Series 9 Episode 4 discussion

[Silktie]

I loved the threat of the week part of the story. Industrial espionage is a huge industry, and it was good to see it explored a little bit. I liked the interesting twist that it was in fact the US that "stole" China's scientist and thus their knowledge, and that China was basically trying to prevent her knowledge from being used by the US and UK. I loved Kai, I found him very human, and his scenes with Beth were great. My favourite Beth part of the episode was when she told Kai that he better look Jiang in the eye if he was going to shoot her. Her desperation came through in that scene fantastically well.

LOVED Harry and the HS' scenes, these two are just brilliant and tremendously entertaining. Their interaction has allowed them to bring some humour back to Spooks, for which I am eternally grateful. Also, it has allowed them to give Harry his mojo back, and the pithy one-liners are back in force. My favourite was Harry asking: "What are we in this, Guantanamo for boffins?" Bwah!

Ruth was fantastic. I'm so happy to see them do more with this character, and I'm sure NW is jumping for joy at the chance to be something other than the exposition fairy. She really is cool under pressure, isn't she? Also very happy to see her compassion make a return, in that scene with Beth and with Jiang. We need Ruth to sometimes put a human face on the numbers game, and I'm glad the writers remembered that.

Harry and Ruth was nicely handled in this episode, I thought, very understated and totally integrated into the main storyline.

I am totally befuddled by the Lucas storyline. I sincerely hope you all are correct and that he is playing some big double-bluff on Vaughn and Maya, but at the same time I have to admit I don't see it. If Harry was in on the whole thing, why was he so annoyed at Lucas disappearing and not answering his phone? That's taking the whole deception pretty far. Also, I don't pick up a false note in Lucas' scenes with Maya, so unless Lucas is a better actor than even RA, my impression is that he is really into the Maya thing boots and all. Please let me be wrong about this though, otherwise it'll be hard to redeem Lucas in my eyes. And if it does turn out that he sold out that poor sod just to save his own ass and secure a rosy future with Maya, he'll do well to remember that karma is a bitch who'll sneak up and smack him in the mouth when he least expects it.

And in this case, it would seem, Karma -Thy Name is Ruth.