Series 9 Episode 8 discussion

[binkie]

Well, that was a waste of shellfish...

Like conniesachs above, I thought I would leave it a while before posting so I could try to get some perspective on the thing. I thought perhaps that would reduce the extent to which my response would be just a stream of incensed invective. I’m not sure that’s worked, though, as a brilliant plan!

I watched most of season 9 with someone who hasn’t seen an episode of Spooks since about season 5. She knew very little of Lucas, or his back story, beyond what I had mentioned in passing since 2008 (I might also add that she has no interest in Richard Armitage). She did, however, have fond memories of Spooks as an engaging piece of television with a good handle on emotionally coherent storytelling, and was pleased to see Harry and Ruth still in place. At the end of 9.8, which she watched in silence, she sighed and said: “Well that was pretty insulting.”

Almost a week later, that’s still a pretty accurate summation of my feelings towards this season in general, and even this episode in particular. I find also that the further away from it I get, the worse the whole thing begins to look; the more the errors and shortcomings are compounded and highlighted, and shown up for the panicky low-grade carbon copy (Mad Men, anyone?) get-out clauses they are. I take no pleasure in this criticism. It makes me sad, because one of the things I have always liked best about Spooks was the way in which it has managed so admirably to sketch a credible narrative between a set of heightened, and incredible, circumstances. Spooks is not a documentary, or a piece of gritty realist drama. It requires, and makes usually excellent use of, a different set of devices to tell a different kind of story inside the skin of an enjoyable drama. I don’t mean to suggest that there was nothing enjoyable about season 9, and of course I will watch season 10, but I am saddened at what I can’t help but see as a somewhat high-handed and dismissive attitude on the part of the writers towards not only the characters, but also the audience.

A number of problematic logic and narrative gaps have been mentioned already (and, really, it shouldn’t be necessary to call attention to ‘a number of problematic logic and narrative gaps’ in a piece of high-value programming). What troubles me even more than these, though, is that it is so obvious the writers feel they have done a good job of re-casting in retrospect Lucas’ actions and motives from previous seasons. It is possible to identify all the incidents and dialogue from seasons 7 and 8 which we are now to take as evidence of John, but which in fact fail utterly to convince in this light because they were so clearly never intended to be taken as such. When, for example, Lucas says to Sarah in 8.6, as she holds a gun to his head, “Take me with you”, it is not an indication of his criminal need to take advantage of the next opportunity for reinvention, it is an acknowledgement that here is a profoundly isolated, psychologically battered, institutionally abused human being who is incapable of identifying himself as an individual unless it is in the context of his value as an object of exploitative interest. This is the rhetorical function of that moment. Trying to superimpose some other purpose on moments like this is an example of bad and lazy writing because it shows such a lack of awareness of structural integrity. By far the worst facet of this kind of lazy writing, with its conscious ignorance of purpose, is that 9.8 itself functionally requires the audience to conclude that Lucas did indeed deserve everything that happened to him in prison, and that he is self-obsessed and cowardly for being reluctant to accept incarceration for a second time. That is a morally reprehensible conclusion, even taking into account the ludicrous John factor, and I am more than disappointed in the writers for having drawn it.

This post is in danger of getting out of hand! I suspect most of it should have gone under the ‘What did you think of season 9?’ thread. I may yet visit that thread to add more. Certainly, I have things to add to the Lucas thread. I shall finish for now, though, by saying that I am quite aware there were more elements to this season than the Lucas storyline. At some point, I may find sufficient motivation to consider some of them.

Apologies to anyone who finds my writing style impenetrable. I’m not this stuffy in real life!