Devil's Advocate

A clever lawyer gets his client acquitted on what looked like a straightforward murder charge, and the team is sent back to the beginning. Then the killing starts again, which is the episode's way of saying that legal victory settled nothing. An acquittal is a bad result for a murder squad, and the episode knows it.

The rebuilding job is messy. But the case refuses to behave. A petty thief tries to plea-bargain using new evidence about the crime, while Reid uncovers a blackmail scheme that may have led to the original murder. The two threads keep pulling the case in directions the first investigation never reached. There is no neat single suspect this time, just a spread of people with reasons to lie and a victim count that keeps climbing.

The pleasure here is watching a procedural have to eat its own conclusions. The acquittal is a reset button, and the show is honest about how much work that means. Most crime drama treats the courtroom as the finish line; this one treats it as a false start. The blackmail thread gives Reid the best of the episode, and the show lets her work it without the usual shortcuts.

Glenn Chandler and Richard Maher wrote it, Marcus D.F. White directed. James MacPherson and Blythe Duff lead, with Iain Anders as McVitie, Colin McCredie as Stuart Fraser and Robert Robertson as Dr Andrews. John Duttine's Robert Stirling, Catherine Shipton's Sarah Price, Gilly Gilchrist's Lloyd Price, Cal MacAninch's Dr David Argylle and Alison Peebles's Isla McLennan complete the cast.

Justice in Taggart was never cheap, and this episode shows the price. The acquittal resets the whole case, and the blackmail trail leads straight back into the killing. It is the rare episode where losing in court is the best thing that could happen to the story.