[spoilers] Lucas. Just Lucas.

[Byatil]

(23-11-2010 01:24 AM)BravoNine Wrote:  

(23-11-2010 12:22 AM)Byatil Wrote:  I'm desperate to find out if there is any plausible way he could actually be John Bateman...?

Mentally, there is every plausible way that Lucas could be John Bateman, with the way Lucas's head is messed up at times, I can see how his mind could have just forgotten John Bateman and casted that aside. The mind sometimes don't work in normal ways, and I could make myself believe that this plotline is plausible.

But physically and logically, the storyline the writers introduced as to HOW he became Lucas North is the main issue, that he somehow fooled MI5 and just about every other agency is the most implausible thing ever. Not to mention that the writers then end up contradicting it with scenes of Beth taking less than 5 seconds finding out the real Lucas North or Alec White finding out about Maya and John Bateman going to university together, and not to mention Lucas saying that he had been so careful.

I mean, if it didn't take that much for Alec or Beth to find out the truth, then I can't say he was very careful. All the mental stuff aside, the logics of how he became Lucas North in this storyline is very poorly explained, and that is the BIGGEST reason why I simply cannot believe that Lucas has been hiding his John side.

I do agree with you that the biggest plot-hole lies in the fact that it was so easy to uncover Lucas' "true" identity, but I digress... there should still have been some sign of John earlier in the story. If Lucas is so fragile he has constant nightmares/flash-backs and seems to react strongly to certain trigger-words, then it really doesn't make sense to me that he would NEVER have made any reference to anything which might have explained him having a different identity. As has been pointed out - the plot would have made sense in Beth's character arc, because she has some back-story which supports the theory that she could have a 'secret identity'. There was no such back-story with Lucas xD

The writers definitely created a very shocking finale... but it wasn't a very intelligent or reasonable one. Why are we supposed to believe that after 20 years, Lucas suddenly realises his undying love for Maya? Even though throughout S&8, all we have seen is his lack of commitment in relationships? The only piece of information we have is that he was married to Elisabeta. But we're never told the details of the marriage. Was the marriage used in order to help Lucas work undercover in Russia? Did he ever really love her? He claims he did, but as soon as Maya pops up, his past relationships are all put under scrutiny. I feel like Maya was a horrifically useless device, whose only purpose was to ensure that Lucas got to take his shirt off one last time before he disappeared. There is nothing to support anything that happens in S9 in the previous series. Psychological trauma could, to an extent, explain Lucas/John's dual persona, but even then, there should have been some hint, however small, that he wasn't who he said he was. In Connie's character arc we can see an example of the writers carrying out a 'traitor' plot-line effectively. Small hints are dropped throughout S8 to suggest she isn't who she claims to be, and she eventually has her redemption. I'm not saying that Lucas shouldn't have (apparently) committed suicide, but it would have been a damned site more believable if his character had been fleshed out properly. Instead, we were left with a dodgy extension tacked on to his original character, which ran away with the plot and ultimately ruined all the work everyone had done creating Lucas North in the first place :/

(This isn't all directed at you by the way BravoNine! I'm just ranting generally).