Make Peace, Not War

Dempsey goes undercover as American hit-man Schwartz to infiltrate a gang of drug dealers who are lacing T-shirts with heroin. It is one of those premises that only the eighties could have produced, and the episode leans into it happily. What he does not know is that the gang's main contact, Lei Shan, carries a grudge against the real Schwartz, which puts the fake one in a spot from the moment he walks in. It went out on 22 February 1985, one of three episodes the writer Jesse Carr-Martindale delivered in the first series' closing stretch.

And the squeeze comes from an unexpected direction. Makepeace gets her hands on one of the tainted T-shirts through one of her contacts, and the undercover Dempsey finds himself forced to bump her off. Watching two people who are supposed to be partners negotiate that particular instruction is the heart of the hour, and the episode plays it for maximum discomfort rather than laughs. Makepeace's own work in the hour is mostly to watch her partner sweat, which she does with professional patience.

Jesse Carr-Martindale wrote it, Tony Wharmby directed, the first of many he would make, including most of the second series. William Boyde's Merle and Brian Coburn's Davros make suitably unpleasant company, and Zienia Merton, a long way from Moonbase Alpha, does the quietly dangerous thing as Lei Shan. Ralph Michael's Lord Winfield turns up again, and Christopher Tajah's Lenny, Val Joseph's Winston and Stephen Persaud's Ziggy give the gang its local colour. Vincent Wong, Arnold Lee and Paul Cooper complete the guest list.

It is a tense, clever hour with a nasty little hook in the middle, and the T-shirt detail dates it perfectly. Heroin in a souvenir T-shirt. You could not get away with that now, and part of the charm is that nobody knew any better then. The instructions to kill Makepeace are the kind of dark joke the show could carry without breaking tone.