Second Hand Pose

Every man has a breaking point, and Terry's arrives inside an industrial meat freezer cabinet, stuck there during a job for Arthur. It is cold and undignified, and it is exactly the kind of thing that makes a man reassess his employment. It is the sort of accident that happens to other people, which is what Terry tells himself every time. Terry decides he has had enough and goes his own way, taking work with an old friend, Charlie Pope, who runs a second-hand furniture business.

The problem with going your own way, when Arthur Daley is involved, is that Arthur never actually goes away. Terry helps Charlie shift the furniture, and wherever he turns there is Arthur, close at hand, with a favour to call in or a scheme that needs a minder. The independence is real, and it is also an illusion, and the episode enjoys drawing that line. The furniture may be second-hand, but Arthur's timing is immaculate as ever.

There is something pleasingly ordinary about the new setting. No gold bullion, no foreign deals. Just second-hand chairs and the eternal question of whether Terry can work one honest job without Arthur materialising beside him. The second-hand trade suits him, honest work and decent people, which is probably exactly why Arthur turns up in it at all. The answer, to nobody's surprise, is no.

Tony Hoare and Leon Griffiths wrote it, Roy Ward Baker directed. Dennis Waterman is Terry, George Cole is Arthur, Billy Murray plays Charlie Pope, and the cast includes Stacy Dorning as Abigail Collins, Peter Childs as Rycott, David Warbeck as Roger Collins, Michael Troughton as Melish, Ann Morrish as Miss Turner, Andrew Lodge as John Rawlings and Glynn Edwards as Dave.

But the episode's real point is a quiet one. Terry can change his employer, but Arthur will always be there. That is the job, and neither of them would know what to do without it.