Wee Jock's Lament

Two escaped convicts cross Hamish Macbeth's path, and his dog Wee Jock pays for it. The little terrier is hurt badly enough that Hamish sets off after the men with murder in his mind, and the men of Lochdubh know it. The attack happens on the pair's way through the village, two men in a hurry and a small dog in the wrong place at the wrong time. Wee Jock is not just a dog; he is Hamish's shadow, and the attack has pushed him somewhere the village has never seen him go. He does not stop to think, and thinking is usually what saves him.

TV John rounds up a posse to get to Hamish before he does something that cannot be undone, and TV John has never moved that fast in his life. The chase gives the episode a rare urgency, a race between the worst version of Hamish and the people who know him best. The men are sure he means murder, and the fear in the village is that they are right. It is the closest the series comes to a western, right down to the posse.

Daniel Boyle wrote it, Nicholas Renton directed, and it aired in April 1995. Billy McColl is Francie McGilp and Ken Hutchison is Harry Dobbs, the two men who bring the trouble with them, while Patricia Ross does double duty as Susan Graham and Rose Hart. Ralph Riach's TV John leads the rescue party, with Brian Pettifer, Anne Lacey, Jimmy Yuill, Stuart Davids and Rab Christie riding along. Robert Carlyle gives Hamish's anger a frightening weight; the easy charm is gone, and something colder takes its place.

But the episode works because the danger is emotional as much as physical. Everyone in Lochdubh knows what Hamish could become if he catches the men first, and so does he. It is the rare episode where Hamish is the danger, and the village has to save him from himself.