Flesh and Blood

Taggart attends the wedding of Jane Ross, a social worker, to Charlie Forbes, a former bank robber. It is a small, hopeful occasion in a life that has not had many, and the wedding guest list is a detective's nightmare, all former acquaintances and fresh resentments. Then Janie Ross is found dead, crushed by a car, and the hopefulness curdles into something else.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, a small-time thief gets his hands on a shipment of explosives he was never meant to find, and he starts planning a robbery to match the hardware. But the shipment comes with a minder: an IRA fixer sent to get it back. The thief's plans start coming apart at the seams almost immediately.

The two stories keep knocking into each other until it becomes clear they are part of one chain of events. Jardine does his part by going undercover in a role-playing club Janie belonged to, which gives the episode its strangest scenes and its best chance to unsettle the viewer. It is the kind of club where the members take their make-believe seriously, and the contrast between their games and Janie's real death does the episode's work for it. The role-players are played straight, which is the right call.

Glenn Chandler wrote it, Alan Macmillan directed. Mark McManus is DCI Jim Taggart and James MacPherson is DS Mike Jardine, with Tony Rohr as Flynn, Gerard O'Hare as Martin Duffy, Roy Sampson as George McKnight, Dorothy Paul as Violet McKnight and Simon Donald as Andrew McKnight. Karen Westwood is Janie Ross, with Hilary Maclean as Fern McCulloch and Leon Sinden as Lt. Col. Ross.

The explosives thread gives the whole thing a ticking-clock energy that suits a season opener, and the arc that carries Janie Ross from wedding to grave is handled with the right amount of gloom. It is a big, busy episode, and mostly it holds together. The role-playing club alone is worth the ticket.