The Son Also Rises

Muriel Standen hires Terry to look after her teenage son John, who keeps getting beaten up by local thugs. The job is simple and unglamorous: school runs, mostly, and staying out of sight. It doesn't take long before it's clear the attacks have a purpose. The thugs have been hired, and hired for a reason. John's father Ted is a wealthy property developer, and someone wants him to feel it. Terry has minded worse clients, but not many with a school timetable.

The someone is Ted's ex-business partner, recently out of jail, convinced he was cheated out of the windfall he was promised. The windfall was promised and never paid, and the bitterness has had years to set. But he can't reach Ted directly, so he reaches for the son instead. The school runs, as it turns out, are the least of the danger. That turns a straightforward bodyguard job into something uglier. Terry is protecting a boy from a grown man's grudge, and the man knows exactly where the family is weakest.

Paul Wheeler and Leon Griffiths wrote it, Francis Megahy directed. Alfie Bass is Morrie Levin, Annabel Leventon is Muriel Standen, Gareth Hunt is Ted, Stephen Garlick is John, and Gary Waldhorn, Bobbie Brown, Nigel Humphreys and David Arlen fill out the cast around Dennis Waterman and George Cole. Alfie Bass as Morrie Levin is a reminder of how deep the show's bench ran.

Minder usually deals in scams and their comedown. This one deals in a vendetta aimed at a child, and the show is smart enough not to laugh at it. Terry's job is the only honest thing in the episode: keep the boy safe while the grown-ups settle their accounts. It is one of the show's serious ones, and it earns the seriousness. And it never once tips into melodrama, which is harder than it looks.