So we've got this episode which begins with the lovely Linda Hayden, star of a billion depressing 70s British sex comedies, crashing through the doors of a church dressed only in her underwear, staggering up the aisle and collapsing on the altar. It's like a writer's exercise: here's the pre-titles sequence, now write the script.
It's a Brian Clemens episode, though, so the script is complete bollocks and absolutely nothing makes sense. It's great. Turns out Linda Hayden's character is German, so Cowley speaks to her in German, and it's a bit embarrassing because Gordon Jackson is clearly fluent and his accent is perfect (ironic in light of what happens in The Great Escape), whereas Linda Hayden can't do a German accent to save her life; an important plot twist rests on the word "buchhalter", which she mispronounces, but obviously no one realised, or cared.
Anyway, she has total amnesia but keeps repeating the name of a place where an important political meeting (or something) is going to happen the next day, and CI5 have to work out what's going on. They don't know where to start, until one of the boffins says that traces of hops were found in the girl's hair, and apparently hops are grown in Kent - so Bodie and Doyle are ordered to get in the Capri and drive her around Kent in the hope that something will jog her memory. That's not "north-west Kent", by the way, or "Maidstone in Kent" - just Kent. All of Kent.
Considering they've got less than 24 hours to explore the ninth largest county in England, the boys don't seem to be in any particular hurry: at one point they stop for ice-creams. Then they go into a pub and stand around for a bit drinking white wine. Bodie even finds time for a quick game of skittles - but then becomes bizarrely impatient back in the car, snarling and calling the young lady "Fritz", completely out of the blue. Lunchtime drinking... it's a motherfucker.
Anyway, who'd have thought it - it turns out that they're in the right part of Kent after all, and oh look there's the right house. We learn that Linda was a nanny for one John Parker, a bank manager, who's vanished and his family have been kidnapped. So CI5 have to find where they're being held captive, and they only have about 20 hours left... that won't be easy. Oh no wait - within about half an hour Doyle's managed to find them by driving up and down some streets at random until he sees a house with a bit of carpet hung up at the window as a curtain. That must be the place - so naturally, he disguises himself as a milkman for no particular reason, kicks down the door and crashes into the house with all guns blazing. Sure enough there they are, tied and gagged at the mercy of some villains, who Doyle mows down in short order. They do shoot back at him with machine pistols in a very confined space, but they miss.
So to cut a long story fractionally shorter, we end up with a situation where this John Parker is still AWOL and can't be found anywhere, but CI5 have worked out (somehow) that the baddies are going to shoot at the building where this important meeting is being held, with a massive grenade launcher or some shit like that, and somehow it's got something to do with this John Parker bloke. That's about all they've got to go on. So a CI5 posse, led by Bodie, are sent to check all the local buildings which could potentially be used for a sniper's nest. No luck. "We've checked everywhere", moans Bodie.
But then - wait, hang on a minute - he walks past the bank where John Parker is the bank manager. Despite having been up and down the whole street, they haven't looked in there. So he goes in and says to the bloke behind the counter, "Where's John Parker?" and the bloke says "Oh, he's upstairs." Bodie goes upstairs, breaks down a door and oh look, John Parker is actually being held hostage by some baddies who are pointing a massive gun out the window. So Bodie (who has told his partner to wait outside) gets them all single-handedly, despite the fact that he broke his arm when he shoulder-charged the door.
He's also broken his flash new watch, which he was very proud of, so he's a bit glum when CI5 are having their celebratory drink in the pub afterwards. Doyle produces a present for him - "we all clubbed together" - and he looks really excited and unwraps it, but it turns out it's a kids' watch with a picture of Superman on it. Everybody laughs. "Look," says Bodie, leaning over to show it to the German girl. "They bought me a Superman watch!!!"
That's the end.
You can keep your fucking Wire, man.
