[spoilers] Sir Harry Pearce - Return of the Jedi (#3)

[Silktie]

(27-01-2011 04:33 PM)HellsBells Wrote:  But maybe Spooks is becoming too much about Harry, he doesn't seem to have anyone to whom he answers to within MI5 and seems to run his department with complete autonomy. We didn't see anything of the JIC in series 9, and when Harry is battling these people he is at his best.

Hmm, not sure that I agree with this. I think the amount of autonomy he has has changed little over the seasons. What has changed is the face of the control he is answerable to. In earlier seasons it was the JIC in some form or other - think Mace and Juliet. But since season 5 that has mostly changed to the person of the Home Secretary. He has been just as answerable to Blake, and later Towers, than he had been to Mace and Juliet. Think how he was powerless to refuse when Blake ordered him to bomb that train in Tehran in season 6, or how he was unable to refuse when Towers ordered him to let an FSB agent onto the Grid. And he still has to get clearance for operations from the Home Secretary - once again he had to get Towers' permission to send his people to kill that terrorist in 9.1.