This episode involves Richard Griffiths and his bent registration plates . However the more important story is Regan and accusations of corruption on his part with no support coming from Canning ( nobody played a slimy copper better than Barry Ingham )
When regan is arrested he's frogmarched into a cell and even asked to remove his belt and tie thus being treated like a common criminal. Now step in Carter and with no help coming from Canning must do his own legwork. He finds out about an old girlfriend Gloria who was a typist at Regan's own section , who helps him get off his charges. However at the end Regan shows his disdain towards the bureaucratic nonsense he must put up with and threatens to resign and leaves in a taxi. I think he did resign as we never see any more Sweeney episodes or even a TV movie given its huge popularity in the mid 70s and that sure is finality . Dennis Waterman was probably also too busy with his own popular show Minder to put to bed any Sweeney return. The London Sweeney had just lost a great asset in Jack Regan.
4 Reviews
Knights of Nygh
TheFearmakers4 April 2022
The final episode of THE SWEENEY has no finality to it as the show's never been serialized...
But is another starting out with a deadly heist, this time of the armored car nature, after which one of the show's most used devices occurs in that John Thaw's rebellious Inspector Jack Regan has to deal with an uptight, strategically-placed third partner other than Dennis Waterman's faithful Sergeant Carter, and they butt heads, opinions, motivations and styles along the way...
Included within a mostly exterior busy-London shopping-area investigation is punctual chief Garfield Morgan as Haskins and guest star Richard Griffiths, but perhaps most noticeable to SWEENEY fans is technically the most important culprit from their best of two feature films, SWEENEY 2, in that Anna Nygh turns up, again looking neo gothic punk combined with old school cigarette smoking noirish fatale...
And overall it's not a bad finale but not very great either. Kind of ends the British cop series with a muffled bang, although hardly a whimper.
But is another starting out with a deadly heist, this time of the armored car nature, after which one of the show's most used devices occurs in that John Thaw's rebellious Inspector Jack Regan has to deal with an uptight, strategically-placed third partner other than Dennis Waterman's faithful Sergeant Carter, and they butt heads, opinions, motivations and styles along the way...
Included within a mostly exterior busy-London shopping-area investigation is punctual chief Garfield Morgan as Haskins and guest star Richard Griffiths, but perhaps most noticeable to SWEENEY fans is technically the most important culprit from their best of two feature films, SWEENEY 2, in that Anna Nygh turns up, again looking neo gothic punk combined with old school cigarette smoking noirish fatale...
And overall it's not a bad finale but not very great either. Kind of ends the British cop series with a muffled bang, although hardly a whimper.
Downbeat ending
Leofwine_draca27 April 2021
Warning: Spoilers
A dark final episode of the show. This one sees an otherwise routine robbery that ends up with Regan getting his reputation besmirched yet again. This leads to some great bitter dialogue from John Thaw and finishes the series in a downbeat way that could only happen in the 1970s.
Jack or Knave
Prismark1023 January 2023
Warning: Spoilers
The final episode of The Sweeney. It looks like it could go out in a bang.
Chief Superintendent Canning (Barrie Ingham) of the local police force is not having much luck in trying to catch a gang of armed robbers. They shot a security guard dead in their latest payroll snatch.
Humiliated by the press, Canning is angered that Regan interferes when he interferes over some dodgy car number plates.
Canning and Regan have past history that can be described as mutual loathing.
Regan's past also catches up with him. There is a police crackdown on corruption. Regan is arrested for taking bribes back in the late 1960s that led to an acquittal.
It is up to Carter to clear Regan's name but Regan is lest angered by the ordeal.
An episode with two plots. The robbery story has some comically bad acting. Security guards doing slow running or falling to the ground badly after getting shot.
It seems the corruption plot was crowbarred in. Maybe the fifth series was curtailed. It is hard to have sympathy about how difficult the Met's job is, when some of them in real life were more corrupt than the crooks they were meant to catch.
Chief Superintendent Canning (Barrie Ingham) of the local police force is not having much luck in trying to catch a gang of armed robbers. They shot a security guard dead in their latest payroll snatch.
Humiliated by the press, Canning is angered that Regan interferes when he interferes over some dodgy car number plates.
Canning and Regan have past history that can be described as mutual loathing.
Regan's past also catches up with him. There is a police crackdown on corruption. Regan is arrested for taking bribes back in the late 1960s that led to an acquittal.
It is up to Carter to clear Regan's name but Regan is lest angered by the ordeal.
An episode with two plots. The robbery story has some comically bad acting. Security guards doing slow running or falling to the ground badly after getting shot.
It seems the corruption plot was crowbarred in. Maybe the fifth series was curtailed. It is hard to have sympathy about how difficult the Met's job is, when some of them in real life were more corrupt than the crooks they were meant to catch.
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