Foyle's War 8.3 - Elise

Plot: It's the final episode, and we start with Miss Pierce being shot by a young man who declares it to be 'for Elise'. Pierce survives, but is certain this has something to do with a mysterious "Plato". Sir Alec had already assigned Foyle and Valentine to investigate black marketeering kingpin Damien White, who is consorting with Soviet spy Arkady Kuznetsov, and now they have this to deal with. As well as the Director of Operations for MI6, Ian Woodhead, who worked with Pierce in the SOE during the war. Foyle's initial investigations show Miss Pierce occasionally visited the Special Branch Club, where a Mr. Stafford proves willing to help. Foyle also finds photos pointing to a working relationship between Pierce and Elizabeth Addis during the war, a working relationship Foyle knows continues to the present.

Stafford learns that Elise was the codename of one Sophie Corrigan, who died on her first mission into France, in three days. Sophie's mother reveals her son Miles hasn't been seen since he delivered a radio for her birthday two days ago (the day of the shooting) and was agitated about something. Also that is was Pierce who recruited Sophie personally, and who even came to pick her up when she joined. Elizabeth reveals that Sophie was the 9th of Pierce and Woodhead's agents to be quickly sussed out and killed by the Gestapo in a matter of months, and that she was brought in to search the SOE for a mole, which Woodhead named Plato. Addis narrowed the suspects to three people, five if you count Woodhead and Pierce, but couldn't reveal the traitor. Curiously Miles, who was in the RAF not Intelligence, knows about Plato, and is going after all the suspects. The guards Valentine placed around Mr. Caplin ultimately kill Miles. And Caplin is innocent of that crime, though he has certain connections to Damien White. .

Of course, that still leaves the question of who was the mole, and how Miles learned about all of it. Foyle's going to suss those out, but Pierce will be the one who finishes things.

In other threads, Adam, at Glenvil's urging, tries to get the police to crack down on black market goods, and ends up framed for possessing several cartons of stolen cigarettes. But Chief Superintendent Usborne has made the critical mistake of making an enemy of Sam. It's one last high adventure for Sam before embarking on the biggest adventure, throwing up in every bar in New Orleans in one night. I mean, being a parent. That doesn't sound like much of an adventure.

Quote of the Episode: Pierce - 'For head of communications, he was an extremely uncommunicative man.'

Does Foyle go fishing? No. And now I'll never learn to fly fish.

Things Sam can do: Imperil herself and others trying to bust a crooked cop. Have enough sense to call a professional badass ahead of time as backup. Recognize when she needs to get out.

Other: Watching Adam in this episode, I was reminded of Charles Roper from 7.3, "Sunflower". he said at one point that he never thought government, at least if you wanted to accomplish anything, would be so complicated. And, of course, Roper ultimately resorted to illegal tactics to keep George Gibson from getting his land back. For noble reasons - to keep the land in food production - but all the same, doing things by the book wasn't cutting it, so he tried something crooked. In this episode, Adam is initially unconcerned with black market selling of goods. He sees it as a way for people to get things they're looking for that the government and its policies seem unable to provide. What's the harm in a guy selling socks from a suitcase on the street, if people can't get socks in the shops for a reasonable price?

Damien White makes a similar argument to justify his actions in selling such goods. The people are tired of hardship and rationing, the war is supposed to be over. They want to be able to enjoy themselves, feel good, and he provides that. He provides it by a combination of bribery, murder, extortion and ultimately treason, but the customer don't need to know that, does he? It does feel like a cop out, because it doesn't really address what the average person is supposed to do if the government is failing to look after its citizens. The answer appears to be, "Suck it up and hope your government gets its shit together before you starve or freeze or catch pneumonia because you're walking to work in worn out shoes and socks because you can't afford anything better." Which is not a great message, frankly.

Didn't really mean to start with a discussion of Adam's thread, but it had been in mind, so it gets the coveted lead off spot. I would have liked to see more of Sam and Glenvil interacting based on this. Glenvil has continually surprised me with his generally high character. Probably because I keep thinking of him as a campaign manager, which he isn't, and my impression of them is they're willing to do anything to get their person elected. He and Sam share that desire to help people, but Sam is more hands on, do it yourself. Micro level, rather than macro. Also much more of a risk-taker. But it was fun to see Sam get to be the voice of experience in this scenario, and not have someone trying to hold her back who has any level of authority over her.

Also, Sam being completely unimpressed at being threatened by some mobster and his goons was fantastic. I hadn't considered she would contact the person she did for back-up, mostly because I didn't believe she'd interacted enough with him for it to work. I was tickled by that whole scene.

I was sure I'd watched this before, but apparently not because I didn't remember any of the end. Not how Pierce settles things, not how Miles learned about Plato, or any of the stuff about Caplin, Tellier, and Hawtrey (the three suspected traitors), and not how things end between Foyle and Addis. Damien White keeps making references to an Archie and the Blue Lantern. That, combined with every single person Foyle asked stating they had no diea where Hawtrey was, made me believe Hawtrey was some silent partner of White's coming in from his hidey hole to handle some business. That was not the case.

I also had thought Foyle and Elizabeth Addis were going to build to some sort of relationship. She was an intelligent older woman, and they seemed to have some natural chemistry when she helped him investigate David Woolf's murder. The lack of trust turns out to be a stumbling block, assuming a relationship was ever on the table at all.

That's it for Foyle's War. The last two seasons seem like they should feel strange, putting Foyle in a job he doesn't seem to want to be in, and which everyone keeps insisting he's ill-suited for. In practice, Foyle is still dealing with people who committed, at best, morally questionable acts, but feel the war or their position excuses them. That he's now more within the government apparatus hasn't reduced the stumbling blocks to seeing justice done. But he's been able to see a sufficient amount of justice done to avoid leaving in disgust, as he did with the police after season 4. Does he really not have anything else worth doing that he wouldn't enjoy more? I'm not sure if he's planning to stick with it or not. Sam finally tells him she's pregnant, and leaving, they say so long for now, Foyle sees Elizabeth in the distance, and gives her that sideways look and sardonic grin he favors. The one he usually gets when someone says something so stupid or bullshit he's torn between being disgusted and laughing at them. I don't know what that means.

Next week, a new show. I've narrowed it to two possibilities. Either one will be very different from this.

Foyle's War 8.2 - Trespass

Plot: The episode opens in the aftermath of a terrorist attack in Palestine at the King David Hotel by a Jewish group. The attack claimed the lives of Palestinians, Jews, and British citizens, so the British Army is on the prowl for, among others, a Yakov Weiss. They barge into a family's home during dinner and arrest the patriarch for being Yakov, over his protestations. Back in England, one of Dr. Addis' students, a Daniel Woolf, is attacked and beaten by two men outside the university. Curiously, the family and the university both are eager to ignore the whole thing, but Addis has involved Foyle.

There's also a conference in London in four days, an attempt at some sort of negotiation between the different players in Palestine. No one has much hope for it, and the Security Service has responsibility for, well, security. But they're being roped in with the Foreign Office and a Mr. Ord-Smith. Sir Alec and Miss Pierce are united in their distaste for this situation. They aren't so busy stewing over it they pass up the opportunity to yell at Foyle for speaking to Mr. David Woolf, a maror shipping magnate, who is now dead. Meanwhile, Lea, the daughter of the man arrested for being Yakov Weiss (who has since died), arrives in England on a scholarship to study medicine, staying with an old family friend, Rabbi Greenfield. The rabbi's son, Nicholas, a sound engineer, is quite taken with Lea.

Elsewhere, Adam is trying to contend Fascist Charles Lucas, who is using the Jews as a convenient scapegoat to gather a support base among the disaffected working class, which he then incites to violence, with the support of the local police superintendent. Sam, in addition to helping Foyle and dealing with pregnancy, tries to help a single father with a sick child who is not getting much assistance from the nascent National Health Service. Foyle is briefly freed of this job he doesn't much care for when Ord-Smith demands his resignation as a result of Mr. Woolf's death, but has to step back in to prevent an attack at the conference. So he's back on the miserable job, but has learned all is not as it seems with Dr. Addis.

Quote of the Episode: Foyle - 'So you threatened him accidentally? You beat up his son accidentally?'

Does Foyle go fishing? No.

Things Sam can't do: Follow a dang order to stay in the frickin' car. But if you need a driver to get you somewhere in the nick of time, Sam's your lady.

Other:  Spoilers, natch.

Sam is making regular visits to the hospital, but still tells Foyle nothing is wrong and she's tip-top, and expects him to buy it. Sam, give your boss a certain level of credit for intelligence. People don't repeatedly visit doctors because everything is fine.

While they're out investigating, Foyle tells her to stay in the car, because she gets in trouble whenever she doesn't. Which is an exaggeration, but in this case, she leaves the car and immediately gets a gun pointed in her face. Still, she and Foyle were able to get a warning to Valentine about the attack through the exceedingly simply two-man game of "I'll lead the security guys off to one side, and you sprint past them.' Enjoyable as it might have been to see Foyle try to sprint, Sam was the proper choice, and she made it to the second floor before they caught up. Apparently, England's security service needs to spend more time on their cardio.

Ord-Smith is behind the murder of David Woolf, though he claims his men attacked in self-defense. A curious claim considering they broke into Woolf's home and threatened him at gunpoint, after beating his son. He claims to have been following orders, because Woolf was using his ships to send Jewish refugees and supplies to Palestine (which is why several ships were blown up), but Sir Alec still insists on his resignation. Not because of the murders, or the near cock-up he made of the conference by playing his games, but because he messed around in Alec's yard, so to speak. Gotta love the landed gentry. Kill people, but don't fuck with mah property.

Adam was completely outclassed trying to argue with Lucas. In no small part because Adam is trying to be reasonable and find a compromise, and Lucas is a Nazi. Which means there is no room for compromise. He lets Adam in just to humiliate him, and maybe to play the victim a bit. The big, bad government trying to squelch his free speech. So that Adam can rush to assure him it isn't that at all. Lucas even uses the phrase, "Make Britain great again," during his rally. I was surprised when he pushed for a unified European government, but then he explained they would oust the Poles, Czechs, and other Slavic peoples. It made more sense then. Yet another attempt by a jackass to get more living space. Oh, and he explained to Adam that Africa exists to be 'exploited economically and dominated politically,' which I'm sure doesn't surprise you in the slightest.

I was trying to decide whether Lucas genuinely believes what he says, or just says what he knows will strike a chord. But I think it has to be the former. The hatred he spews sounds so much more genuine than the platitudes he expressed to his son about feeling sorry for what the Jews experienced (right before explaining they could use them as a convenient target). It's unclear what will happen to him going forward. He will undoubtedly not be held responsible for the rioting he incited, or the kindly elderly couple who died when their home was burned down. But his own son has seemingly finally given up any idea of getting his father to stop, and simply walked out. I don't think that will convince Lucas to stop, though.

Foyle and Dr. Addis, woo-woo. She helped him find a quiet place to stay after his brief resignation. She also translated the French intelligence report on the destruction of Woolf's ship. Poring over top secret intelligence reports is the highest form of romance, after all. But alas, it seems that she is Miss Pierce's attempt to get some kind of leash on Foyle, per Sir Alec's directive last episode.

One thing that is true about Foyle: When he decides he's ready to go, he doesn't want any time getting out the door. He was pressed for his resignation, offered it gladly, and immediately left the office, returned to his, grabbed his hat and coat, bid Valentine farewell and whoosh, Foyle has left the building. I've had jobs I disliked as strongly as I think he does this one, but I've never really had the chance to make that sort of exit. Maybe someday, although I would probably be less classy. "Sniff you jerks later," would almost certainly be uttered.

Foyle's War 8.1 - High Castle

Plot: In 1942, two lads, Johnny and Albert, try stealing some High Castle whiskey from a merchant ship. But Johnny sucks some of it down and has a violent reaction, and the two make a staggering escape. Four years later, a man is found dead in a forest. He's William Knowles, a professor, but recently had been working as a translator at Nuremberg. In his pocket is the address of the home of one Clayton Del Mar, head of a major oil company, and of considerable importance to the British government, as he serves as an "in" with the shah of Iran (and his oil). Foyle is instructed to tread lightly, so he can't press Clayton when he says he knows nothing about Knowles. But Del Mar did have his goon Grant take a photograph from Knowles' pocket.

Del Mar does have an elderly, dying father, in need of a companion, and that provides a way in for Sam. Foyle's opposed, but is won over by Valentine's assurances he'll keep an eye out. As for Sam, it provides a nice escape from home, where Adam is pressuring her to stop working because of the impending baby, and then she comes home to find him in an embrace with a constituent, Vera Stephens, who has lost her job to a returning veteran. Adam is struggling to figure out how to help her, while reconciling his actions there with how he's acting towards Sam. Anyway, Sam gets the job, but finds the elder Del Mar to be somewhat more perceptive than his arrogant son. On top of that, there's a Soviet agent roaming the streets of London who also has an interest in Del Mar.

Foyle is pursuing other paths, which leads to the university, where he figures out Knowles took a photo from the archive of leading businessmen hanging out with Nazis. The path leads to Nuremberg, where he encounters Mr. Deakin, the lawyer from episode 6.3, who arranges for him to speak with a Herr Linz, that Knowles was working with. But someone has killed Linz with a scalpel to the throat. Fortunately, Deakin recalls that Linz had an attack of some sort recently, and mentioned there was something important hidden in his office. At the fuel producing factory he operated. That used concentration camp labor. Which is why he was on trial.

Quote of the Episode: Glenvil - 'You either believe in something or you don't.'

Does Foyle go fishing? No.

Things Sam can't do: Hoodwink a dying old man, sneak around unnoticed within.

Other: Spoilers below.

The older Del Mar is played by John Mahoney, who readers of this blog will recall was Management on Burn Notice, the first of several shadowy evil bureaucrats. Here, he's a cranky old man who liked Hitler, and constantly belittles his son, to the point his son takes risks he wouldn't otherwise and dismisses his father's advice, because he's sick of hearing it all the time. On the plus side, he gets to watch from his bedroom window while that Soviet knifes his son and drives away clean. Ha, ha, tough shit, old man.

Deakin tells Foyle at one point that he doesn't have an opinion on the trials, that 'studied neutrality' is his watchword. Neutrality seems abandoned once they begin discussing Linz' actions, which is fine with me. I just liked the phrase 'studied neutrality'.

Adam struck out with Sam in record time this week. Strike one was insisting she would have to stop working to care for the child, but not him. Because his work is "different". Strike two came when Sam was preparing to go undercover, as he told her she had to grow up and stop trying to play secret agent. Strike three was her coming home and finding him comforting Vera Stephens. The two of them do reconcile, though Sam still hasn't told Foyle she's pregnant. But it's unclear if one or both of them will stop working or take turns, or what.

And Adam doesn't seem to have any answer for Vera. There's little doubt there was no cause for her job to be taken away, but you aren't going to get far telling badly wounded WWII veterans to piss up a rope. That women were mostly not allowed to join unions was sad, but unsurprising.

I do think, if you're going to ask Sam to go undercover, give her some damn training. She can be a good liar, at times, but she's not very good at being sneaky. If it hadn't been for Mrs. Del Mar lending a hand, she'd never have made it out of the house. And if it hadn't been for Grant being enough of a sadist to want to drag out capturing Sam (or else being too fat to move quickly), she still wouldn't have gotten away. Credit to Valentine for stepping in with the last-minute save, though. He's really starting to go up in my estimation, even being helpful to Foyle willingly.

Foyle was able to find out about the photograph with the aid of a Dr. Elizabeth Addis, a colleague of Knowles at the university. I'm pretty sure she's a recurring character for the remainder of the season.

I feel like Miss Pierce is getting ready to put the noose around Sir Alec's neck. He was having dinners with Clayton Del Mar, he wants men like Linz out there producing (and making bucks) rather than standing trial, and he's trying to push Pierce to bring Foyle to heel. But as he's making all these pronouncements to Pierce, I can't shake the notion she's leading him out on a ledge, getting him to commit to some course of action that can be used to wreck him. I'm not positive, but it would jive with her style.

Foyle's War 7.3 - Sunflower

Plot: I'm going to spoil the hell out of some this right off the bat.

Professor Van Haaren, art professor, is actually Karl Strasser, SS officer. MI-5 is hiding him because he's an expert on Soviet espionage. Besides, he was just a desk officer (this is a lie). He thinks someone is following him and means him harm. And indeed, a man named Tommy Nelson is following. Because he encountered Strasser in the north of France shortly after Normandy, when Strasser committed a war crime, and Tommy was fortunate to escape.

I didn't feel like burying the lede. Spoiler warning, the Nazi is a piece of shit. Bet you didn't see that coming. Foyle doesn't know any of this at the start, only that Sir Alec (no doubt on Miss Pierce's insistence) ordered him to investigate Strasser's concerns. Foyle isn't happy about the job, and Strasser can't give him much to go on. Foyle checks with the other people at Strasser's hostel, none of whom like Strasser, all of whom know he's a Nazi, even though they aren't supposed to. The Americans also know about Strasser, and they want him handed over, since his war crime was committed against an American artillery unit (which Tommy was attached to as an observer). And then Tommy, despondent over the fact the trauma he suffered (and is still trying to cope with) has cost him a chance to return to teaching, takes a shot (several actually) at Strasser. So it's time to move Strasser, but oops, right after his the guards at his home turn away, his car blows up. Welp, one less Nazi in the world. That's called a good start.

The other plotline is that Adam, while meeting his constituents, is approached by a Geoffrey Helliwell. Helliwell's land was requisitioned by the RAF during the war with the understanding he could buy it back after. But an independent valuation determined the land had doubled in value in 8 years, putting it beyond Helliwell's price range. Adam is working in a committee/branch under the Minister who seems connected, a Charles Roper. And Helliwell is mugged shortly after Adam brings the matter to Roper's attention. All of which sets Adam to investigating the matter, and which leads Sam to taking advantage of the powers of her position to track down the assessor. Which would be hinky enough, but she claims to be searching for Mr. George Gibson on Foyle's behalf.

Quote of the Episode: Strasser - 'I make no apology. I had to survive.'

Does Foyle go fishing? No, but he should really take some time for it now.

Things Sam can do: Abuse her position to track people down. C'mon Sam, can't be requesting probably illegal wiretaps.

Other: I hadn't noticed it prior to this episode, but Foyle's office seems extremely narrow and tall. At least from the few shots of him sitting behind the desk when Charlotte brought something to him. But there seem to be a lot of shots like that in this episode. The walls closing in, the sky somewhere out of sight up above. Or looking sharply up or down from a steep angle. Everything on a precipice?

Sam is mostly wearing this grey trenchcoat buttoned up throughout, along with one of those small hats where the brim is sharply angled down over one just one eye. That was a very good look for her. My dad doesn't like those hats, but I think they're pretty cool, assuming the person can wear it well. And Honeysuckle Weeks wears it very well. All thumbs up there. Now I want to see her in some noir film set in the '40s.

I wonder how much Miss Pierce regrets convincing Foyle to stay on now. Could have avoided all this, not to mention the embarrassment of demonstrating they abducted the wrong Evelyn Greene, if she had simply not tried implicating Sam as delivering documents to Russian spies as a way to use Foyle. Well, grab a tiger by the tail and it'll rip your face off.

On the other hand, props to Valentine. Not that, "I don't like protecting Nazis," is a particularly bold position, but he stepped up this week. When the Americans got irate about Strasser's apparent death, Valentine took some of the blame for Foyle. He got Foyle authorization to see the corpse and confirm his suspicions. And he's the one who alerted the Americans so they could show up and take custody of Strasser. Which was an incredibly satisfying moment. It was bouncing from one foot to the other, cackling with glee. So perhaps there's hope for Valentine yet, assuming Pierce doesn't have him killed by some more "Russian" agents (I'm still pretty sure it wasn't actually the Soviets who killed Marc Vlessing in his hospital bed in "The Eternity Ring").

Lt. Colonel Hoyt Jackson and Ambassador Ray Donovan were in the room with Sir Alec and Pierce for less than 5 minutes, and they both immediately grasped she's the one pulling the strings. Not bad. And credit to Jackson for being willing to go toe-to-toe with Pierce. Although perhaps he doesn't grasp just how dire a situation that is.

That quote I used from Strasser, he actually repeats the first line near the end, while instead offering excuses, most of which blame Himmler for wanting even the desk officers to have dirty hands. Which is nonsense. Strasser joined the SS in '33, ostensibly because he saw which way the wind is blowing (the same reason he deserted and defected), but if he wasn't a true believer, why pursue a single badly wounded soldier, hunting him through a field while casually whistling, before gleefully shooting the man? Answer: Because he was a true believer, at the bare minimum in the aspects of the ideology he could use to justify any actions he took. And now he tries to shrug it off like an overcoat and walk freely. Where's Brad Pitt to carve a swastika into a forehead when you need him?

Anyway, an entirely satisfying ending, even if Foyle seems lost and exhausted by the end of it. Which is understandable. Fighting against his superiors of his government when they put up roadblocks to his investigations always seemed the part of the earlier seasons Foyle enjoyed least (even if it did give him chances to make speeches). Probably because it seemed like such a waste of time and energy to fight people that are supposed to be on his side. And now he has to do it all the time. His bosses are deliberately protecting war criminals and ignoring people who served England honorably. Pierce actually calls him a traitor as the Americans roll up, prior to Valentine revealing he called them. Imagine the warped perspective that brings that about. Foyle would have been revealing a Nazi war criminal is alive and preparing to flee the country, and that makes Foyle a traitor, rather than the people protecting said Nazi.

OK, ranting over. Adam's subplot is actually somewhat more interesting than most of the one's involving him have been. Nothing against the actor, but I find the character rather bland, and only care about him due to proximity to Sam. Roper did get the land valuation rigged, because he's in the Ministry of Ag and Fish, and wanted that 1000 acres kept available for food production. Helliwell is a developer, who would have turned it into shops or houses. So, nobler end, questionable means. And Adam is able to probably stop him thanks to Sam getting illegal wiretaps authorized on the assessor. But this leads to Roper resigning, which means a parliamentary member with some real desire to help the overall public is lost, and Adam now has a real stink on him, which is going to make his accomplishing anything difficult. And Helliwell gets to build his buildings, whatever they were. Maybe it was homes for people whose places were destroyed in the bombing, we don't know.

Whether ends justify the means and all that, for the whole episode. Was 1,000 acres enough to justify Roper's actions? Were Roper's actions fraudulent enough to justify Sam's attempts to help Adam? Could Strasser have possibly given enough assistance to make up for what he did? The last one I'm firmly in the "No" camp. No deals for Nazis.

Well, that's an extremely depressing end to a mostly depressing season. Will the 8th and final season improve Foyle's mood? How will Sam and Adam deal with the baby they're going to have soon? Will my opinion of Valentine continue to go up?

Foyle's War 7.2 - The Cage

Plot: A woman, who we'll learn is Evelyn Greene, receives a call at home and vanishes out the door within minutes, no word of explanation or good-bye to her soon-to-be-bewildered husband. Elsewhere, a man we'll learn is known as Palenko reaches a hospital, bleeding from severe wounds. He dies before Dr. Ross can help him, uttering only the phrase "ten-eye". Ross, however, suspects he saw someone lurking outside.

Back at MI5, the new boss is settling in. Not Miss Pierce, but Sir Alec, and he's most concerned with the three Russian defectors who have been garroted in British safe houses recently. Foyle was busy interviewing possible recruits, and had found a promising candidate in Daniel Willis, formerly of Special Operations Executive, but Valentine nixes him. Foyle works his way around to the hospital to speak with Dr. Ross, and they discover the remains of a tattoo on Palenko, the NKVD insignia. Sir Alec leaps to the conclusion he was the mystery garroter, Foyle is not so sure. He speaks to Evelyn's husband, who mentions he tried calling her sister (their parents are dead), to no avail, and that Evelyn was a Communist sympathizer in college. Then Dr. Ross calls, asking Foyle to visit his home tomorrow morning. When Foyle arrives, he finds the doctor shot in his study, to the surprise and sorrow of the doctor's wife.

Intertwined with all this is that Sam has begun working at MI5, and is trying to find her footing. She quickly gets in deep by nosing in a file she's delivering to Valentine on Evelyn Green, who Valentine has heard turned up in East Berlin. She also overhears Valentine telling Charlotte, head of the research section, to keep him informed on what Foyle is up to. All of this is very interesting to Sam because, while Adam was going door-to-door, canvasing support for his election bid, he met an elderly woman living in the bombed-out remains of her home. And this poor woman's daughter had gone missing three days hence. The girl's name is Evelyn Greene. And then Sam tells Adam what she learned, which was not very wise. But then they both tell Foyle, which was a bit smarter.

Foyle has meanwhile learned that Dr. Ross was called out to the scene of an auto accident the day before his murder, at an Army installation called Barton Hall. Foyle is initially rebuffed in his efforts to get in, but manages it eventually. Lt. Col. Galt and Major McDonald lead him around, showing him how they're installation is just to listen to and transcribe Soviet radio traffic, then send it on to code-breakers. And that's all. Which doesn't explain the bars on the inside of the basement windows, or how the listening room which is supposedly always staffed, was empty five minutes after Foyle got walked through. Or why Sam found the bow from a woman's shoe in a place noticeably lacking in women.

And that's why Foyle contacts Daniel Willis, and asks him to break into Barton Hall, and rescue Evelyn Greene. The one whose mother is still alive, as opposed to the actual Russian spy, who was magically alerted the authorities were on to her, and was then somehow able to make it to East Berlin. Which still leaves the "who", and the "why" of that, plus the reason for the murder of Dr. Ross.

Quote of the Episode: Sir Alec - 'Unusual background for intelligence - police.'

Does Foyle go fishing? No. I fear he won't be granted much time for it either, with all this espionage.

Things Sam can do: Snoop in files. Tell her husband top secret information. Those are really more things she shouldn't do, though. She can type 20 words per minute. Cripes that's bad. I know she's using a typewriter, but that can't slow things down that much can it?

Other:  Spoilers of some sorts.

Michael Kitchen looks even mour dour in the new opening than he did in the old one.

I suppose I should feel bad for Miss Pierce. I imagine she expected she would succeed Chambers after his ousting, only to be left playing second banana to another puffed-up white man. On the other hand, she's been involved in so much devious, morally questionable shit that keeps harming innocent people, I kind of think she deserves it.

Of course, it could be she doesn't want the big chair. It lets her move about in the shadows, and puts somebody else's neck on the chopping block. If she can manipulate them as she likes, great. If they get in her way, she can deal with them like she did Chambers, and take her chances with the next guy.

We're two episode into this season, and I've yet to see anything out of Valentine that suggests he's of any use whatsoever. The man is a putz, and what's worse, he's a putz who thinks he's hot stuff, the worst kind of putz to have to work with (great to work against, though). Also, whenever I look at Tim McMullan (who's playing Valentine), I think that if he'd been an actor in the '30s or '40s, they'd have pegged him to play Charlie Chan. You know how they would give some white guy that role, Werner Orland or whoever, and add tape at the edge of his eyes to stretch the skin because they thought that made him look Chinese or some shit. McMullan seems to have that naturally, just very squinty, narrow eyes. Although he was in The Fifth Element!

I think the implication is Galt took the pistol and shot McDonald, although I'd have much preferred McDonald's final act to be to at least kill one person worth killing. I doubt Foyle would have walked away if he expected McDonald to kill Galt, and McDonald was boned anyway.

I chuckled at Foyle briefly chiding Sam for sharing top secret information she wasn't supposed to be looking at, anyway, then asking her what else she learned. He doesn't really care. As he observed in last week's episode, MI5 doesn't seem to have any regard for the law. Why should he worry about their rules? Just remind Sam there's a risk, and go from there.

Dr. Ross dies fairly early in the episode, but there's a subplot running forward from that about Katrin, his wife. Or once wife, now fiance. It's pretty depressing. They met and were married in Germany, then forced to divorce, and she lost her license to practice medicine. Because she was Jewish. Ross wrote some pieces against the Nazis that got him booted. She was stuck in Germany, and survived the concentration camps. Now she makes it to England, they're going to be remarried, and he gets murdered. She's going to get kicked out of England, but her family in Germany are all dead, and there are other people living in her home. It looks as though Foyle can pull some strings to help her remain in England, but that's going to be of limited comfort.

There's a lot of people not being able to go back to where they were before the war in this episode. Katrin, Palenko, who most likely just doesn't want to go back to the Soviet Union. Evelyn's mother, living in the remains of her home, waiting for her turn to get a new one, at which she'll probably never be back to this one. Maybe even McDonald, who seems to want to recapture something from earlier days. Adam and his campaign manager, Glenvil, have a disagreement about how to engage voters. Glenvil thinks they should try to invoke wartime spirit, Adam and Sam disagree, arguing they need to be looking toward the future. That they can't go back to how it was before the war, and that people don't want to. Some might quibble with the second part, but the first is correct. Things are different, and going back isn't an option.

The shift towards more espionage has brought an uptick in the action component. Willis' infiltration of Barton Hall was pretty cool. Since Sir Alec suggested to Foyle they should get Willis to apply, perhaps we'll see him next season.

Adam Wainwright may never have been able to win a Cy Young Award, but at least he's won a seat in Parliament. That's something, I guess.

Foyle's War 7.1 - The Eternity Ring

Plot: In the summer of 1945, scientists Max Hoffman, Helen and  Fraser meet in New Mexico to observe an A-bomb test. A year later, a man named Gorin successfully steals files from the Soviet Embassy in London. Files which detail a group of Soviet spies called the Eternity Ring. One British Intelligence knows nothing about.

Foyle returns to England in the summer of 1946. He gets to converse briefly with an old constable of his, Frank Shaw, finally back in England after spending years in a Japanese P.O.W. camp, before being pulled aside by Adam Valentine of the Security Service. Seems the FBI wants Foyle back for questioning about the suicide of Howard Paige, and the British will send him back unless he helps Valentine's boss William Chambers root out this Eternity Ring. And Foyle has another reason to get involved. While he may not know Professor Fraser, who is suspected of giving secrets to a Marc Vlessing, Foyle does know the woman who serves as Fraser's secretary and is photographed delivering the envelope: Samantha Wainwright.

So Foyle, over Miss Pierce's (Chambers' second-in-command) objections, and Valentine's condescension, sets to work. He quickly determines Sam is troubled by something, and that Professor Fraser hates Communists. He also sees that Helen Fraser is not in good health (which is why Sam was hired, as Helen Fraser was a nuclear scientist of some regard before her health failed), and Max Hoffman was meeting a mysterious person in the street. With the help of some police, Foyle locates Vlessing, but when they try to apprehend him, he's been forewarned by a voice over the phone, and while fleeing, he's hit by a car. He survives, but is shortly thereafter dispatched with a hypodermic after his guards mysteriously depart at a seemingly prearranged time.

By this time Hoffman has somehow learned Foyle is working for MI5 and warned Fraser, who then fires Sam. So Sam confronts Foyle, who explains himself, and the two set about trying to piece this together. And promptly get themselves irradiated snooping in Vlessing's apartment. Which makes Sam late for Adam's meeting to see if he'll represent the Labour Party in the West Peckham election, but she arrives in time to make a passionate speech and give him the win. By this point, Foyle has basically pieced together the truth of the Eternity Ring, and what it's purpose is, and also whether Professor Fraser is innocent or not.

In the other subplot, Frank struggles to adjust to life at home not being at all like it was when he left. Wife working, son working, can't get a job with the London police. He doesn't drunkenly beat the shit out of Valentine, though, which I appreciated, even if it was for the wrong reasons.

Quote of the Episode: Valentine - 'This isn't about bodies in the library or stolen petrol coupons or whatever you got up to in Hastings. It's called tradecraft. It's a different world.'

Does Foyle go fishing? I imagine he would have if he hadn't been intercepted.

Things Sam can do: Improve her typing. Make a speech when it really counts. Lie off the cuff (unrelated to the previous note). Still has trouble hanging onto a job.

Other: Spoilers for various revelations in the episode below.

So Frank's son John was working in a bar for gay men, or at least one where they're welcome, which Valentine frequents. He also, unfortunately, happened to be the first guy to leave after Frank came stumbling up there, all distraught about what he thinks his son is up to. Which is not really why I wanted to see Valentine get his ass beat.

His constant sneering condescension towards Foyle, that's why I wanted to see him get curbstomped. He keeps making those remarks to Foyle about him being out of his depth, and never seems to remember that Foyle doesn't want to be there, is only there because Valentine's superiors are forcing him to, between the dual threat of handing him over to that piece of shit J. Edgar Hoover and Sam being declared a traitor. They explicitly remind Foyle that he knows what happens to traitors, and so do we after last week's episode. So quite why Valentine feels the need to antagonize Foyle, I don't know, but it doesn't make me sorry to see him in the hospital.

The look Foyle gives Valentine when Vlessing gets hit by the car did a lot to tide me over until the actual beating. The side-eye is a great combination of exasperation and disgust for the incompetence on display. Plus, I'd imagine a little suspicion that it might not have been an accident.

I had made a note early that Sam's typing skills had improved if she'd finished typing several letters for Professor Fraser. Then he found her while she and Foyle were having lunch to mention she'd need to retype some of them and I had to amend that perhaps the skills hadn't improved that much. Oh well, progress.

I also have another note that is simply "Significant Thermos". I'll leave you to wonder.

So Howard Paige is dead after six months of Foyle hounding him. While I regret not getting to see it, I'm at least pleased to hear about it.

At one point, Fraser and Hoffman are arguing about Stalin and Communism. Hoffman reminds that the Soviets were helping fight the Nazis before the Americans (true). Fraser points out that now Stalin is a monster slaughtering his own people. And I'm left thinking how Stalin never really stopped doing that, before, during, or after the war. He might have slowed his pace, but only when the Nazis were picking up the slack.

It feels as though there's at least somewhat of a shift in Foyle and Sam's relationship. He's still looking out for her, but that's probably never going away. But I appreciate that when she loses her job because of Foyle, she goes to confront him immediately. And that even after he tries to explain, she is still understandably angry at him for not simply being honest with her from the start. And that she basically insists on accompanying him on the next leg of the investigation. She isn't going to sit in the car, she's going where he goes and looking around, and that's that. I think she's had to look after Adam quite a bit over the past year and the realities of that have matured her. Adam's an idealist, and he wants to help people, but he isn't very good at looking after himself.

OK, so the big reveal is that Miss Pierce slipped in a bunch of vague references to a non-existent Eternity Ring as a way to prove Chambers had contact with a Soviet agent. Because who else would Chambers turn to for information on this group when all other avenues failed him? Which gets him ousted as boss. Which does lead to a scene of him ever so carefully wrapping up his pipes as he cleans out his desk, while Pierce shows not the slightest interest in hearing why he did it. Also that she'd hoped he'd be executed, rather than exiled. Jesus, Pierce. But it's that ruthless streak that I assume is how she survived the war and maintained a position of authority, despite being in proximity to more than a couple of screw-ups (see "The French Drop"). She knows how to deflect blame, that's for sure.

Anyway, now she's roped Foyle into sticking around for awhile, despite the fact he knows he can't trust her, and she knows that he's going to bug the crap out of her every time he twigs to her doing something crooked. I can't really tell if she's amused or irritated when he goes on one of his, "I've figured it all out," spiels. I think she kind of enjoys them, from appreciating someone clever, and because Foyle is a little theatrical about it.

Foyle's War 6.3 - The Hide

Plot: Foyle's replacement has finally arrived, and he can hardly wait to get out the door. His brother-in-law has gotten him booking on a ship headed to America, and Foyle's raring to go. But before he can leave, he sees a newspaper headline about a James Devereaux, on trial for treason. Devereaux was captured in the early stages of the war, and eventually agreed to join the British Free Corps. An idea of Hitler's to dress British POWs up as Nazi soldiers and have them fight the Soviets. James, curiously, is offering no defense, and won't help his attorney Mr. Deakin do so, either. But Foyle sticks his nose is, for reasons he keeps to himself, but which involve James' mother, Caroline, who died when James was young.

At the same time, Milner is investigating the death of an Agnes Lyttleton, who was strangled in the room she was renting. A photo was taken from her bedside, one her landlady can only confirm had a picture of Agnes' boyfriend, a soldier who had been overseas, and wrote to her as "Jack". It just so happens we saw a Jack Stanford in a flashback to James' time in the Free Corps. Agnes was also working for the Devereaux', helping James' father, Charles, research his family history. Charles is not terribly helpful, but could perhaps be excused as being preoccupied with his son's imminent execution. And it seems certain to happen, as Foyle is busier asking questions about James' hobbies and his old piano teacher - a Mr. Rothstein who was arrested and sentenced to five years' hard labor for allegedly stealing some of Caroline's jewelry - than he is figuring out some way to clear James' name. But while the route is a little more circuitous than normal, it does eventually lead to answers.

Over at Hill House, Adam faces first the pressing failure of his guesthouse, but then learns a new housing development plans to not only knock down his house and many hundreds of others, but will also tear up the nearby green, a common ground left open for centuries. Adam's efforts to rally public support against this effort, while briefly landing him in jail for assault, also stir an interest in politics in him. And being so bold possibly also gave him the confidence to ask Sam to marry him.

Quote of the Episode: Jack - 'Oh, I'm all for hanging. It's quieter.'

Does Foyle go fishing? No.

Things Sam can do: Think to ask one of Foyle's old teachers about him when she gets the chance. Rush into a recently exploded building to look for survivors.

Other: When we learned Caroline was supposedly kind by a deer that gored her, then saw the "hide", a sort of nature-viewing blind, had antlers hanging from the ceiling, I was sure young James had pulled them down as part of some game and accidentally killed his mother. I was wrong. Oh well, sun rises in east.

Foyle went off on Deakin for not trying harder to save James at one point, which was another of those times where Foyle gets on my nerves. He rattles off all the things he's found out which are significant in some way, basically asking why Deakin hadn't figured any of this out. I'm not sure how much of it he could have learned through his channels, so it comes off as, 'Why haven't you used all these things I am just now telling you?' I don't see how most of it would exonerate James, especially as James is not offering any defense of his actions. He's talked to some men from James' unit in the British Army, all who spoke highly of his leadership, but I don't think that's going to outweigh the rest. James is offering no help, and his father isn't doing much, either.

Foyle is headed to America to confront Howard Paige, the murdering industrialist from Episode 2.1, "Fifty Ships". We will, sadly, not get to see Foyle navigating the post-World War II United States in his pursuit, only hear about it after the fact, next week. Nuts.

Foyle got Adam out trouble, which I'm a leery of. Adam knocked a guy to the ground with sufficient force he was knocked unconscious on a rock. And it wasn't even the guy spearheading the development plan, Mr. Harrison. It was some poor guy on the survey team. Who knows what kind of brain damage he could have now? But those big-time athletes are always able to get their indiscretions swept under the rug by the authorities.

At one point, we learn that someone within the Free Corps was working for MI9, using their position to send letters with various intelligence to them. But the Free Corps has no idea who this person is, other than they sent letters to Agnes, addressed as "Jack". This naturally factors into both James' trial and Agnes' death.

Milner and Foyle get along much better this time around. Milner gives his subordinate Perkins a wrap across the knuckles for being disrespectful to Foyle this time, which. Look, Perkins is a schmuck. Can't tell a mare from a stallion (horses are involved in one scene), misses evidence, really only seems good for giving looks of sarcastic disbelief. But that whole thing where Foyle dressed him down for essentially not waiting to speak until spoken to, still irks me. Anyway, Milner and Foyle share information, and it helps Foyle to have someone who is still an active police officer to take action. So it was nice to see them part on better terms.

The show felt it necessary to throw in that Sir Charles is at least a bit anti-Semetic (Mr. Rothstein was Jewish). His arrogance wasn't enough, his jealous, domineering, and abusive attitude towards Caroline wasn't enough. The fact his son hates him so much he's willing to be hung as a traitor just to smear the family name isn't enough to render him an awful human being. Nope, have to throw a little something extra in there to seal the deal.

Foyle's War 6.2 - Killing Time

Plot: Are you ready for an episode about racism? No? Too bad, because Major Wesker, the commander of the American base near Hastings, has come with a request. he would like some of the pubs in town declared white G.I.s only, and others for the black soldiers. Because there have been some brawls in the bars lately, you see. Foyle is, naturally, opposed, but is outvoted by everyone else. We can derive some satisfaction that a couple of the local notables on the committee who voted in favor are later robbed by a man and woman who seem rather angry at those who did well financially from the war.

Concurrently, a man named Tommy Duggan returns to town. Tommy was a boxer, but also a conscientious objector, so he's been in Scotland on work crews during the war. Now he's back and wanting to take up where he left off. But some people aren't so keen on seeing him box, and his hopes of marrying Mandy Dean are complicated by the fact Mandy has fallen for an American G.I. named Gabe, and had a child by him. And Gabe is African-American. So Mandy has been booted from her home by her asshole mum, and is currently living at Adam and Sam's struggling guesthouse. Mandy is finding it difficult to cover expenses, and Adam, unaware of the millions of dollars he'll make in America in 65 years, is getting ready to give her the boot, over the protests of both Sam and Lucy, one of the other lodgers.

Meanwhile, Gabe is waiting for his turn to go home, but he isn't idle. He's trying to get Mandy to agree to marry him, and convince Major Wesker to sign off on the affidavit approving it so Mandy can get her visa and come back to America with him. Wesker doesn't seem eager to help, but in the face of Gabe's resolute attitude, and Wesker's own creepy appreciation for how pretty Mandy is, he agrees to put the paperwork in motion. Unfortunately there's Sergeant Calhoun of the military police, a bullet headed racist bully, who is determined not to see any black men hanging around white women, let alone marrying them. Even to the point of accosting Mandy on the street and telling her stories of what will happen to Gabe back home when he's seen with a white woman.

So it's rather curious when Calhoun allows the black G.I.s in to watch the illicit bareknuckle fighting ring he operates on base that evening, since he normally doesn't. Of course, the MPs soon start hassling Gabe's friend Paul, and then it turns into a brawl between white and black soldiers. When Calhoun wades in, Gabe gets a few hits, then wisely runs like hell into the woods nearby. Unfortunately, while in pursuit, Calhoun and his men find the corpse of Mandy Dean. And the brass, as Wesker explains to Foyle, are only too willing to pin it on Gabe and call it a day. Good thing Foyle doesn't take the same approach, and that Mandy being a British citizen means it's a matter for British police, rather than the American military, G.I. base or not. Of course, until things are sorted, there's still a baby with one parent dead, and another in a cell.

Quote of the Episode: Gabe - 'It's OK to be scared. But sometimes you just gotta close your eyes and jump.'

Does Foyle go fishing? He did at some point, since he brought Sam the fish.

Things Sam can do: Tell that Sgt. Calhoun to go fuck himself (more politely, but it boils down to the same thing). Look after a baby for awhile. Stand up for a struggling single mother.

Other: Early on, Wesker explains the black G.I.s are bored and have nothing to do since they can't be used on the Continent. Why? Because the Jerries don't like being bossed around by them. My response is, who gives a fuck if they don't like taking orders from black men? They're Nazis. If they had their way, they'd have killed every last black person on the planet, right alongside the Jews, the Romany, the mentally and physically handicapped, the Slavs, and so on. If they don't like taking orders, send them to the Soviet Union in place of those Russians from last week. The Nazis can see how much they like a bullet in the head instead.

While I appreciate Mr. Foyle's trying to be a good ally, I do wonder at his statement that Great Britain doesn't practice segregation. Perhaps not within the boundary of the island. I imagine, were you to ask some of the native people of Britain's many colonies in the 1940s whether segregation was practiced, they might have a very different answer. He's right to stand against it, regardless, but that was something that occurred to me.

Calhoun's a pretty awful human being. Not the worst by any means, unfortunately, but this is a guy who coerces a confession from Gabe for Mandy's murder by literally threatening to kill his child. And intimates that he has already killed other children in this war. Maybe he's talking about artillery hitting towns or something, but he asks whether it matters if you throw fire on a child, or a child on the fire, so I don't know. The fact Sam shut down his attempt at shitty humor at the dance takes a different light considering what we have to consider him capable of in light of later statements. Not that he was any sort of a winner up to that point, but you started to wonder if he isn't just psychopathic.

Right, so there was a dance in town during the episode. Most of the people at the guesthouse went, save poor Mr. Hains with his one arm, who was stuck looking after baby Catherine. I wasn't clear on whether they asked ahead of time, or simply set the bassinet in front of him and left. Anyway, the dance is initially just locals and white G.I.s Then Gabe, Paul, and a couple of their friends show up. Everyone kind of stops and looks, and most of the guys decide to leave. But Gabe stays, and dances with Mandy. And Sam grabs Adam, and Lucy grabs another fella, and two other couples follow, and there's this nice scene of these four couples dancing slowly around Gabe and Mandy, a protective circle from the obviously pissed Calhoun and other honkys.

It's mitigated somewhat by the next scene, which is Foyle finding Gabe on the roadside the next morning, beaten to a pulp by his fellow Americans once he left the dance. Reality intrudes harshly. And when the fight breaks out at the bareknuckle match, I have to imagine it was a deliberate choice to have a lone black man running through the woods at night, being chased by a bunch of white guys (whose job is theoretically to enforce rules, but are mostly abusing their power to suit their hate, and of course, the rules are already tilted against Gabe and the other black soldiers) with blunt instruments.

I really like Obi Abilli's performance as Gabe. There are plenty of times you can tell Gabe is scared, but he has this combination of resignation and perseverance, and awareness. Because this is all stuff he's lived through his entire life. He doesn't get explosively angry, even at the beating he took after the dance, because unfortunately, it probably isn't the first. He hates Calhoun, and rightly so, but knows he's stuck within the army's rules, and society's. So he can't fight back for the most part, he can't even really argue back at him, but he can stand tall and refuse to be intimidated. The only way Calhoun can make him give ground is to literally threaten to burn an infant alive (sounds like Calhoun should have been fighting for the Nazis, although he never did specify whose children he killed). When Wesker tries to scare him out of pressing forward with this idea of marrying Mandy and getting her a visa, Gabe keeps his cool, but remains resolute. He knows he can't tell this Major to fuck off, but he isn't giving up. Yeah, he knows it would be suicide to return to South Carolina, so he and Mandy will try their luck in New York. He's probably heard all the arguments, all the pushback, and he's ready for it.

The infuriating thing is, Wesker was never going to keep his word. Gabe and Mandy did everything the rules required, played nice, and were still going to get screwed over.

Tommy Duggan is frustrating in his own way. I understand his objections to the war, the reasons why he thinks it is ultimately not going to change anything. But he's proprietary towards Mandy, even though she hasn't given any indication she has feelings for him. Even when he tries, at one point, to apologize for stating that no one would want her now, he still insists that maybe they could be together if she'd give the child up for adoption. Ignoring the part where Mandy doesn't want to be with him. I don't think that ever sunk in for him, frankly. But he did some good at the end, with a push from Sam.

I think Sam should ditch the guesthouse and Adam (the two made some stuttering steps in the direction of a relationship), and go into social work. She has the energy for it, the willingness to go and try and talk to people who don't want to hear it. She's never shied away from risky situations, albeit usually because she doesn't realize how dangerous they are.

Foyle's War 6.1 - The Russian House

Plot: It's June of 1945, and Foyle is wondering why he is still Detective Chief Superintendent of the Hastings' police force (in their new, much larger, much sunnier station house). The answer, he learns, is there's no one else available, or if there is, they don't want to try and follow him. Either way, Foyle informs his bosses he will be gone in four weeks, come what may.

Still, he'll be busy. As some trucks transport prisoners through a town, two of the prisoners decide to disembark. One, Ivan Spiakov, is able to escape. The other, is not so fortunate, and chooses to jump off a bridge to his death, rather than be recaptured and sent home.  Soon, Foyle's old commanding officer, a Brigadier Wilson, now with the War Office, shows up, asking Foyle to track down this "dangerous animal" of a Russian. In the meantime, the "dangerous animal" makes his way to the home of a Sir Leonard, a notable artist who employs Ivan's friend Niko as his groundskeeper (and Sam to take care of everything inside the house). Ivan convinces Niko to get him some money, so Ivan can make it to the Russian House in London, but can't convince Niko to come along.

Still, Niko is concerned, in spite of Sir Leonard's assurances that he will adopt the 17-year-old so he can remain in England (to the consternation of Sir Leonard's estranged son, Maurice Jones, fledgling Labour Party politician). And to top things off, Sir Leonard had promised a man named Tom that his job as groundskeeper would still be there when he returned from war. Well Tom is back, didn't pick up on the cues of his brother, and, heh, surprise, no job for you. As it turns out, Sir Leonard didn't move quickly enough, because the soldiers show up for Niko, who takes to the hills, as both Maurice and Tom (with a loaded shotgun) look on. And when Sam arrives in the morning - having been away for the christening of Milner and Edie's daughter - she finds Leonard shot dead.

The murder falls in Milner's jurisdiction as the chief detective in Brighton, but just as he's getting started, here comes Foyle. Foyle's contacts have suggested that if he wants to find Ivan, he should check with Niko at Sir Leonard's. Both Foyle and Sam are somewhat taken aback by Milner's abrupt manner with them, and quickly set out for London, for the Russian House. By this point, Ivan has already been found lodging by Monsieur Duveen and his assistant, Alexander Anokhov. Then he was promptly found and arrested by the British Army. Hmm. Still, Niko is in the wind, and despite Wilson trying twice to get Foyle to give up, Foyle's locked in. Duveen isn't forthcoming, although he does a poor job of concealing that Ivan did show up there.

Sam visits the hotel Ivan was staying at, which lets her confirm it wasn't the hotel manager who tipped off the Army, as Wilson insisted to Foyle, and she meets an Adam Wainwright, who runs a struggling guesthouse back in Hastings. Or will be, if the he can get money for repairs from the unexploded bomb that fell through the roof. Really, he ought to be getting ready for Spring Training for the Cardinals, and 70 years into the future, but he has bigger problems than temporal displacement. When Foyle shows up to get Sam, a man with a silenced pistol shows up as well, and Adam catches a bullet in the shoulder. Foyle and Sam flee, find themselves cornered, and are only saved by Anokhov, who had observed Duveen meeting clandestinely with Wilson's subordinate the night before. He clues Foyle in to what Ivan and Niko feared so much, so it's time to confront Wilson. And there's still the murder of Sir Leonard to solve.

Quote of the Episode: Foyle - 'Just a question of two incidents colliding.'

Does Foyle go fishing? No, but he receives some helpful information from another fisherman.

Things Sam can do: Shopping, housekeeping, managing the household budget, convincing a young man to confess his actions.

Other: Maurice is pronounced "Morris" here, which I don't know that I've heard before. I've always heard it pronounced closer to "More-reese". Like in that song about the pompatus of love. The episode ends with the Churchill government being ousted in favor of the Labour Party. Which makes me think of the book Small Wars, Faraway Places. This was probably the start of that 'cradle-to-grave welfare socialism' the author complained about. I wasn't sure about Maurice's exact politics, but they were the cause of his and his father's estrangement. Of course, Sir Leonard had a huge-ass house, so he was probably fine with the status quo as it was.

Sergeant Brooke transferred back to London, FYI. Andrew is also in London, up to who knows what. hanging around coffee shops writing bad poetry to impress girls like it's post-World War 1 France, no doubt.

The reason the three men didn't want to return is because they had heard what happened to a ship full of Russians who had been repatriated. Namely, that they were machine-gunned. Because Stalin. I had thought these guys had been fighting for the Soviet Union originally, were captured by the Germans, and then later used against the British and Americans. This episode positions them as White Russians, who were fighting against the Soviet Union because they hate Stalin. Either way, they're going to be killed when they get back to the Soviet Union. And Britain's plans to get back all of their POWs the Soviets wound up with are not going to come to fruition, based on what I read in The Forsaken. A lot of Allied prisoners wound up in Soviet gulags, while their governments sat on their asses and did nothing.

I should tell you now I'm going to be making stupid comments conflating the Adam Wainwright Sam meets here with the Adam Wainwright who currently pitches for the St. Louis Cardinals for as long as he's in the series. Which is the remainder of it. So you're just going to have to deal with Time Travelin' Adam Wainwright. Adam was shot in his right shoulder. Hopefully this won't diminish his already flagging velocity any further. Also hopefully 1940s medicine didn't fuck things up too badly. Maybe this was the shoulder injury he had when he was still in the Braves' minor league system.

Adam spent the war working in Bletchley Park, on something sufficiently classified he can't discuss it with Sam. But it most likely involved code-breaking or building a computer somehow. Maybe Major League Baseball got the wrong guy in that whole mess where the Cardinals' now former scouting director hacked the Houston Astros' databases.

OK, enough of that. As it turns out, Sam was also, among other duties, working as a model for Sir Leonard. A nude model, no less, despite some reservations of her part. Which only got worse when Milner and his men were nosing around to see if any of Leonard's art had been stolen. And then Foyle shows up, which is even worse from her perspective. Foyle at least makes a couple of jokes about it being a possible motive and refrains from any judgments.

The more I think about, the more it bothers me, because Sam was clearly not comfortable with the work being exhibited, and yet Leonard was planning to go ahead and do so anyway. And Sam, who is clearly still trying to find some sort of calling she feels comfortable in, may not have felt she could insist. Oh, Leonard seems like a well-meaning artistic type, but he's still a pushy enough guy to disinherit his son over a difference in politics, so I could see him firing Sam if she protested too severely. But he's dead now, and the art is probably in evidence for the time being. Although if or when it's released, I imagine there'll be quite the demand. Dead artists and all.

Milner's struggling with being the one in charge and establishing himself as his own guy. So he tries not to be drawn into banter with Sam, and he pushes back rudely against Foyle's presence. It's unnecessary, especially since Foyle tells him right off he's not there about a murder, but a runaway Russian. That said, Foyle's speech to him at the end of the episode felt like him being a bit of a dick. Yeah, Milner should have just apologized the first time, rather than saying 'I probably owe you an apology.' But Foyle's giving him grief because Detective Perkins, Milner's subordinate, addressed Foyle without being spoken to first, and Milner didn't back up Foyle's rebuke? Get the fuck out of here with that crap. That's the sort of nonsense where an arbitrary system says I'm better than you, so you have to defer to what I want Foyle usually pushes back against. All the times his superiors tell him to drop something, or some politco or businessman insists he is too important to suffer consequences. Foyle doesn't just accept that, so for him to get peeved that Perkins had the temerity to speak to him with something other than, "Shine your car for you, guvnah?" is pretty obnoxious.

Foyle's War 5.3 - All Clear

Plot: Trigger warning for suicide, again.

The American Major Kiefer (see "Invasion") has returned to Hastings, but he's not doing well. He's haunted by a lot of dead G.I.s, deaths that were covered up. This has made him short-tempered with everyone, a stark contrast to most of the people in town, who are eagerly awaiting the announcement that the war (in Europe) is officially over.

Meanwhile, the Hastings constabulary office prepares to be closed down and transferred to a new location. Milner is waiting to hear on a promotion, and waiting for the birth of his and Edie's first child. Sam is trying to find a new job, and Foyle is preparing to return to retirement. But first he'll have to contend with a committee formed to prepare for the revelry that will follow the announcement of war's end. Also on the committee are Martin Longmate, local hotelier and prospective politician, is planning a big party, Dr. Ziegler (who seems sure he knows Longmate from someplace), Edie's doctor, Major Kiefer, and a Mark Griffiths, who seems very troubled, and who Kiefer seems to detest for some reason. Also present at the first meeting is Longmate's assistant, Janice Hilton, whose husband Edward is home at last. Edward won't speak much of his experiences, but he knows Janice isn't telling him everything, either. And Janice is soon to learn Longmate is looking for a new assistant, even interviewing Sam. over dinner, to see if they can 'get along.' Sam fortunately dodges that bullet.

Griffiths condition continues to worsen as someone starts leaving pictures of tigers pinned to his door, and mailing him sand. It's putting considerable strain on him, to the point Dr. Ziegler prescribes him some sleeping pills. Within a couple of days, Dr. Ziegler is stabbed after leaving another meeting of the committee. Within a day of that, Mark Griffiths has committed suicide. Kiefer might know something about what drove Griffiths to that, but he's not talking, and there's no sign he's connected to the death of Dr. Ziegler.

And in other news, Andrew comes home. He made it through alive, although a bout with sinusitis has wrecked his vision to the point he won't be flying anymore. And he's trying to patch things up with Sam.

Quote of the Episode: Andrew - 'You don't have a leaflet on love.' Sam - 'No, but I've quite a few on desertion.'

Does Foyle go fishing? Indeed he does!

Things Sam can do: Make tea, cut Andrew down to size (at least temporarily). She's not at home in the advertising world, though.

Other: Polly Maberly is playing Edie in this episode. Caroline Martin had the role previously. Edie wanted to name the child "Winston", but fortunately, they had a daughter. Who will be named "Clementine". I guess that's an improvement.

As it turns out, Kiefer was in charge of a group of American G.I.s preparing for D-Day off the coast of England one night that were jumped by German E-boats, and 700 soldiers died, with the whole thing hushed up for morale. Which is an actual thing that happened in reality. In-story, Griffiths is the major in the signal corps who didn't check to make sure the radio was set to the proper frequency, and so the warning about the E-boats was not received. Foyle can thank Miss Pierce for that information.

There's a point, after Andrew has come home, he and Foyle are sitting and talking, and Andrew brings up Sam. He discusses his poor decision-making, tries to excuse it with being miserable training pilots, admits things didn't work with the other young lady. Foyle is kind of looking at him out of the corner of his eye, even though they're seated facing each other, and then, very simply, quickly, and directly, says, 'You weren't very kind to her.' As much as I enjoy those scenes where Foyle will rattle off everything illegal or immoral a character has done, in this exasperated, sarcastic tone (he gets a good one on Longmate near the end of this episode), I've always liked that brief rebuke. It's simple, straightforward, and easily conveys his disappointment in Andrew.

At the same time, when Andrew first appears, as Foyle is fishing, Michael Kitchen manages a very obvious smile, without seemingly lifting the corners of his mouth. I don't know, he doesn't smile in a way I would normally categorize it based on his mouth, but it's still very obvious he's happy. I thought that was pretty impressive.

Also in this episode, we learn Foyle can drive, he simply prefers not to.

Not sure what will happen with Edward and Janice. Janice had a child with Longmate, Edward found out, there was an argument, he did strike her, so who knows. Edward is still trying to adjust to being out of the military, and it's not entirely clear he wants to adjust, that he wouldn't rather be back there. I don't know if he wants to stay with Janice, or if she should stay with him after that. Probably not, since she doesn't want to have the child adopted, and I'm not sure how great a dad Edward will be to a child not biologically his (or maybe even to one that is biologically his). He mentions at one point he's thinking about moving, it wasn't clear if he was going to do that solo or not.

Anyway, the war is over, but the show is not. Now we're going to explore England after the war, and eventually England in the midst of the Cold War.

Foyle's War 5.2 - Broken Souls

Plot: Just to be safe, trigger warning for suicide.

Where to start? Fred Dawson returns home after 5 years as a P.O.W. His wife and son are still there, though his father has passed away. There's also Johann, a German P.O.W. on a work program of sorts, helping keep the farm going. Fred is having some difficulties adjusting: to the improved food, his frostbitten feet, the fact his son doesn't know him, the fact his son seems very comfortable around Johann.

There's also a teenage boy, Tommy Crooks, who has run away from his father in London and returned to the countryside where he stayed as an evacuee. He's seeking a Sir John and Lady Muriel, but their estate has been turned into a psychiatric hospital. Still, one of the doctors, a Josef Novak, is able to direct him to their cottage. Novak has his own concerns. One of his patients, a Peter Phelps, is struggling with the results of his work as a bombardier. The fate of Novak's wife and daughter is also weighing on his mind, as he confides to one of his chess pupils, Foyle. Novak was in Paris for a conference when Hitler invaded Poland. The last he heard, they were transferred from a ghetto to a place called Majdanek.

Also at the hospital is a Dr. Worth, but he won't be there long, as he's received an appointment at Cambridge, though no one seems happy for him, or sorry to see him go, least of all the head of the hospital, Dr. Campbell. Or maybe Novak least of all, because while playing chess with Foyle, he reads something in an article Worth published that causes him to leap from his chair snarling, 'I'll kill him!' And then Dr. Worth is found stabbed in his office the next morning.

Foyle begins trying to pull things together, including why Novak suddenly decided Peter should be transferred to an asylum, but then Novak, in the span of ten minutes or so, goes from mildly distracted, to cutting his wrists in the tub. All he can tell Foyle before being rushed to a hospital is that it was what Worth said.

Tommy's father has reached town, but attempts to speak with his son are deflected by Sir John and his shotgun. Fred is growing increasingly angry at Johann's presence, even accusing Rose of infidelity. Johann's attempts to play peacemaker only make things worse, leading Rose to decide they can't have Johann working there any longer. But coming upon the sad farewell only makes Fred angrier, and he tries to attack Johann. When that fails, he almost attacks Rose, but opts to drink heavily instead. Novak has since been released from the hospital, beds being scarce, and returned to work. He's able to help Tommy understand the incident that caused him to run, and even tries to get Foyle to join him for a Bing Crosby picture, but Foyle declines.

In the night, Johann escapes the P.O.W. camp, and is found dead in the river the next morning. And Foyle hadn't even solved Dr. Worth's murder yet, and here's another, seemingly unrelated one. Fortunately there's a witness to this murder, but Tommy Crooks has gone missing again.

Quote of the Episode: Novak - 'No, the point is someone did imagine it and then made it a reality for my family and countless others.'

Does Foyle go fishing? No, it appears he was spending part of his retirement learning chess, though.

Things Sam can do: Track down a boy that doesn't want to be found. No good at picking soccer teams.

Other: Sam and Brooke both like Bing Crosby. Foyle and Milner do not. I'm with Foyle and Milner, myself.

At one point, describing what happened when Tommy ran off, his father says of Tommy, 'He started creating,' and then his dad walloped him one. I have no idea what "creating" means there. He had already mentioned he started a row, then Tommy does whatever that is, and then physical violence. I don't know, shouting, throwing stuff?

There's this whole subplot about picking winners for the World Cup, and some team from Port Vale manages a stunning victory, or something. I dunno, none of it meant a thing to me, but it keeps popping up throughout, and it seems vaguely relevant since Sergeant Brooke compared his and Foyle's methods of choosing as science versus chance, respectively. And that idea comes up more than once.

As it turns out, Sam and Rose are friends, and after Rose's falling out with Fred, she spends the night at Sam's. Then Johann turns up dead. Sam wisely mentions this to Foyle before he questions Rose and Fred, but then Rose tries to lie about the reason why she spent the night at Sam's, which, seemed unwise. Foyle let it pass, but still. I guess it's smarter than Novak saying, "I'll kill him!" right in front of a cop. On the plus side, at least Sam didn't lose another friend like she did Gwen in "War of Nerves".

The difference in how Foyle handles questioning Novak when he's a suspect, versus Fred, was pretty noticeable. Especially since at one point Novak even suggests Foyle is allowing their friendship to interfere in carrying out his duties, and Foyle dismisses the possibility. But he's much more gentle with Novak, who granted had been through a lot. But so had Fred. It's October of 1944 at this stage, and Fred was captured at Dunkirk. That's no picnic, and Foyle's blunt treatment was disappointing.

None of which excuses Fred's behavior towards Rose. No call for nearly hitting her, and though things seem to be better by the end of the episode, I have to wonder about it. Him accusing her of cheating on him, more than once, combined with almost hitting her, would be kind of an ugly phantom in their marriage. I mean, even at the end, when he's acknowledging that the loss of Johann was hard for her, he still asks if anything happened. I understand his anger that while he was a prisoner at the tender mercies of the Nazis, Johann's in England, working on Fred's family farm, playing with Fred's son, getting homecooked food from Rose. That's not a happy realization.

Foyle never seems worried that Novak killed Dr. Worth, and I'm not sure Milner entirely agrees. Which is rare, but you can tell Milner's choosing his words carefully when he talks about Novak around Foyle. The fact the doctor tried to take his own life is suggestion of something to Milner. As it turns out, Majdanek was a concentration camp, and the Worth Novak referred to was an Alexander Worth, a BBC correspondent traveling with the Soviet Army when they liberated Majdanek, and found the horrors that were typical of the Nazis. And then the newsreel that ran with the movie showed footage from Majdanek, which sent Novak into the night, where he encountered Johann, who brusquely knocked him down and shouted at him in German. And, as Brooke puts it to Sam at one point, Robert's your father's brother.

Science versus chance. Brooke mentions it, and so does Novak in reference to his life. He argues that he believes in free will, and yet the most influential moments in his life have been by chance. Chance that he was separated from his family when Hitler invaded Poland. Chance that he met his wife at all. Chance that he liked Bing Crosby and Foyle doesn't, because if Foyle had been there, Novak wouldn't have run out into the countryside alone and wouldn't have encountered Johann. But it's still free will, isn't it? Foyle made a choice that he doesn't like Bing Crosby. Novak made a choice to attend that conference. Johann made a choice to try and get back and either see Rose, or find some way to fix things between her and Fred. Hitler made a choice to do the horrendous things he did. It's not that free will doesn't come into play, it's that you can't know what choices other people are making simultaneously with their free will, and how those are going to interact with your choices.

Maybe that's what's frustrating Novak. He's trying to help Peter Phelps come to grips with both his past trauma, and the results of his actions as a bombardier, but he can't tell how choices others make are going to factor in, and he fears that renders all his and Peter's efforts useless. Even people trying to do good can be left doing horrible things to try and stop worse things.

Foyle's War 5.1 - Plan of Attack

Plot: In this episode, Foyle teaches us about how you can bits of glass from bombed out windows as an attractive lure for fish. It's an hour and a half of him searching for pieces, scraping them into desired shapes, and gluing them to bits of stuffing from an old pillow he hasn't bothered to patch.

It's April of '44, so Foyle's been retired for over a year. He's keeping somewhat busy dictating his memoirs of the work of the Hastings police during the war, though as Sam points out, he isn't there for the end. Which is too bad, because in his absence, the department is falling apart. His replacement, D.C.S. Meredith, is just going through the motions. Milner is doing his best to carry on, but even he's getting ready to transfer. In the meantime, he's busy with a Mr. Burton, who has been paying people in several branches of the service to authorize deliveries by his lorries, deliveries that were not made. The next thing you know, someone tries to run Milner over as he leaves the pub one night.

Over at Beverly Lodge, there's a lot going it. It's one of the places where aerial photographs of Germany are used to make maps for bombing missions. Henry Scott is in a moral crisis over his part in the deaths of thousands of Germans. His pastor, a Father Keppler, tries to argue for the necessity of it to end the war, but Henry's turmoil is not eased. Jane is worried about Henry, and fending off the snide advances of Adam Everitt. Everitt is terrible at his job, but carries himself with the air of someone with inexplicable job security, which Henry knows has something to do with Adam's Uncle Bill, and Wing Commander Foster, who runs Beverly Lodge. And there's the newest addition, Waterlow, who seems to always be snooping around.

It isn't long before Henry turns up dead, seemingly having lynched himself in the woods, after getting in a state over something he saw, or didn't see, in an aerial photo of Stuttgart. Milner immediately recognizes it's meant to look like suicide, but wasn't. Milner has hardly begun asking questions before Meredith is shot as they leave the station one night. Mr. Burton denies any knowledge, but whether he's guilty or not, this is a situation dire enough for Assistant Commissioner Parkins to come groveling before Foyle, asking him to step back in at least long enough to find Meredith's killer. Well, it gave Foyle an excuse to not attend any more of those ecumenical conferences with Sam's Uncle Aubrey.

Quote of the Episode: Foyle - 'God is not on your side. Are you surprised?'

Does Foyle go fishing? No.

Things Sam can do: Work in a cartographic library. Break the Official Secrets Act without blinking an eye. Write in shorthand. However, she can't read her own shorthand, and she's a lousy typist.

Other: I almost went with a line Henry delivered to Jane early on for Quote of the Episode, but Foyle's line reminds me of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and that is always going to be a tiebreaker.

No sign of Lydia or Jimmy. I guess she'd gotten to a better situation over the past year, with Jimmy out of his state of shock.

Sam overhears Adam and Jane talking at one point, but isn't discreet enough and is noticed. That evening, as she's leaving, Adam tries intimidating her into not mentioning what she heard. What's great is Sam isn't intimidated in the slightest. She's more confused, trying to figure out why this guy is making vague threats to her over what she heard. And then she tells him she'd forgotten it, but if it means so much he felt the need to try this, she's going to tell everyone she can, and rides off. I continue to to love Sam's ability to take zero crap from stupid guys.

Uncle Aubrey is back for the first time since episode 3.1, "The French Drop". He's hear because a Bishop Wood is trying to convince the members of the Church to call for an end to the idea of "unconditional surrender", and instead work on a negotiated peace. Aubrey was in agreement with him, but after speaking with Mr. Meredith's widow, he changed his mind. Not that he decided they need to kill all Germans, rather her (understandable) hatred for the Germans convinced him that trying to push people to forgive was the wrong move.

I appreciated how Parkins, when he tells Foyle about Meredith, mentions that Milner is OK. I doubt Parkins cares (although he acknowledges Milner is more than capable), but he knows Foyle would care. Of course, he's trying to sell Foyle on returning to the force, so he's got to butter him up like a Sunday biscuit, to borrow from Sherman Potter. I was surprised Parkins described the murder of a senior police officer as unprecedented. While I understand England is not the shooting gallery the United States is, I would have figured for sure that some high-ranking officers of the law would have been killed previously. From that I can only conclude they were all corrupt and so there was no need for the criminal element to kill them. I'm joking, I'm joking.

Bishop Wood decrying the loss of 'German cultural centers', reminded me unpleasantly of the U.S. trying really hard not to bomb any famous pieces of Italian architecture, while not worrying much about bombing Italian citizens. Gotta protect those paintings!

With Sam, Milner, and Foyle scattered about for most of the episode, Sergeant Brooke gets somewhat more screentime. He has to play sort of the Watson to Milner's Holmes, and once Foyle comes back, his Sam, both in that he's Foyle's driver and he's the one who speaks out of turn at times. And beyond that, he's the one who's been there previously and can opine on the declining state of things at the station. Milner could, but is largely too hidebound. So Brooke plays a proxy for the audience, who want their core three characters back together, livening up the place and solving crimes.

Foyle's War 4.4 - Casualties of War

Plot: Lots to get through here. Let's start with Frank and Terry Morgan, a couple of orphaned teen fishermen who try breaking into an empty estate, only to find it isn't empty. And it's occupant, a special observer attached to the Spanish Embassy, feels he can make use of them. Or kill them, whichever. Shortly after that, there are a series of acts of sabotage in the area for Foyle to investigate. If, that is, he can keep pushy new Assistant Commissioner Parkins off his ass about this gambling ring, which Milner is already working on.

On top of that, there's a research lab in the area, run by a neighbor of Foyle's, Professor Townsend. They're working on some sort of bomb for the RAF, and having some difficulties getting the kinks ironed out, and they're up against a deadline. And part of the staff, one Evelyn Richards, has an unhappy home situation. Her husband Michael was a teacher, but most of the schools in the area were closed and the buildings turned to war purposes. So while Evelyn works as a "typist" and assistant at this lab, Michael mostly drinks, frets over whether she's having an affair with her coworker Hans, and gambles. At those same places Milner is investigating. As do Frank and Terry, flashing some pretty serious cabbage. They all end up losing, though only the teens can afford to. Milner almost loses more than money when he isn't discreet enough with his questions and Mr. Hendry has his boys jump him. Fortunately, Frank and Terry are (mostly) upstanding lads who lend a hand.

But their next assignment from Mr. Olivera de Perez involves that lab, not to mention a suitcase full of dynamite. But when they reach the lab, they see two men hauling a body out into the woods. The boys don't plant their bomb, but they do lift the corpse's wallet and i.d, because Frank figures this might be the path to getting free and clear of de Perez. Blackmail: The hip new game everyone's playing! At any rate, an old man heard the shot the night before and alerted the police, so they quickly find the body of Mr. Michael Richards. But since Milner saw him losing, and saw a couple of Hendry's men outside Richard's home when he came asking questions about Frank and Terry, that's the direction they look, initially.

On top of all this, Foyle's goddaughter Lydia showed up on his doorstep with her son James. James was in a school that got bombed, and hasn't spoken since. Lydia had been estranged from her parents over the man she eloped with, and hadn't spoken to them or Foyle in over a decade. And now her parents are dead, and she needs help, so here she is. She doesn't stay long, before opting to walk into the ocean, but does not succeed in ending her life. Of course, that leaves Foyle with this youngster to deal with, which means Sam's left to look after him. A picnic might help, if only two someones didn't decide to dispose of a bomb right near them.

Anyway, it becomes clear Hendry was not involved in the demise of Michael Richards. It also becomes clear that while Townsend and the others have been lying to the Admiralty about how important Evelyn Richards is to the whole project, she's also lying about what happened the night Michael was killed. None of which matters, because military necessity dictates Foyle can't do anything to her, or Hans. Nor can he do anything about de Perez, because immunity, and it doesn't seem like the special services will, either. Which leads to Foyle throwing up his hands and leaving the force entirely.

Quote of the Episode: de Perez - 'I only do what I do to show the war is wrong.' Frank - 'But it's not you doing it. It's Terry and me.'

Does Foyle go fishing? No, but he'll have lots of time for it going forward.

Things Sam can do: Maintain composure in the face of a belligerent assistant commissioner. Keep trying to cheer up a traumatized kid. She can't seem to avoid nearly getting blown up, though.

Other: Well, that's it for Foyle's War. Or no, there's still four more seasons. Well, this must be that controversial point when it became a fishing show, all about making your own lures. Lot of dissension in the fandom about that direction.

Sam mentions this is the third time she's been blown up, to go with that pub being bombed in the very first episode, and the flat she was renting being bombed. She left out that time she was locked in a room with a time bomb, and only narrowly rescued from it. She just attracts explosives.

Hendry is the one who finally helps Milner track down Frank and Terry, but when he asks for a little leniency, Milner leans over and tells him, 'No dice.' Oh, that's terrible, but I laughed. I'm still laughing right now, thinking about it.

It's tossed off in the rush of things Foyle tells Parkins he's sick of, but Frank and Terry are getting sentenced to years of hard labor for the acts of sabotage, while de Perez skates. As he points out, largely because the boys parents are both gone (mother deceased, father away on convoy duty), and there's no one to look after them or help support them. You'd think Foyle could at least contact Ms. Pierce and see if she could arrange to have de Perez' throat slit. I mean, arrange for him to cut himself shaving, really badly. Not Foyle's style, though.

The near-death by explosion shook James, sorry Jimmy, out of the state he was in. Which may not have been an improvement from Foyle's perspective. It took about three minutes of interacting with the more vocal version of Jimmy for Foyle to make threats about sending him to prison. And he ultimately left him in the care of the nuns looking after Lydia. One of whom threatened to backhand the kid about ten seconds after they met. She had also spent her entire initial conversation with Foyle tsk-tsking Lydia's decision. Oh, it's a mortal sin, and a crime. Let's pause here once again to appreciate the remarkable stupidity of prosecuting people for trying to commit suicide. Gee, why don't you just hang them? I bet that'll learn 'em good. Where was I? Oh, and when she learns Lydia has a son, she remarks that makes her sin even harder to forgive. Well, I can certainly see Lydia is going to make a rapid recovery under this lady's tender mercies, if only to escape them.

It's a little strange Foyle hits his limit right here, though. There was the military cock-up that led to the death of Elsie Jenkins in "Bad Blood", but that was more incompetence than any particular premeditated act (at least in terms of exposing an Englishwoman, since the Brits were presumably considering using the anthrax against the Germans). That was about 8 months ago. Before that, the idiot Captain Cornwall who kept Foyle from talking to the downed German pilots in "They Fought in the Fields", which also probably led to the death of Sabortowski. That was a 18 months ago. It seemed as though Foyle was being stymied more in the early going, but maybe the confluence of multiple instances right here, along with the sense that Lydia and James need him, is what makes it intolerable. Or the fact that a few people are getting punished for breaking the law, but not the ones doing the most harm.

There's a point, right after Foyle has taken Evelyn into custody for questioning, where Parkins shows up with Captain Boothroyd, the military liason for the project and demands her release. They march past Brooke and Sam into Foyle's office, and Sam gives this perfect contempt look at their backs. She knows nothing good is about to happen. There's also a big, when Milner is investigating Michael, he talks to one of the kids Michael home-schools, and the kid wants to know how Milner found him. He says he asked the boy's mother. The kid is visibly disappointed, having hoped it would be something more clever.

I can't quite figure how Lydia fits into this episode exactly. There are multiple kids who seem quite happy for the war to continue. The kid Milner talks to, Frank says he loves it because it makes stealing easier.. But here's James, who for part of the time is traumatized over his experiences. But he seems to bounce back. It doesn't go so well for Lydia, though, or Michael, and maybe even Foyle. So the older folks, the ones with fewer years left, it's hitting them harder than it is the kids, who presumably have more years to go. And the kids have fewer years without war to compare it to. But there's the whole thing about Lydia cutting off contact with her parents, even after her husband runs off, and then telling lies to herself and everyone else about it to justify her choices. The danger of not reconsidering actions while you still can? Frank and Terry didn't get out from under de Perez soon enough. Evelyn didn't leave Michael, or Michael didn't come to grips with the changes in his life soon enough. Things couldn't or wouldn't be taken back.

And for the record, the project being worked on is designing the bombs the RAF used to take out some German dams, which needed to be spinning inside the plane before they were dropped so they could skip across the water. And Evelyn is the one who made it happen, but she had to be listed as a secretarial assistant and let Townsend present it to get the Admiralty to even listen to the idea. I'm not sure blowing out the dams hampered the Germans as much as Townsend believes, but still a better use of airpower than Bomber Harris' indiscriminate nighttime bombing of cities.

Foyle's War 2.3 - Bleak Midwinter

Plot: We open on Grace and Harry, a seemingly happy young couple. Grace works in a munitions plant, Harry works for a local mechanic. They have some sort of plan, but Grace is having doubts, and she's under the weather. Still, she goes to work, not the best idea when putting together fuses, and she suffers a catastrophic accident. But one of her co-workers, Hilda Greenwood, thinks there was something odd, and so she asks Foyle to look into it. Foyle was busy with a restaurant racketeer, someone selling turkeys that "fell off a truck", hopefully not the same truck that sheep fell off last week. The case landed the police a nice turkey, one Sam keeps hoping Foyle will let out of the evidence room. Or Constable Peters could let her in, after he recovers from the ass-chewing Milner gave him for eating evidence.

As for Milner, he has other problems. Edie wants him to spend Christmas with her family. That's not the problem. Jane Milner is back, and wants to be together with Paul again. And due to the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1937, as long as she wasn't away for more than three years, they can't be considered divorced simply because she walked out 2 years and 9 months ago. Paul is, not receptive, and tells Jane to stay away from him and Edie, 'or else'.

Yeah, I thought that was pretty stupid, too. It seems even more stupid when Jane turns up dead the next morning, her head bashed in with a brick. And it's even worse when Peters decides to start fucking with Milner by planting evidence linking him to the crime. Although it's interesting that Jane knew Grace and was.distraught over her death. What's also interesting is that when Sam, on Foyle's orders, attends Grace's funeral, she doesn't see Grace's mother, nor is she all that convinced by Harry's "grief-stricken" tirade at Grace's employer and foreman. Her perception turns out to be correct when she brings the car to have a radiator hose fixed, and just so happens to pick the garage Harry works at. Once he twigs she's with the cops, he tries to kill her, and things will escalate rapidly from there.

Quote of the Episode: Foyle - 'I do wonder why you felt it necessary to lie about the divorce.' Milner - 'I suppose it was just easier.'

Does Foyle go fishing? No, probably too cold in December anyway.

Things Sam can do: Be observant. Wheedle her way out of Foyle, some of the times. Fend off some crazy guy on his home turf.

Other: Foyle is really damn inconsistent about whether he and Sam discuss cases. He told her they wouldn't in the first episode, and he reiterates it her, but if so, he probably needs to stop letting her help If she's going to go to funerals and observe for him, then she should be able to discuss the cases she's helping with.

I really could not believe Milner would warn Jane like that in a public place, and even use the phrase 'or else.' Paul, you are a cop, you have to know better than that. At least when Mr. Baker warns one of his employees about blackmailing him, he does it when no one else is around. And he's a schmuck.

Foyle seems pretty steamed Milner lied about being divorced. Maybe he's just frustrated he has to investigate the murder at all. Or his opinions on marriage are showing. At one point, Edie comes to Foyle's house, essentially to him on blast for treating Milner like an actual suspect. Foyle brings up the fact Milner lied to her about being divorced, too. Her response is that Paul was lying to himself, but not to her. Foyle responds that he still lied. Which is not a particularly helpful thing to say. Edie's response is interesting, though. That Paul had convinced himself Jane was gone and out of his life isn't much of a shock. If he hadn't, I can't see him dating Edie. But if he believes it, to the point he isn't lying to himself, is he lying to her? I guess so, but Edie certainly doesn't seem terribly bothered by it. Because she knows Paul was done with Jane, to the point she tells him she'd understand if he had killed Jane. At least Paul had the decency to be horrified at the suggestion. Speaks well of him.

I can't figure Constable Peters. When Foyle burns him to the ground, he tries to explain it was just a joke, a way to get back at Milner, and then it got out of hand. Dumbass, you are implicating him in a murder, how do you think that's going to end? And he wonders why Milner continued up the ladder while he remained a constable.

Harry fancies himself a character Jimmy Cagney would play. Pity he's not the actor Cagney is, or people wouldn't see through him so easily. Not just Sam. Harry tries asking Mr. Johnson, his boss and Grace's lodger, to attend her funeral. Tries to play on the old man's sympathy, tell him how she thought of him as like a father. Johnson doesn't buy it for a moment. He tries reassuring his partner Eric, fails utterly. Tries intimidating Foyle, fails utterly, though he's hampered because Foyle knows something he doesn't. Harry's ultimately a strung out loser, just charming enough to skate by enough to get by.