Series 9 Episode 7 discussion

[A Cousin]

(02-11-2010 12:33 PM)Tea Lady Wrote:  I also have quite a problem believing that Lucas North would have disclosed his true intentions about joining MI5 to John Bateman who was just a mate who he worked with in a casino.

That is why they were smoking that very badly rolled joint. People do and say really stupid things when they are stoned. That and they were the only Englishmen there - there was forced comraderie. At least that was my rationalization for why the real Lucas North told John about his plans for MI5.

I had to watch this once and then I turned around and watched it again and am still trying to process it all. The only way I can do so is to take a step back from it and find the big picture.

For me it came very close to "jumping the shark" as we say here is the US. The only thing keeping it from strapping on the water skis was the incredible acting from PF, RA and NW and the fact that I know that Spooks has to be indulgent every now and again to keep the characters moving forward - in whatever welcome or unwelcome direction that may be. They will get back to the business of the business again. By that I mean that Spooks usually does a better job of balancing the threat du jour with character development but this one was all character. The character stuff was fantastic this week. The threat du jour was extremely weak.

It seems our little troika of characters: Harry, Lucas and Ruth all have a lot of blood on their hands. Lucas and Ruth are both going off the edge with Harry in between desperately trying to pull them both back. I like how they are challenging what we thought we knew of both of these characters.

The moments that worked very well for me:

~ The parallel and symbolic action of Lucas and Ruth turning the picture of their past lives over.
~ The parallel of Lucas telling Harry that Lucas North is dead and Ruth telling Harry that, for all intents and purposes, she is so dead inside that she is fine and ready to go back to work.
~ Harry and Lucas' scene. PF went OTT a bit for me when Lucas told him his real name, but for the most part it was fantastic.
~ All of Ruth's scenes with Keith Deery. He was great.
~ The park scene with Lucas and Vaughan. Knife in the leg - *shudder*!

Now off the the character threads to see what everyone has to say there!