Entente Cordiale

"Entente Cordiale" does the old thing where a policeman's private life walks into the case file. Craven answers a midnight knock and finds Claudia, his ex-wife, on the step. By morning he is a suspect in her terrorist activities, which is a fast fall for a man whose job is asking the questions. Dora Reisser's Claudia is one of the better threats this series fielded: she does not need a gun, because she already knows where he lives. Nothing in the file explains why he opened the door, and the episode is smart enough to know he would anyway.

The episode runs on that personal sting. Sewell plays Craven with the shutters half down, professional enough to keep working while the ground shifts under him. Haggerty and Strand watch their boss with varying degrees of concern, and Richard Beale's Commander Glover supplies the institutional face of the trouble. George Murcell's Jean-Paul Rostand and Al Mancini's Le Fevre bring the usual continental menace, while Peter Halliday's Edward, June Brown's Chrissy and Gillian Rhind's girl archivist fill out the edges of the case. The scare is that Claudia can still reach him, whatever she may have become.

John Kershaw wrote it, William Brayne directed. The domestic angle is what makes it work: for once the threat is close and personal, a woman who used to share Craven's house, and the script lets it sit right next to him. It asks how a man like Craven keeps his head when the person dragging him down is someone he once chose. June Brown, decades before she was Dot Cotton, takes a small role here, which is a treat for anyone who likes spotting future EastEnders faces. She makes the most of her few minutes, as she always would.

The resolution arrives with the usual expediency, and there is no pretending the politics of the thing are tidy. But the unease lingers after the case is closed. That, presumably, is the point of the title.