"It's an interesting idea - a system of justice which depends on the degree of public embarrassment its guardians are exposed to."
—Marty Feldman
Station Under Investigation: Becket Park
Tony follows up an allegation of police brutality after an old man claims to have seen a prostitute attacked.
Provides examples of:
- Ambiguously Gay: Corbett says that he thinks Mo's a lesbian, and points out that there's no Mr Connell in the picture. Ross shrugs this off saying that that's just Corbett assuming that any WPC who doesn't want to shag him must be a lesbian.
- When Sue sees Tony and Mo chatting at Huxtable's barbecue, she confronts them about it because she suspects might be who Tony has been cheating on her with. Mo says that she "couldn't be more wrong", but gets cut off by Huxtable before she can explain any further.
- Ambiguously Jewish: Marty never explicitly identifies himself as Jewish, but he has a typically Jewish surname. Hardcastle also makes an antisemitic remark about him at Huxtable's barbecue.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Mo asks Ross if he thinks there's any difference between a woman getting beat up by a pimp and getting beaten up by one of the CID officers in his station?
- The Atoner: Marty admists to feeling some guilt over not having intervened more directly in Mary's assault, which is why he’s been so determined to follow through with his complaint.
- Auto Erotica: Mary has sex with a client in the back of his parked car.
- Bilingual Bonus: Marty's wife speaks to him in German.
- Broken Pedestal: Ross worked with Mo when she was constable, but Mo loses some respect for him when she sees realises that he's covering for Corbett.
- Brotherhood of Funny Hats: Played for Drama Corbett, Ross, Hanson and Siddons and some other officers go out to celebrate the initial closing of the complaint at their lodge. Corbett tells Ross that he's stepping down as the lodge's master and that the job will be going to Ross next. Mo says that she doesn't understand why Ross is lying to protect Corbett, since Corbett hasn't done anything to deserve Ross' loyalty. But Mo doesn't know that he's been covering for Corbett because of their Masonic connection.
- By-the-Book Cop: Ross has a reputation as a straight arrow, Corbett knows if he can get Ross to lie for him,
- Bystander Syndrome: Marty reflects on this when discussing his reasons for persevering with the complaint:"That's one response to the problem of survival. Be invisible. Make no waves. It doesn't work."
- Cowboy Cop: Ross tries to claim that Corbett might be a bit heavy-handed, but that he gets results. Mo counters this by saying that Corbett's conduct is a bad influence on younger detectives like Siddons and damaging the station's reputation as a whole.
- The Determinator: Marty refuses to drop his complaint or change his story despite pressure to do so on multiple fronts.
- Dinner with the Boss: Played With. Tony and Sue get invited to one of Huxtable's regular barbecues at his place.
- Disposable Sex Worker: Although Mary wasn't murdered, Marty is conscious of the fact that everyone else involved thinks he's making a lot of fuss over an attack on someone who doesn't matter.
- Domestic Abuse: After the furniture incident, Tony is remorseful and swears that he wouldn't have actually hurt Sue, but Sue is sceptical. She says that if it ever happens again, she'll leave him and take him for everything he's got.
- Downer Ending: After the investigation runs its course, everyone involved fully expects that the DPP will throw it out before it goes to trial. Soon after, Marty has a heart attack on his bike and dies. With Mary unwilling to take the complaint any further, the case dies completely. The Chief Superintendent at Becket Park suggests that Ross take early retirement to avoid any more awkwardness in the station. Ross then leaves the station and kills himself.
- Gaslighting: Tony continues to lie to Sue about the fact that he's been having an affair and makes out that Sue's suspicions are baseless, despite the fact he's cheated on her before. This culminates in Tony angrily trashing their bedroom furniture.
- Go-Karting with Bowser: After facing off against each other in a select committee, Dunning and Hardcastle run into each other at Huxtable's barbecue.
- The Informant: Mary had been providing Becket Park CID with information on a fencing operation her pimp's brother was running prior to the assault.
- It's All About Me: Sue points out that she's spent hundreds of hours in their marriage listening to Tony moan about his job, but that he never asks her about hers.
- Manly Tears: Ross tears up when Mo urges him to come clean about Corbett beating up Mary in the cells at Beckett Park.
- Oop North: Mo travels to Leeds to interview Mary Shibden.
- Police Brutality: When Deakin, Tony and Harry have their initial discussion about the case at Becket Park, Harry mentions that the prevailing attitude at the nick that officers beating up a prostitute, seemingly without any pretext, wasn't a big deal.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Hardcastle doesn't actually care about Mary or Marty's complaint. The case is just a convenient way for him to make a name for himself in the House. He makes an antisemtic remark about Marty at Huxtable's barbecue.
- Real Men Cook: Huxtable does the grilling at his barbecue.
- Red Light District: The episode opens at King's Cross which, at the time the episode was set, was well-known as an area for sex workers to pick up clients.
- Shout-Out:
- No one mentions that Marty Feldman shares a name with the actor Marty Feldman.
- Hardcastle says that he knows that Marty has put a lot of time into the complaint but that "it's hardly Dreyfus." The Dreyfus affair was French political scandal in which Jewish army officer Alfred Dreyfus was made into a scapegoat in a German espionage case and falsely convicted of treason.
- The stripper at the lodge performs her routine to an instrumental version of "Shakin' All Over" by Johnny Kidd & The Pirates played by the lodge band.
- Harry sings a bit of "Maybe It's Because I'm a Londoner" by Hubert Gregg when he and Tony go to King's Cross to interview some of the sex workers there.
- Marty mentions that he heard Hardcastle bringing up his complaint in the House of Commons on Today in Parliament.
- When Tony and Harry go to Marty's house to tell him that CIB isn't going to pursue the investigation further in light of Mary's disappearance, he describes their decision to stop the investigation because the victim has clearly been intimidated into silence as a "through the Looking Glass" situation.
- Hardcastle's apparently been laying into CIB on Newsnight
- Not long after Huxtable points out that Huxtable is a true-blue Tory at heart, Hardcastle says "Where there is darkness, shed a little light" in reference to Margaret Thatcher's first speech as Prime Minister.
- Dunning jokingly asks Hardcastle if he can be questioned by the Labour MP Bernie Grant the next time he has to appear in front of a select committee.
- The officers at Becket Park celebrate Marty's death by singing "Why Was He Born So Beautiful?"
- Self-Deprecation: Mo jokes with Tony that her being at Huxtable's barbecue might mean that the event isn't actually all that elite.
- Silent Credits: The episode ends in silence without playing the theme song.
- Stupid Evil: Neither Corbett nor Hardcastle understand why Marty has been so dogged about pursuing the complaint. Corbett thinks he's an old lefty who wants to make a name for himself as a local hero before he dies, while Hardcastle thinks that he's just being a stereotypically litigious Jew. It doesn't seem to occur to either of them why a Jewish pensioner living in 1990s London might be particularly motivated to intervene after seeing a violent authority figure abuse a vulnerable member of society. Even if Marty himself didn't flee Europe in the 1940s or survive the camps, you would be hard-pressed to find a Jewish family in the Greater London Area who hadn't lost a relative in The Holocaust.
- Taking the Heat: Siddons initially claims to have been the officer present within Hanson when they attacked Mary, but Mo learns that it was actually Corbett who was there and that Siddons was carrying the can for him.
- Throat-Slitting Gesture: Corbett makes one of these to Ross after Ross shows up at the lodge following his interview with CIB.
- Tranquil Fury: Mo's reaction when Ross doesn't deny that he's lying for Corbett.
