Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Naive Avengersthon - 48. The Wringer

Steed is accused of sabotaging the Carinthia Pipeline, a secret transit route for spies out of Eastern Europe, by giving away information leading to the deaths of 6 agents. His colleague Anderson (Peter 'also Penley' Sallis) has all the evidence that Charles (Paul Whitsun-Jones - the first actor I've noted so far who's returned as the same character) needs to hear, and Steed is sent away to 'the unit'.

In charge of that facility is 'The Wringer' - a brilliantly punchable portrayal by Terence 'Orum' Lodge, returning from Man With Two Shadows. He and his colleagues proceed to subject Steed to psychological torture and brainwashing - thus suggesting where Anderson got his fixed ideas about Steed's guilt from.

Luckily Cathy comes to the rescue once again, first by using persuasion on Charles' sidekick Oliver (our own Barry Letts in his previous incarnation as an actor), then by bravely visiting the unit and engineering an escape. Anderson is deconditioned and Steed, presumably, restored to his position...

Lodge is the star of this one, no question. My only disappointment was that the unit was very quickly revealed to be a renegade operation; if their methods had been officially sanctioned, like in The Nutshell, it would have been a whole lot more sinister.

I liked the carthartic/purifying imagery of the escape via the drains into the rain-flooded ditch.

Also returning: Gerald Sim from Mission to Montreal, and Douglas Cummings from The Gilded Cage.

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