The Burning (2)

Dempsey is losing himself in the part of Johnny Lupino. The gold heist Mara Giardino has organised is coming together, and the deeper he goes, the harder it is to remember which man is the disguise. Coltrane, his former boss and arch enemy, is closing in, and Makepeace, worried about her partner, is captured by Mara's men while tailing him.

And the episode's engine is that triple squeeze: the heist, the nemesis, and the fear that Dempsey may be about to lose another partner. Ranald Graham wrote it, Baz Taylor directed, and the second half of the story keeps the pressure on without letting the action stall. It went out on 6 September 1986, a week after part one, close enough that the story carried its momentum across the gap.

Jill St. John's Mara Giardino gets the better material here, running her crew through the gold job with a cool that makes Dempsey's discomfort visible. Michael Shannon's Conrad, Ray Smith's Spikings and Tony Osoba's Chas Jarvis hold the edges, and the ex-paratroopers played by Andy Bradford, Nick Hobbs and Gareth Milne give the heist its muscle. The rest of Mara's crew stays in the picture too, with Jonathan Linsley's Butch, Alan Hunter's Phil and Doug Robinson's Danny filling out the gang around the named faces.

The two-part structure suits the story. Part one set the trap; part two springs it, and the confrontation with Coltrane is the one the two-parter had been saving up. Dempsey, who spent the first half pretending to be someone else, spends the second half being forced to remember who he is, and Makepeace's capture gives him the sharpest possible reminder.

It is a proper blockbuster finish, the kind of thing the show did when it wanted to remind everyone what it was capable of. Bruce Boa and William Ilkley round out the guest list, keeping the casting as deep in the second half as it was in the first.