The Professionals was penned by a host of different writers. Sometimes at its worst it could be ho-hum hokum but some episodes, perhaps no accident, were good in everything. A good story with good parts for the regulars perhaps motivated everyone and this episode is a belter in all respects - and the edgiest of the entire run. Indeed some parts of plot and script would grace a feature film. The episode throws out the convention of the duo being bullet-proof. It also throws out the macho convention that men do the shooting and women make the coffee or that if the baddie is a woman she has the look of an East German female athlete. The cunning agile baddie here is fanatical, very homicidal, small and looks rather sweet. Also it cleverly inverts the usual relationship between the duo and the baddie.
This episode is edgy in other ways - Cowley, man of moral certainties who deals with people has to deal with amoral Ministerial real-politik from a man who deals with policies. Perhaps the crowning even savagely cynical real-politik is though from the killer's sponsors at the end. It has has a whiff of reality.
Finally the story gives the duo also probably their strongest parts - and perhaps the best payoff line.
This episode is edgy in other ways - Cowley, man of moral certainties who deals with people has to deal with amoral Ministerial real-politik from a man who deals with policies. Perhaps the crowning even savagely cynical real-politik is though from the killer's sponsors at the end. It has has a whiff of reality.
Finally the story gives the duo also probably their strongest parts - and perhaps the best payoff line.