Men Should Weep

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MEN SHOULD WEEP (SERIES 2)

Written by: Jimmy McGovern

Produced by: Paul Abbott

Directed by: Jean Stewart

Originally Screened: 21/11/94 (Part 1), 28/11/94 (Part 2), 05/12/94 (Part 3)

Floyd Malcolm is a black taxi driver, a benefit fraudster and a serial rapist. He wears a mask and threatens his victims with a knife, always talking to them afterwards as if to build up a relationship. When Floyd rapes the wife of a taxi driver he works with at a local swimming pool, Fitz and the police are called in to investigate again. The police immediately suspect the janitor of the swimming pool, a theory which Fitz immediately dismisses, annoying Jimmy Beck immensely in the process. When the police are later drinking at a local pub, Beck creates more tension between himself and Penhaligon when he asks her if she "fantasises about rape" infront of Fitz and all her colleagues. The police then organise a reconstruction of a previous rape, which Floyd attends unknown to them. After the reconstruction, Penhaligon is herself attacked by a masked man who threatens her with a knife and then rapes her. Fitz concludes that as the rapist does not talk to her then she must have been raped by a different man. Penhaligon is terribly shaken by her ordeal, however, and she begins to feel alienated from all her male colleagues including Fitz, who she then proceeds to blame for her attack. Fitz's life is further turned upside down by the unexpected return of Judith, who announces to Fitz that she is five months pregnant, news which in particular doesn't help his already fragile relationship with Penhaligon.

Floyd then kills his next victim, the wife of a clerk from the benefit office, reasoning that he may as well leave no witnesses since the prison sentence for murder is apparently the same as rape. Fitz calls in Floyd's mother, and Fitz's theory that the rapist is scarred is proved right when she reveals how her son sat in a bath of bleach when he was a child, in order to discolour his skin. Floyd's taxi is later recognized by a local woman and he is eventually picked up. As Fitz interrogates him and begins to get a confession, Penhaligon pieces together the clues of her attack and realizes that the man who raped her was infact her colleague, Jimmy Beck. She tells DCI Wise of her discovery, but he is reluctant to do anything until she brings him some firm evidence. Despite getting very near to a confession Wise does not have enough evidence to keep Malcolm and he is released, much to Fitz's dismay. When the police track Floyd and realise he is probably likely to take revenge on somebody he has a grudge against, Fitz comes to the realisation that that person is him. Fitz and Harriman make a desperate chase to Fitz's house where Floyd has broken in and is threatening to kill Judith. As Fitz saves her, Penhaligon meanwhile breaks into Beck's flat and when he arrives confronts him and puts his own gun into his mouth, apparently intending to kill him.