Gideon's 'Thin Red Line'

A little snippet of an initially long post, this time just on the ending of the Gideon’s Way episode ‘The Thin Red Line’: An otherwise slower episode cannot end more beautifully, with the sound of the pitlochry air on the pipes softly echoing all around, now conquering the silence as all conversation ends, the pipes going on so quietly but with the same robust if now melancholy weight of ‘Colonel Robertson,’ (and the tears in your eyes), as we are left only with the beautiful room (a truly beautiful regimental anteroom as designed by Albert Witherick), old and heavy with walnut wood (think of that room in the poem “The Death of King George V”), the two men departed, now only the room, without either MacGregor young or old, or anyone of the regiment, only with the pipes in the air, and the room living and not living, as we fade out.

I particularly like how Gideon’s Way episodes end, quite poetically but abruptly, quietly (because ‘a policeman’s work is never done,’ and real London, that other ‘naked city,’ never sleeps, but this episode stands out to me I guess (not only in its ending, as it’s quite different to the usual crime settings, etc.), but in the quiet melancholy it generously affords, without being maudlin one single bit, because of course things go as they ought to, but it gives enough time to offer compassion for the characters and the narrative, and that’s why it’s one of my favourites. James Cairney’s voice helps immensely too Xo