#02x11

Season 2 Episode 11: Need to Know

1/3 note to self: his eyes are the same shade as his hair and i think that it is ADORABLE

2/3

shots i'm kinda obsessed with

TW: Discussion of race in terms of the mid-80s.

Bob: "Sorry to have dragged you from your orthopedic bed, Hollis but there's work to be done."

Jim: Don't scare him, Sarge!

Uniform are piling in for early turns briefing. Tom is manning the front office and is fussing and tidying everything even with the cleaner in the same room and cleaning! Jim and June are placed together and tasked to focus on a series of bag snatches happening around a supermarket. (Taffy: Perhaps they should stop calling it Safeway!" 😂 I thought this was really good but they all groaned 🤣) Pete asks if there's any description of the suspects and Viv points out what everyone else is thinking he means. "He means are they black, Sarge?" The only description is "youths". Abe asks if there are reports of any crocodile bags that have been taken. Bob asks why that might be important and Abe replies "Black people won't go near crocodiles so if they are it must be whites!" the others laugh, mocking Pete.

Tom interrupts the briefing with a note from the Superintendent. He's ordering-but-not-official-ordering everyone to attend the 5-a-side football match on Sunday that Sun Hill are playing against a youth club. He'll be hearing all excuses for absences personally.

Reg is still moaning about his bad back with Bob quipping to Viv that she should help him walk the few steps from the parade room to the comms desk. Reg doesn't find it funny. "Am I laughing?" Bob retorts.

Mike has a training session organised for the 5-a-side match but he's too late to have it mentioned in the briefing. Bob suggests a poster, "You know none of your lot can read, that's why they put pictures on wanted posters." Roy has already dipped out - it's his day for his daughter and they're going to the zoo (from what we've heard of her that sounds a bit... young... for her). Bob tries to get a place on the team and Mike not-so-subtly says that Bob is too old as it's a group of teens they're playing. He claims that 'his lot' are only a couple of years older than them and get out of breath putting their shoes on. "Bloody cheek! Just because I sit behind a desk all day doesn't mean I'm not fit, I keep active!" He then goes down to ask Viv if he looks fit to her. "Yeah, fit to drop, Sarge!"

Roy is concerned about a result that's due in court and Mike tells him not to worry. "That's my middle name!" He finds a file on Ted's desk for a murder that is 3 days old, a file that he had asked to be brought directly to his attention as soon as it arrived. "A murder? Who's dead?" Mike asks. "Roach will be when I get my hands on him!" He sends Mike in to drag him out of the canteen where he'll be filling his face again - but not before he gets him a coffee.

Pete comes to the rescue of a [new and attractive] female traffic warden when a man is reading her the riot act about how unfair she is being. He's very evasive as soon as Pete arrives, driving off as quick as possible. He then asks her for a date, claiming it's his treat and he'll see her there at 12 on Sunday, trying his best chat up lines on her which includes quoting The Beatles.

Roy bollocks Ted for not handing him the murder file immediately. Ted claims he was working towards it and that it isn't as important as the others because it was 'just a wino'. Roy tells him that murder always takes precedence and that it's no wonder Ted is always wondering why he doesn't get on in the force.

Jim and June spot an attempted mugging near a pub (Three Swedish Crowns, now a restaurant). The elderly lady is more concerned she's dropped her fish and chips. Jim follows him into an alley and ends up injuring himself.

Pete approaches an unlicensed seller who is selling from a suitcase in the street. As soon as he sees him the man legs it. 2 teenagers wind him up and he attempts to nab them but they weren't involved so he can't - as much as they irritate him.

June finds that the lady who was almost mugged has no electricity and won't for at least another day until the social visit. The gas is still on so June boils her a pan of water to make her some tea and a flask for later. She tells June to make sure she dies before her husband. Unfortunately for her, it didn't work out that way. Her only friends are at bingo so she goes there each time she gets her pension. If she wins - she pays the bills. That's how the gas is still on.

Pete tries to pull some money out at an ATM in advance of his date. Unfortunately, he's exceeded his limit and it won't let him have any.

Jim has twisted his ankle and has to attend the hospital. He manages to get Bob to let him see the rest of the shift out first and takes over the comms desk with Bob going on the beat in Jim's place. "Last time you were on the beat we had bicycles and fog lamps." Tom smirks. "And Jack The Ripper was still out and about, I've heard it all." Bob snarks in response.

Charles tries to get Roy to rearrange his Sunday afternoon to attend the football to make a presentation. Roy reminds him he can't because he has leave booked to spend time with his daughter but Charles doesn't really take no for an answer. Roy is not happy.

2 Japanese tourists ask June if she can take a picture of them and Bob together after they've (sort of, given the language barrier) told them how to get to Tower Bridge. "Well smile!" "This is a smile!" From the way it comes about I can't help but wonder if it was some lost tourists and they stayed in character to help and it got included 😂

Roy asks his daughter if they can delay their afternoon slightly and wants her to meet him at the Zoo. "The Zoo...? It's a bit boring...." Julia replies before suggesting shopping in Covent Garden instead. Roy gives in, agreeing to meet her at 4.30pm.

Mike hadn't heard what had happened to Jim and is not impressed when it's clear he wouldn't be ready for Sunday and the game. Mike calls Jim is the best player they had and is visibly concerned when June tells him that Bob is looking for him. "I bet he is..." Mike sighs. Seconds later, Reg tells him that Bob is looking for him. He escapes to CID and Ted tells him that Bob was in looking for him. 😂 Got to hand it to him, Bob is a trier! Mike admits he already knows, telling Ted that Bob wants to play in the match. Ted smirks, telling him that Roy is now attending so perhaps he can be talked into it. "No thanks, amongst all his other pet hates is football."

Ted has finally got a name for his murder victim - Henry, known as King Henry. Roy asks Mike how his trial went and he has to admit that it was adjourned through circumstantial evidence centered around the criminal's tools - as his "employer" vouched for him that he needed them for his job - despite him never having worked a day in his life.

Bob orders Reg to go for a full physical because he's had enough of him complaining about his back and slacking off. If there is something really wrong with him - he's having him transferred! Bob then helps Ted track down the address of a nurse who helps the homeless and drunks on an ad-hoc basis - the entire time Mike is trying very hard to avoid meeting his eyeline!

Abe appears to be limping slightly but he insists it'll keep and he will be fine for the game. Pete refuses to play on Sunday because he's on a date seeing his invalid mother having borrowed money from June to go see her. Abe suggests to Mike that if he doesn't want Bob on the team then perhaps he should look at the women to step up. He suggests Viv in particular as she plays netball. Dashers asks Viv and pretends that Brownlow gave him a bollocking for not asking a female officer because they're an "equal opportunities employer." Viv agrees and Dashers switches on the charm. "I bet you look wonderful in shorts." The boys find it hilarious when she tells them she's going to be their goalie.

A guest character's name is Billy Murray. I'm easily amused.

Pete manages to nick his suitcase trader finally, sneaking in round the back way. Reg has gone out with Tom to help collect him, sulking as he has to carry the trader's suitcase. Roy finds that his 'branded' watches are fakes and suggests a criminal deception charge. The seller claims he bought them with his redundancy money from a man in the pub and he'd been knocking them out to make a living.

An elderly lady tells Ted that his drunk's wife and child were killed by a gas leak whilst he was working nights and it gave him serious mental health issues and led him to drink. He had fancy ideas of buying his house with the compensation he was meant to receive from the gas board but he never did get it and the street was knocked down not long after - he ended up living rough afterwards. The nurse Bob put him in touch with tells him that Henry had a very ugly and badly patched scar on his stomach from a war wound. All in all the poor man had a very sad life.

Pete sits in the pub on Sunday waiting for the traffic warden to arrive. At the very best she's running late, at worst he's been stood up. When she doesn't show up, he heads to the football match.

Sun Hill starts to arrive for the football match with the Rotary Club man assuming that Ted is DI Galloway. He wonders if they can do the presentation before the game because he has a pressing engagement. Uniform and Mike go to change and Viv heads into the ladies with Yorkie offering to go with her with a jokey promise of "I won't look!" "I might." Viv smirks. "And I might be disappointed!" "We're not here to win but we're not here to lose either!" Mike tells them, insisting it came down from the Super.

The Sun Hill team are not bad players... but poor old Viv is not a born goalie and the youths are 2 nil up within minutes. Abe makes it 2-1.

Viv makes her first save, Abe behaves like a gentleman after a foul and Yorkie makes it 2-2. Jim is moaning about Taffy and how badly he's playing in 'his position'. Uniform bet on the outcome of the match. There seems to be a bit of a continuity error too as Jeff/Reg has no earring and then an earring in the same sentence.

Reg thinks Taffy is dying out there and Jim scoffs that he's dead with Tom adding they should send him home for his funeral given how he's playing. Roy wants them to hurry up as he wants to get to meet his daughter. In the toilets, Bob goes to pull up Pete for using racial insults against Abe. Roy comes through part of the way in and tells Pete he should listen to Bob, his prejudice has been noted. Roy hands Bob some money to buy everyone a drink after but he skips out early to spend time with his daughter, lamenting that if he'd done it that way before now he might still have a marriage.

Jim thinks he recognises the two he was chasing before he did his ankle in. They end up 5-2 down. Jim asks Abe how he's going to live it down. "Viv. A woman.... the best excuse a man can ever have."

bbc merlin - 02x13 The Last Dragonlord / 02x11 The Witch's Quickening

bbc merlin - 02x11 The Witch's Quickening