A Fistful of Chips

A delivery van is hijacked and its contents stolen, and the case that follows is bigger than a robbery. Someone starts killing anyone who knows about the hijack, which does not include the police, and the trail leads the team to a microchip factory. The hijack looks like a simple robbery until the bodies start appearing, at which point everyone involved gets very quiet. The title borrows from a famous western and swaps the dollars for microchips, which tells you most of what you need about the tone. The victims are the people who knew things, which is the oldest warning in the business.

But the real weight is Ross's past, which catches up with him again as he comes close to crossing the line. That thread has been the character's engine since he arrived, and this episode turns it up. Ross is the character the series has been building towards trouble for, and this episode pays some of that debt.

The hijack case is businesslike, and the danger to anyone who knew too much keeps the stakes obvious. The episode moves quickly and does not waste its running time. The microchip factory is a change from the usual Glasgow lowlife, and the shift suits the story. There is no glamour in the case, which suits the show's weather.

Glenn Chandler and Mark Greig wrote it, Alan Macmillan directed. James MacPherson, Blythe Duff, John Michie and Colin McCredie lead, with Robert Robertson as Dr Andrews. Caroline Langrishe's Helen Drummond, Darren Tighe's Bob Ramsey, Ralph Bolland's Paul Kennedy, Brian Capron's Andrew Donaldson and John Straiton's Billy Whizz Neary complete the cast.

It is a tight, quick-moving episode with a decent pun for a title, and Ross's thread keeps it personal when the plot might otherwise turn mechanical. It is the sort of episode that knows exactly what it is, and that counts for something.