Episode 7 Discussion [rewatch]

[lwhite53]

This is not one of the stronger eps and I agree, as said earlier, that it seems to have lost its way. I think the problem is that the whole structure of the ep is off-kilter. Once the decision is made to use JJ as the clean skin, the point of the ep is revealed but that happens way too early. Harry's line "Terrorists aren't the only one to manipulate youth. It's all part of the game," should have come in the last 10 mins of the ep, not the first 10. So the rest of the ep is pretty much playing "catch up," trying to justify the moral dilemma posed, and it lacks dramatic tension, imo, especially when compared with the earlier ep of the child suicide bomber (2.2).

There were a couple of good Ruth moments -- when she says "Well if that isn't illegal, it's very, very naughty" (only Ruth would put it that way) and when she says to Harry, "You have to tell them," earning her one of H's death stares!

In the scene where JJ is working with the computer simulation, the juxtaposition of the all-white, well schooled, highly trained MI5 officers and the young, black, street hustler savant who was going to save them was such a cliched image, I couldn't believe it. Bad, bad directorial choice, imo.

The character I thought most morally unambiguous was, interestingly enough, Denton. He loved JJ but also recognized he had nothing to offer the boy, so he gives him to MI5 hoping they could change his life and thereby his future. A heroic act, I think.