User Reviews

THE SWEENEY season three episode PAY OFF combines two of the British cop show's two most wielded devices: the woman in need and the band of backstabbing thieves, in which this dame is part of, working at the low-rent casino for, and she meets Dennis Waterman's Carter in what seems just another of many one-night-stands when it's anything but...

Instead, classic-beauty Geraldine James is trying to get some inside information about her possibly dead or perhaps just hiding-out-with-the-stolen-cash ex-partner, member of a violent gang of forest-fleeing thieves wearing creepy animal masks during the boisterous cold open/prologue...

Their identities are soon revealed to be meticulous leader Ken Kitsen and his square-jawed assistant David Ellison while future RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK ship captain George Harris has the most important side-heavy role...

Weeding-out information from the girl who's taking Carter for a ride that, inside her plush two-story apartment, he doesn't mind having... that results in the same rural wilderness location but with more specific shotgun-blasting, loot-seeking action flanking one of the more noticeably-noirish, pulp-inspired episodes.

Pay Off starts with a thrilling getaway scheme and a mess up by Haskins. He and his team are out to intercept the bad guys but get lost.

Thankfully Regan and Carter were probably on their day off so they are blameless.

Fast forward a year later. Carter has hooked up with Shirley Glass (Geraldine James) a croupier in a casino.

Shirley though has not quite got over the mysterious disappearance of her partner Eddie Glass. He was the getaway driver in the bullion heist and the casino she works for is run by a man called Drake.

Drake and others working in the casino are all villains who were involved in the heist. It seems Eddie was bumped off.

With Carter now investigating, Drake senses trouble.

Unusually it is Carter who is the focus of this story. For Haskins it is an opportunity to clear up a blot in his copybook.

Despite the opening thrills, it gets too sedate and the story relies on too many contrivances.