knows I look after Lonely.  When he beat him up, he wasn't just attacking him - He was attacking me.  He's not getting that sort of edge on me, Hunter, and neither are you!"  For all of that, there's a strong sense that Callan is making himself look callous to avoid Hunter seeing him as weak - but that doesn't make his words untrue.

The guest characters may be dull, but the scenes among the regulars make up most of the episode, and those scenes are crisp and smart, and crackle with intensity, making this - the final episode of Series One - a very strong installment.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

Previous Episode: But He's a Lord, Mr. Callan
Next Episode: Red Knight, White Knight



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