On The Run

Tim Cook escapes from custody on a routine hospital visit, and the press, always happy with a label, calls him The Leopard. An armed robber giving his escort the slip on a hospital visit is a headline waiting to happen. The name fits better than most. He is a violent psychopath with one thing on his mind: Regan, the man who put him away, and he has vowed to get him. Nobody in the episode doubts he means it.

Cook hides out with Ian Pinder, an ex-cellmate, in a house belonging to Pinder's uncle. The arrangement lasts as long as Cook's temper, which is to say not long at all. He attacks the uncle and vanishes into the woods. And the manhunt is on: Regan and Carter take the Sweeney out of London and into the countryside, beating through woodland until the chase ends in a shoot-out.

George Sweeney plays Cook with a proper, unnerving volatility. He is a man a wrong word away from violence, and the camera never lets you forget it. Brendan Price's Pinder is the saddest figure in the piece, an old lag whose loyalty to a cellmate costs him his uncle's home. John Sharp's Uncle carries a quiet stoic dignity, and Jan Harvey's Pat Knightly, Garfield Morgan's Haskins and the rest of the team keep the machinery of the hunt turning. Alan Mitchell's Stackman, Dave Hill's Shaylor and Keith James's Lakin are the other faces in the line-up. Roger Marshall and Ian Kennedy Martin wrote it, David Wickes directed.

The Sweeney is usually a London show, all streets and pubs; here it goes rural, and the change of scenery suits the story. Cook is at his most dangerous when he's cornered, and the final shoot-out is brisk and brutal. A nasty, efficient episode with a villain worth the fuss, and a fitting way to close the season.