Alfie and Daveboy get drafted in by Aziz to assist Captain Blighty with a dangerous mission. Neither is helped by personal issues encountered just before they set off. Martha believes that she may have found out the source of the leak.

After a weaker episode last time out, can Pennyworth get back to its usual heights with this instalment? Well, sort of…

Daveboy and Alfie both have relationship issues. The former is dating a woman who he just can’t relate to on any level beyond the sexual, and that causes problems of its own – problems Daveboy isn’t keen to talk about, however much it might be affecting him. As for Alfie, well Sandra finally tracks him down to deliver some unexpected (for him) news (it was fairly obvious what was in that letter Daveboy ended up eating a couple of episodes back) which similarly leaves him all at sea and not keen to share.

Fortunately(?) for them both, Aziz has a job for them to take their minds off things. A PWE has gone on a bit of a rampage and only Captain Blighty can bring him in quietly. Problem is, Alfie and Daveboy’s former commanding officer isn’t exactly at his best lately, and they’re therefore drafted in to keep an eye on him and provide assistance, though without of course actually letting him know that’s what they’re there for.

Meanwhile, Martha is surprised to get a visit from Patricia, who seems unfortunately to know as little as she does about what Thomas is up to in the States. It at least gives her a convenient source of babysitting while she goes off to help with Alfie and Daveboy’s mission, which also gives her the chance to follow up on some suspicions she has about the identity of the mysterious source of her leaked info.

Aside from Foulkes throwing another drug party, to the express disconcertion of Dr Glubb, who has serious and founded concerns about it all, that’s about it, plot wise. Mostly the episode chooses to centre on the mission itself and the interaction between three men who’ve been through far too much together. It’s clear from the off that Troy/Blighty isn’t in the best frame of mind for all this, and the device they use to get the mercurial officer from being at the throats of his former men to being happily on-mission is a little on the nose but James Purefoy carries it off mainly through sheer weight of charisma. Troy has never been a particularly stable or consistent character so there’s no real sense in him starting now.

Other than that, it’s a fairly quiet, mostly character-driven episode. It does everything it has to well enough, and even serves up the odd surprise along the way, but unfortunately I think what’s working against this season is a lack of a driving central arc, instead sort of bouncing from one problem of the week to the next. This was always a feature of the show in previous seasons but there’s always be an overall theme tying everything together – something which is lacking this time out.

Verdict: Better than the previous episode but still some way from the show’s usual heights. 7/10

Greg D. Smith