Line of Fire (2)

Frost talks the bank robber into surrendering — one of those off-screen miracles of persuasion that define him — and the two-parter's real business resumes. Newcombe, interrogated, unfolds a story that puts Helen in the frame: he and Helen planted the money to make Fox look corrupt, threatening him with blackmail, and Helen killed the violent Fox in self-defence. Frost brings her in and notes that her answers are flawless — rehearsed. A chance remark from Ernie Trigg, the station archivist, delivers the flaw: months earlier, during a gun amnesty, Helen helped with the records — and one gun's record has been deleted.

While the murder case tightens, the pet-shooting thread reaches its violent crescendo. Ray English and his kindred spirit Sam Goodwin attend Cockcroft's funeral, where Sam asks out a colleague and is warned off — and answers by shooting her dog dead. English cuts the brakes of a woman who rejected him, sending her car into a crash that puts her in a coma on New Year's Eve. The ambitious WPC Susan Kavanagh — tracking the rifles that fire the.22 bullets — confronts Sam, and English knocks her out and takes her captive. Frost, deducing the burglaries and shootings all lead back to the power plant, goes in search of her. He catches Sam trying to flee, then climbs to the top of the plant to confront English, who falls from a gantry to his death despite Frost's attempt to save him.

The murder case closes with a final twist. Helen's mountain bike — the one Newcombe said he gave her — is recovered, and Frost arrests her: she killed Fox in cold blood, and let Newcombe take the blame. The episode ends on a gentler note, with Frost and Shirley together at last — until she is called into the hospital, and Frost eats his Indian meal alone. Line of Fire (2), written by Michael Russell and directed by Robert Knights, resolves the corruption case with the series' favourite irony: the perfect, rehearsed suspect undone by a deleted record, and the rule-bender proven right again — even if it costs him his New Year's Eve.

A New Year's resolution of an episode: the corrupt officer undone by a deleted record, the rule-bender proven right again, and Frost eating his takeaway alone while Shirley works. A New Year's resolution of an episode.