Series 2 marks the introduction of opening titles, a brassy theme song, and the programme changes its name to “Inspector George Gently”. But we’re still in 1964 and very much still in Northumberland.
The episode opens with Bacchus, talking uncomfortably to teenagers in a classroom, setting the stage.
The murder they are called to is of an elderly man found in his garden who was selling a large house. The house was scheduled to be demolished as per the town’s planning committee but the order appears to have not been above board as too many of them had something to gain from the sale and demolition. Bacchus’s ego feels a bit threatened by the uniformed Sgt Blacksmith on-scene, eliciting a chuckle from Gently as he echoes the same words that Bacchus had pooh-poohed “I like to get to know the community I serve”.
I laughed out loud when Kevin, the young man with the extensive vocabulary from the classroom presentation, visits the station and within the first few sentences has Bacchus consulting his dictionary. He’s looking for a connection with Bacchus but Bacchus isn’t having any of it. Before the halfway mark, it becomes clear that the “Innocents” in this episode are children and that is when the case starts to get sinister.
A dinner date with ex-girlfriend Laura Fenick, who happens to be a clinical paediatrician, provides Gently with valuable information about the injuries the befell the children in the home in 1945. He is deeply troubled by what he learns: “be careful where this case leads you, this stuff is corrosive, children are so vulnerable”, Laura warns.
Another visit to the house results in the discovery of a bookcase of files hidden behind panelling, the knowledge that the house had been an orphanage, and review of the home’s medical records brings to light that a young female age 10 named Cora experienced ‘bleeding in the night’ (1939-48 – 137 reports of unexplained injury and illness among the children). Suddenly, Cora Davidson’s desire to pull the house down is seen in a different light, and the Peachments’ son emigrating to Tasmania right after his 18th birthday also makes more sense, and to the viewer, Harry Carson crying uncontrollably through the night. This, contrasted with Bacchus’s classroom experience, and actually attending the poetry reading Kevin invited him to, starts to bring home the delicacy of the children, even teenagers too smart for their own good.
In the midst of this, Bacchus leaves his Inspector’s exam without having written a word, prioritising the case over his career. His father-in-law ordering the case shut down when Gently brings some of his suspicions to the Chief Constable, who shuts it down after the cellar is discovered, orders a psychiatry exam for Gently, suspends him, and has him escorted from the premises, presumably to discredit any of his findings. It’s all up to Bacchus now, with some unexpected help from Sergeant Blacksmith, and Gently, of course.
To me the only familiar face in the cast was Jill Halfpenny plays Miss Cora Davidson, a woman interested in buying the house and property for redevelopment who found the body, and who has a history with the house.
As far as episodes go, it was very well written and it hits hard, over and over again. It goes places where few programmes dare go. One of the lessons imparted was “children shouldn’t be asked to take grown-ups on trust, and they shouldn’t learn to be silent”. And doing nothing is the worst crime of all. Sleep does not come easy after such an episode, nor should it.
Context:
1961 – Attempted suicide is decriminalised.
Photo from www.imdb.com
No comments:
Post a Comment