by Mark Murton

Original Air Date: Sept 10, 2021

Directed by: Tom Marshall

Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains spoilers for this episode!

Synopsis: In this episode of the BBC sit-com, the latest assignment for crime scene cleaner Wicky (Greg Davis) sees him at the home of a pompous author suffering writer’s block (David Mitchell) whose grandmother died in a boiler explosion in the living room.

Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): Instructed (and then bribed) by the increasingly irritable writer to work as quietly as possible, Wicky tries to comply but with only limited success. After another near-disaster he goes to step outside the patio door for a breath of air and is confronted by a black cat on the lawn.

As he bends down to speak to the cat, it (actually a dummy version) leaps at his face and clings on as Wicky falls back into the house.

He manages to prise the cat off, and the kitty runs off somewhere in the house.

Periodically the cat can be heard crying but isn’t seen. Towards the end of episode Wicky is still trying to locate the cat. As he crawls around the floor calling, the cat suddenly reappears sitting on the living room floor.

Wicky gathers up the kitty only to be attacked again, at which point he opens the patio door and boosts the feline back outside where it runs off. During his exchanges with the writer, Wicky has accused him of seemingly not being upset at the death of his grandmother and at the end of the episode the writer reveals he recently cried for a week . . . when his cat ran away.

Final Mewsings: Cats’ cleaning duties extend only to themselves.

Relevant Links:

To discuss this episode and other cats in movies and on television, join us on Facebook and X.