Men Should Weep (3)

Fitz digs into Floyd Malcolm's past, and what he finds is the price of racism, paid in full and in advance. And the digging takes Fitz into the history of a family that has been handed nothing, and the episode makes sure you understand why Floyd is the way he is. Floyd is captured, and it finally looks like the case will close properly. Then his lawyer gets him out before he can confess, and the last chance to do this through the system evaporates.

Floyd walks, and he has revenge on his mind now, aimed at Fitz. Penhaligon has had enough of procedure. She takes matters into her own hands, and she does it alongside Beck, the man she now knows was part of her assault. Two victims, two different kinds of justice, both of them running off the books. The partnership between Penhaligon and Beck is the most uncomfortable thing in the episode, and McGovern knows it. The release is a procedural failure with a human face, and the episode treats it as such.

McGovern's script and Stewart's direction bring the story to a climax that refuses to be tidy. Graham Aggrey's Floyd remains terrifying to the last, and the Malcolm family, Rachel Davies's Mrs Malcolm especially, keeps the human cost in view. Fitz ends the story with his own rules bent almost past breaking. Ewen Cummins's Wilson and the rest of the squad keep the machinery turning while the principals decide how far they will go. The climax is not a chase, which is the point: it is a settling of accounts. The climax does not cheat, which is the least the story owes its viewers.

Nobody in this episode gets what the law promised them. Some of them decide to take it anyway, and the show lets you decide who was right.