|
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.
The
Unofficial Guide To Cracker 1999-2006
(http://www.crackertv.co.uk)
|