TV Week
9th May 1998
In one of the most dramatic episodes this year, fearless Frank faces the barrel of a gun …
Frank Holloway can be as cold as steel, and nearly as hard, but it’s not often even the toughest of crimefighters find themselves look down the barrel of a gun.
And like steel, when the heat is on, even the most rigid coppers can find themselves facing a meltdown of massive proportions.
So it’s no surprise then when Frank (played by Colin Friels) comes face-to-barrel with the wrong end of a gun this week, he’s thrown into a mid-life crisis.
Not that he makes it obvious – as always, Frank soldiers on and it’s up to Goldie (Catherine McClements), his partner and his closest ally, to realise there are ripples of trouble under his usually calm waters.
In one of the most dramatic episodes of Water Rats this year, Frank gives chase to an armed robber through Sydney Harbour’s maze-like waterways.
The pair struggle, the crim gets the upper hand and before Frank can wrestle back control things take a very nasty turn.
“Bang! He’s taken a head-shot at me,” Frank says in the episode.
Then there’s screaming, blood and his life beings to slowly unravel.
“I could see his eyes,” a shaken and bloody Frank tells Goldie.
“I knew the crazy bastard was going to pul the trigger. I knew I was dead.”
And what will he leave behind if he is killed on the job?
Who will remember him and what he has achieved?
These are just a few of the weighty questions Frank deals with in the show after his life flashes before his eyes.
“I wouldn’t have left anything behind, not even a kid.” an exasperated Frank says to his partner.
“Just a stain on the ground.”
And, like all good mid-life crises, this one looks like it might herald a complete change in lifestyle.
Could it be the thing that finally drags Frank away from the police force and the life he has known and loved for so many years?
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