The Sweeney: Poppy (1975)
Season 2, Episode 8
10/10
Helen Gill is a gorgeous unsung Sweeney Girl
21 January 2022
Britain's THE SWEENEY is both a regular cop series and a revolving villain anthology wherein Scotland Yard's Flying Squad can sometimes merely provide peripheral exposition...

Like in POPPY, centered on classy bad guys sparked by a local London bank robber returned from Paris to bring the money back...

And James Booth, who ironically played a Flying Squad captain in Peter Yates's ROBBERY, makes POPPY (slang for money) a smooth handling of snappy dialogue involving where Booth's Vic Labbett is hiding-out, hiding the money and exactly when he plans on splitting...

With former partner John Rhys-Davies, whose future RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK booming voice is complimented by Booth, they make a great pair in the relatively few scenes shared...

Instead each has a dame on their hands: Rhys-Davies with Booth's spurned ex-wife and scene-stealer Helen Gill, a patient other-woman for our resilient blagger, who, later involved in a terrific empty airfield car chase, is both deadly-violent and dryly-humorous...

Ending on a note that could have (totally suspending disbelief) ignited a con-conning-con series all its own...

Perhaps, like throughout this episode, the crooked duo would team against genuine crooks in shifty middlemen bankers, herein providing twits and turns for SWEENEY cops John Thaw as Regan and Dennis Waterman as Carter, who seem like special guest stars on their own series, and don't seem to mind the back seat ride.
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