The Black Virgin of Vladimir

Dealer Harry Catapodis has sold some fakes to Cassandra Lynch, a beautiful American widow Lovejoy knows. Lovejoy first meets Harry at a party thrown by a rich American widow, and makes a discovery along the way: the Emperor Hirohito teabowl he is selling is a fake. Caught out, Harry offers to buy the things back from Cassandra, and he makes no secret of his intentions, admitting that once he has them they will simply be sold on to someone else.

That is the sort of behaviour Lovejoy cannot let pass. With the help of a Japanese businessman and several other associates, he aims to get back at Harry, make some money in the process, and seduce Cassandra along the way. It is a plan with three objectives, which is three more than most of his schemes can honestly claim. Nobody in the episode is entirely honest, which suits a story built on fakes rather well.

Ian La Frenais, Jonathan Gash and Terry Hodgkinson wrote it, Francis Megahy directed, and it aired on 24 March 1991. Ian McShane is Lovejoy, Chris Jury is Eric Catchpole, and Dudley Sutton is Tinker Dill. Linda Gray, best known to the world as Sue Ellen Ewing in Dallas, plays Cassandra Lynch with the same unhurried elegance. Brian Blessed is Harry Catapodis, playing the schemer at the heart of it all with the volume set exactly where Brian Blessed's volume usually sits. Mako, a veteran of decades of American film, is Toshiro Tanaka. James Booth is Mordechai Frobel, Frank Duncan is Winkley, Eiji Kusuhara is Miki Watanabe, and Hepburn Graham is Simon.

The episode is a proper caper, the kind where the revenge is elaborate, the profit is incidental, and the romance is a bonus. Watching Lovejoy work three angles at once is a pleasure, and watching Harry get his comeuppance from the one dealer he underestimated is a better one.