How did you feel about Season 9?

[binkie]

Okay. I have a new question concerning what has come to be known by all residents of the binkie household as the season-of-shame. Nevertheless, it is a genuine question, and I am genuinely interested to see how it might be addressed.

I have spent some time since the end of season 9 trying to make sense of a particular theme followed by the writers, and I simply cannot make it make sense on its own terms. Inside the principal theme of identity which formed such a major part of this season, there was a distinct sub-theme about - for want of a better word - suitability: how much of what you do is who you are? And how far does who you are render you suitable for what you do?

In ep1, Harry tells Beth that she was rejected from the Service on her initial application because of character flaws apparent at her interview. Her little-girl insistence in ep2 that she "didn't think [her mercenary background] would come up" indicates the Service was correct in its identification of these flaws. In ep4, Kai has it made plain to him that the work he knows he is doing on behalf of the Chinese Secret Service is, in fact, only part of the work he is doing for the Chinese Secret Service. Kai's aptitude for one type of secrecy renders him eminently suitable for another kind of secrecy, just not one to which he is consciously party. In ep7, we see confirmation that MI5 was correct in its repeated rejection of Mr Denny on the grounds of suitability. At the same time, we are shown that Ruth has reconciled herself to a version of the suitability she has, for some time, assumed to be something beyond her character. (A side note here: this reminded me of the moment in 2.5 when Ruth tells Tom she has realised she is "just [her] job, that without it she would "go completely to pieces" and that she is "happy with that". She has spent a long time trying to convince herself this is true, I think.) The Service was right about Mr Denny and, for different reasons, it was right about Ruth.

So what are we to make of the purpose of this sub-theme when it comes to John/Lucas? Presumably, the Service was right about Lucas - he passed all the background checks which did for Mr Denny. But John made it through the interview that undermined Beth's application. We must assume, for the sub-theme to make sense, that John would have been rejected outright if he had applied on his own account. We are presumably to conclude that this would have been another correct decision on the part of the Service. However, John has apparently spent 15 years as one of the best field officers Harry can recall, has endured and - more or less - survived eight years of brutal detention in a foreign country, and has kept London from the brink of destruction on several occasions. Whose, then, was the suitability? And why? And what is the point of the suitability sub-theme if it is not to reconcile the storyline with the narrative conceit that identity is what you make (of) it? Because if the purpose of this sub-theme was honestly intended to support the conclusion that Lucas didn't know he was John (his secret suitability test), it surely undermines itself. Or is that just me being a bit dim? Help me!!