Prayer for the Dead

It opens with a row and a heart attack. Superintendent Jack McVitie collapses after a heated argument with Jim Taggart, and when Taggart is temporarily made Acting Superintendent, Marjorie McVitie doesn't just resent it. She takes it out on the whole team. Jean Taggart does her best to patch things up, because someone has to. The promotion lands on Taggart like a punishment rather than a reward.

The case ticking along underneath is a sorry one. Jardine and Reid are given the death of Scott Graham, a drug addict who fell from a balcony during a drug-fuelled party. A second young woman has been killed as well, and the episode lets the two deaths sit side by side without pretending either is much of a puzzle. The episode juggles the investigation alongside the fallout, and the fallout wins most of the screen time.

What sticks is the mood. McVitie's empty office changes every conversation, Marjorie's fury keeps landing on innocent heads, and Taggart carries the promotion like a man who didn't ask for it. Marjorie's grief comes out as blame, which is harder for the team than any interview would be. The incident room runs on eggshells for the rest of the episode. It's domestic and quietly miserable, and the show wears it well.

Glenn Chandler and Barry Appleton wrote it, Richard Holthouse directed. Mark McManus's Taggart anchors the piece, with James MacPherson as Jardine, Blythe Duff as Reid, Gray O'Brien as Rob Gibson, Iain Anders as McVitie and Robert Robertson as Dr Andrews. Harriet Buchan's Jean, Mona Bruce's Marjorie, David Roper's Sam Archibald and Lesley Duff's Lee Archibald fill out the edges.

This is one of the last cases Mark McManus filmed in the role, and the episode gives his Taggart a proper, tired dignity. The team is still frayed around the edges by the end. And nobody comes out of it cheerful, least of all the McVities.