[spoilers] Lucas. Just Lucas.

[Byatil]

(22-11-2010 02:48 PM)Belle Wrote:  

(22-11-2010 02:21 PM)HellsBells Wrote:  This is just a thought.....but could Lucas have told the Russians who he really was and they simply didn't believe him. They knew he was Lucas North because Connie James had betrayed him and therefore just assumed he was lying about being John Bateman. They probably just kept torturing him until he agreed that he was Lucas North.

That could have happened indeed, but I kinda think that if they were hearing the name John Bateman, they sure would investigate this further, never knowing what they could come up with that they may could use as leverage.
Or at least find a way to examin Lucas Norths past. If the story of S9 made any sense, they sure would have find that picture that Beth found in 5 minutes (with the real Lucas North on it).

I think that, when the writers from S7 and S8 came up with this history for Lucas, there was no 'Lucas really is John Bateman' to be seen in miles, so there was no reason for the russian interogators to question Lucas about 'a different identity'. I really am incligned to see S9 as something that stand on its own and has no bearing on S7 and S8 what so ever. There are too many things that can't be explained in a satisfying manner. But that's just my opinion.

It doesn't make sense to me that the Russian's wouldn't have unearthed anything regarding Lucas' identity/history. Especially as (as you say) Beth was able to locate information about him in minutes. I also find it rather unlikely that Lucas would have been able to construct an entire past life for himself, and indeed, that the real Lucas North had no family or friends who would have missed him? It doesn't add up.

Seeing S9 as a stand-alone piece does help the story make slightly more sense, but the fact of the matter is that Lucas is a character who has been developed for 2 series prior to S9. You can't just discount that, and assume that no-one in the audience will notice/care that you've completely disregarded the characters history to suit yourself. The fact that they have used some information to support their argument which has been developed in S8+9, but not other pieces of information only supports this further. How can you pick and choose information from a characters history to suit yourself, without realising that doing so will put the characters entire history under scrutiny?

And lets face it, the Russians would more than likely have wanted to know if Lucas was using aliases which could potentially have infiltrated their systems. He would have had a Russian alias when he was captured I assume, and the Russians would have been asking about his British identity. It is possible, as I said, that they just never really bothered looking for further information once they had confirmed his identity as Lucas North... but when it's that easy for Beth to discover his 'true' identity, you do have to wonder why no-one else thought to check earlier. Especially seeing as Lucas was never really trusted.

None of it adds up for me. Either the writers thought we wouldn't notice, or MI5's security/background checks are severely compromised!