Season 10 Episode 31

Episode 418

 

Sky One Transmission Date:

Sunday 27th May 2007

 

Directed By

Riitta-Leena Lynn

 

Frank Patcham in flashback

 

 

Jason and his dad in flashback (circa 1999)

 

 

Phil doesn't believe Jason could be Dragonslayer

 

 

Katy defends Jason to the team

 

 

Sully really is getting dangerous

GS: Karl Fletcher (Terry Kiely)  Frank Patcham (John Salthouse)  Phil (Dominic Doughty)  Deano (Aston Kelly) 

Martin Foreman (John Burton)

 

At a meeting with Tyson and a lawyer, Jimmy serves Jason with his official termination letter. Jason goes to the lads at training, and again protests his innocence. His pleas fall on deaf ears however, and Jason next encounters Amy, who tips off a press colleague on the real reasons Jason is leaving the club. Jason tries to explain to Katy how it was another letter he was writing to her, but she is too angry to comprehend his story, and they are both being evicted from the Barrons. Jason heads for Phil and Deano's new garage, where their boss is furious to see Jason, having been exposed as Dragonslayer, before spitting at him! Phil hands Jason the keys to his place for him to stay at. After watching Gavin, Miguel and Sean denounce him on television, Jason heads straight for the police station intent on confessing the truth about J.F's death. As he prepares for what he will say, Fletch reappears and reminds him his actions really will be the end of the club's title chances. Fletch takes Jason on a trip down memory lane, and makes Jason realise that no matter what was going on in his life, the club was always there for him, and now he could find a way of saving them himself.

 

Jason tells the police he was alone with J.F the night he died, but it was an accident and he tried to save him. He repeats this to the awaiting press, adding it is true that he is Dragonslayer - to a watching Sully's shock, plus the trio over Jason's false admission regarding J.F's demise. Phil questions Jason about his Dragonslayer admission, and Jason backs it, to Phil's confusion and anger. He can't understand how Jason could do this to Harchester. Sully finds Jason drinking at the Grange, and after stopping an irate Dragons fan from decking Jason, takes him back to the flat, trying to work out Jason's motives for claiming to be Dragonslayer. Katy flashes back to the night of Jason's birthday, and remembers the exact time he came in and how she was told the others were with him all night. When she questions them about this, Miguel continues to deceive her, and Gavin is becoming more and more uncomfortable with the ongoing lying. During the night, Sully goes out to Jason who is sleeping on the sofa. Danny is wild with paranoia, and is almost on the verge of suffocating Jason as he demands to know why he’s saying he’s Dragonslayer. Jason panics that he was just trying to make things better, and upon hearing the commotion Amy rushes in and stops him.

 

The day before the big game, Harchester are preparing to stop Man U's title bid by beating Chelsea. As Tyson and Gavin enter the showers, they both fall after slipping on a tampered with floor. They are both checked over and Gavin is 50/50 but Tyson is definitely out for the game, as he's suffered ligament damage. Tyson is gutted, as a satisfied Danny watches on. They discover some sort of liquid was poured onto the shower floor. Katy finds Jason, and is determined to get to the bottom of why he's claiming to be Dragonslayer, when the police pull up and take Jason away following the incident at the club. Sully is worried when the liquid he used brings out a rash Tyson is also experiencing, and is nearly caught by Shakey bandaging his hand. As the team now face a crisis over tomorrow's starting line-up, Katy bursts into the dressing room pleading for them to realise Jason didn't do this. She tells them of having seen how Jason reacted when taken away by the police. Gavin speaks out and asks what if Katy is right, inevitably revealing the truth of how Jason wasn't alone with Freddericks when he died, as he Miguel and Sean were there too.

 

The team go mad, and Jimmy is disgusted, while Gavin tells him he shouldn't let the team’s chances suffer tomorrow when they are unsure Jason is Dragonslayer. Katy speaks with Jimmy that if he doesn't go and get Jason out of the police station she will put Gavin, Miguel and Sean in there herself. The team continue to debate on what to do over Jason, and Tyson hobbles in to state that tomorrow they have to field the strongest team possible, and admits he believes Jason would not have injured him. Soon Jason is out, but Jimmy is still not convinced, as Jason had Dragonslayer's letter, and Jason explains it’s not his style and Jimmy knows this. It is only when Jason reveals that claiming to be Dragonslayer was his way of bringing the team back together, which worked, that Jimmy begins to believe him. With his place back in the team, Katy tells Jason she can’t attend the match tomorrow, and when he pleads he’ll be playing for her Katy tells him not to, and to do it for himself. The team drift to sleep all set for the biggest game in their careers tomorrow. Only Sully is still awake. He lurks around the club at night, with a sinisterly bulky holdall bag. In the dressing room, he opens the bag and removes the contents: petrol canisters. He too is all set for tomorrow!

 

Notes:

 

Best Known For: John Burton's credits include "Noah's Ark" (1997-98), "Always and Everyone" (1999-2000), "Crossroads" (2001), head of very last "Brookside" family Alan Gordon (2002), "Coronation Street" for its 50th anniversary tram crash (2010), and most famously Sergeant Goodfellow in more than 100 episodes to date of "Father Brown" (2014-24)

 

The Best: John Salthouse taking time out from producing DT to make a new on-screen appearance as Frank Patcham. We were really treated with returns for the end of DT, first with Fletch for a multi-story arc, now Frank and two huge treats in time for the end as we see in the next episode.

 

Foreshadowing: “I’m going to finish it…”  “You give that lighter to me!”  “Lynda?”  “Ryan!!” [see 10.32 The Final Whistle Part 2]

 

Continuity: Fletch takes Jason back to the day the team won the FA Cup at Wembley (2.76) with archive footage of Sean and Luis. To Luke Davenport's hatrick on his debut (7.3 Amazing Grace). To Fletch's testimonial (7.2 Long Live The King). And the day Jason signed his schoolboy forms with the club, where Frank Patcham tells him he could one day be playing on the Dragon’s Lair pitch (should be summer 1999 as Frank had already left the club by the time the Lair opened in 3.1). After being taken out of the game by his oldest-supposed-pal, Tyson tells Sully he wanted to lift the trophy for Clyde and all the boys who never made it off the coach, mentioning Curtis and Presley (8.32 Play Off). Jason refers to how his big mouth got him into all this with Alex Rose (10.1 Dragon Till I Die).

 

Additional Info: Jason caught a ball kicked into the stands by Scott Lucas when he was thirteen (2000-01 season), and didn't wash his hands for three days afterwards. He also had a superstition that seat G23 was lucky because he saw Fletch score the goal of the season from there.

 

Soundtrack: Fatboy Slim: "Bird of Prey",  Prodigy: "Breathe",  Take That: "Patience",  The Fray: "How To Save A Life",  Unkle: "Eye 4 An Eye"

 

Behind The Scenes: At 12:30pm on Friday 1st June 2007, Sky Sports News aired a special 10-minute feature on DT and its upcoming final episode. This replaced what would have been an advert for the last episode to be shown on Sky One during the penultimate week, and included a live studio interview with Terry Kiely himself.

 

<<SE10 EP30  Season 10 Main Page  |  SE10 EP32>>