Close Protection

The arrival of a Chilean general who has been getting death threats hands Clark's little agency its most unusual contract yet: diplomatic protection. It's a world away from station corridors, all formal arrivals and security schedules, and Clark takes it eagerly because work is work and the money is solid. Naylor keeps asking the sensible question, why Special Branch isn't handling the job themselves, and Clark keeps not answering it. And in this show, an unanswered question like that is a ticking clock.

J. C. Wilsher and Nicholas Martin wrote it, Ian Knox directed, and the episode turns on the tension between professional procedure and personal instinct. Lautaro Murúa's General Herrera is the quiet centre of it, a man who has brought his danger with him, and around him move Hilda Herrera, Soledad Garcia and Violetta Tapia, played with the kind of ensemble depth that makes the diplomatic setting feel real rather than decorative.

The regulars are stretched into unfamiliar roles, Tom Georgeson's Naylor suspicious and unhappy, Siobhan Redmond's Connell doing the legwork, Tony Doyle's Deakin in the background collecting the fee. Sylvestra Le Touzel's Sarah Teale and Barbara Wilshere's Kate Roberts keep the agency side populated.

It's a contained episode, tighter in scope than the season's earlier sprawl, and the containment suits it. The job is protection, the subtext is politics, and the unanswered question about Special Branch hovers over the whole operation like weather. Clark's eagerness has a cost, and the episode is happy to let you wait to find out what it is. The security detail scenes are convincingly dull, which is the point of close protection; the danger only shows when something breaks the routine. And the episode is patient enough to let the threat stay mostly off screen, which makes it land harder when it arrives.