Production order: Unknown | ITC code: 5112 | Airdate order: 14 | DVD order: 13
Those Responsible
Writer: Philip Broadley
Director: Cyril Frankel
Where & When
Rome, Italy: September 26th
The Inexplicable Mystery
A man named Johnnie Penton is tracked down by a pair of criminals, the Brandini brothers. In the ensuing firefight one of the brothers and their target are killed, but the survivor's search of Penton's apartment turns up nothing. As an insurance policy, he had previously given his friend Stacey a small parcel with instructions to take it to someone called Weber in Paris. However, Stacey succumbs to curiosity and opens the package - finding nothing inside but three small plastic flowers.
The Mystery Explained
Penton had robbed a bank of five million dollars, hiding the money in a location to which the flowers - and a few lines of poetry inside their wrapping paper - are a clue. The text is from Charles Baudelaire's collection Les Fleurs Du Mal (The Flowers of Evil) and points to a crypt bearing an engraving of the same flowers from Penton's package.
Review
Another Philip Broadley episode! But don't flee for the hills just yet, as it's actually his best effort for Department S. Which should make your heart sink each time his name appears in the future, but never mind that for now.
 |
| Traffic wardens were really strict on this street. |
The odd thing is that while 'Les Fleurs Du Mal' features many of the flaws common to Broadley's scripts - a focus on the criminals rather than the investigators, blatant padding (tons of stock footage of Rome and Paris, Annabelle laboriously transcribing information the audience already knows, Stewart playing a game of table football against a small boy), and Department S being called in on a very flimsy pretext (Penton was someone Stewart had pursued in the past but failed to convict, so Seretse offers him a second chance) - this time, for some reason, it all works.
 |
| Being American, Stewart was trounced at football 15-0. |
The mystery is straightforward but logical, and while the actual explanation is a little hard to catch if you aren't familiar with 19th century French modernist poetry (and how many people are?), you don't need to know the specifics to follow its decoding. Oddly, while Jason is knowledgable about Baudelaire's work, he misses the significance of the clue and it's left to Annabelle to figure out the money's location, luckily in the nick of time before Stewart is shot by the doublecrossing Weber.
 |
| "Eleven years from now, I'll be kicked off a cliff by Roger Moore." |
It's the dealings with Weber himself that help elevate the story. The Parisian crimelord is played by Michael Gothard, familiar to James Bond fans as the coldly ruthless assassin Locque from For Your Eyes Only, and he has a menacing presence not found in many of Department S's villains. Even before he appears on screen it's clear from the reactions of other characters that he's not someone to trifle with, and once Stewart bluffs his way into a meeting, he knows it's only a matter of time before Weber decides to dispose of his uninvited guest. There isn't much action in the episode, but on this occasion it doesn't need it, relying more on suspense as the viewer realises the bad guys know at least as much about what is going on as our heroes - and sometimes a dangerous amount more.
 |
| A man who for all his many faults at least uses Right Guard. |
Is it a Department S story, though? Weeeeell... not really. It could have worked as an episode of any of ITC's 'international detective' shows, Jason even admitting that his entire outside-the-box reason d'etre for being on the team has failed to produce any answers this time around and leaving the crime-solving to his two more traditional partners. The opening mystery is also a cheat, as the team doesn't even become aware of the flowers until two-thirds of the way through the story! But just this once, the tale is strong enough to get away with it. And there certainly haven't been many shows where the tense denoument hangs on synchronised poetry reading.
 |
| "I do wish they'd taken off my ski boot before putting on the cast." |
Jason, incidentally, has a skiing accident in his first scene, and spends the rest of the episode walking with a cane and a cast on his foot. Since there's no plot-related reason for him to be doing so, it makes you wonder if Peter Wyngarde came a cropper off-camera and had to have his injury written into the story. Stewart was also mysteriously walking with a cane in 'Black Out', so maybe leg injuries were an occupational hazard for the actors!
Fancy Quotes
[Jason and Stewart discuss the former's skiing mishap]
Stewart: What was that run of yours?
Jason: Two thousand metres.
Stewart: Bit ambitious.
Jason: Not at all. I've done two thousand five hundred.
Stewart: How many years ago?
Jason: Meow.
Cheers!
• After failing to catch Stacey, Jason returns to the stakeout and declares "I need a drink." As usual in such matters he's not joking, taking a big swig from a hip flask.
• As Annabelle protests about Stewart going back to face Weber, Jason tries to talk him out of it in a far more relaxed way, doubtless aided by the glass of whisky in his hand.
Fight!
A very one-sided bout, as Jason is pistol-whipped by Weber's thug Troy and knocked out cold by a single blow. KO!
 |
| Jason 6, Stewart 3. |
