Posts
We were given a frankly terrifically jam-packed opener, where more took place before that credits sequence than I actually remember happening in some of the entire earlier series. Essentially, Ros (who got blown up at the end of last series - Nope? Me neither... it all seems such a long time ago...) only managed to attract 5 people to her funeral prompting Harry into a crisis of conscience. "Do you ever feel like you can't go on?" He asked Ruth, seemingly unaware of the luck he's experienced being the only main character to survive from the first series. But surely good old Harry wouldn't tender his resignation to the new home secretary later in the episode, would he? Ruth then presented him with the bombshell that Robert Glenister's marvellous home secretary had all the while been in the employ of Nightingale (shady corporation behind much of the action in the last series), prompting everyone's favourite MI5 knight of the realm to pay him a visit with some 'special' whisky. Death by whisky, arguably one of the greatest methods Spooks has ever served up.
After the credits we found Lucas North, who'd traded his sharp-lined dark shirts for a grubby khaki jacket and an accent, aboard a ship, tasked with the assassination of a top Al Qaeda (or 'AQ' as the 'professionals' call them) chief (no, not that one). He had a chat with ship's captain Dimitri (from Russia via Romford... as it happens, because he was a spy too) but before he could carry out his orders the ship was boarded by, yes, Somali pirates. Which reminds me...
Tangent #1
The topicality of Spooks is marvellous, as well as the Somali pirates there were some nice references to the Coalition thanks to the brilliantly odious new home secretary, played by the excellent Simon Russell Beale and his slightly uneasy initial relationship with stalwart of the old guard Harry. I'm surely not the first to point out that Spooks' equal parts glamorous and gritty portrayal of life in the Secret Service is perhaps a little unrealistic -at no point does Lucas North accidentally leave some crucial documents on a train, Tariq is able to reel off reams of bizarre technobabble uninterrupted by workplace discrimination and main characters are dispensed with faster than you can yell 'don't open the door, Rupert, there's a car bomb' at your telly - however, it's able to get away with providing a frankly terrifying vision of a London constantly under attack from nefarious baddies, computer hackers, ex-spies, ex-mentors of spies and environmentalists because of the flecks of topicality that it drip-feeds each episode with.
Well, the Somali pirates threw a spanner in the works. Remember that Russian prostitute played by whatsherface out of Hallam Foe and Art School Confidential that I conveniently hadn't mentioned up until this point? No, of course you don't. Anyway, she's a spy too... well, private contractor called Beth who then helps Lucas to break away from the captives and eventually escape to an airfield, leaving Dimitri to face the remaining pirates and stop them from making it to Plymouth where they planned to splatter the Queen with exploding boat debris, which he did. However said explosives had mysteriously disappeared when he went to check them, along with some submersibles (what we used to call submarines when I was a boy... except sort of robot submarines... choc full of plastic explosive). The Queen splattering was a decoy! Beth turned up in the middle of all this, basically to ask Harry for a job, prompting some more brooding from Lucas. The big news however was that explosive submersibles had breached the Thames Barrier (tick off Thames Barrier -again - on your National Security Risks bingo card) were on their way to Westminster as we speak.
The only way to stop them (after threatening an unbudging teenage hacker at gunpoint failed) was for Harry to make exactly the kind of terrible decision that had prompted him to tender his resignation in the first place. Beneath the Houses of Parliament lay an EMF bomb that would knock out all electronics within a kilometre's radius. Ruth reminded him it was a last resort and would knock out all computer systems in that area. "So the country will have to struggle on without internet pornography and Minesweeper for a couple of hours. Do it." Drawled Harry, the spirit of Ros' classic 'I am not impressed by anything' rhetoric living on despite her immolation. Ruth then pointed out that it was all computers again, for instance pacemakers and life support machines. "Bugger!" Harry's face seemed to say. Nevertheless, he gave the order. Cue befuddled Londoners staring at their kaputt mobiles on Westminster Bridge.
Wowzers trousers, all that action, surely no more major revelations can be made in this episode, right? Wrong! Harry told the home secretary to tear up his letter of resignation, providing Peter Firth a stay of execution for another year (that's worth 7 in Spooks years, mind). Elsewhere, Lucas bumped into a man who'd had a stroke who called him 'John' prompting a mortified look reminiscent of Armitage's classic turn as Guy of Gisborne, very much the real star of BBC's Robin Hood. The stroke victim then dropped a briefcase at Lucas' feet and left.
Bloody hell, eh? Revelations all round. What does Beth know? Is she really going to be killed off next week as the preview suggests (bloody preview spoilers... tsk...)? John? What's all this about John?
Well, frankly I wouldn't be surprised if it was just a curveball and he'd just gone to Deed Poll...
Line(s) of the Week:
'Don't think I won't kill you because you're a teenage girl.' Lucas
'I'm suitably ennobled.' Harry
No comments:
Post a Comment