[spoilers] Hermione Norris/Ros

[binkie]

My first thought when Harry offered Ros a job in Section D was: "You'll never have her loyalty because you've taken away her father." Hermione Norris, as I think someone else in this thread has pointed out before, is something of a go-to resource for characterisations of brittle women who are keeping a lid on their lack of emotional equilibrium. For a while there, it looked as though this was all Spooks was asking her to do, just without giving her an in-show husband to serve as the means of her doom. What actually happened was much more interesting, and allowed the actor to explore other, subtle, areas of her range. It never occured to me that she was bored in her performance, or that she is limited in her ability.

Ros was probably quite a tricky character to play, if only because so much of what there was about her that anyone (including the viewer) was allowed to know was kept so far under the surface calm by the character herself. The shock of Ros' actions in destroying the hotel room in 7.2 is as substantial to her as it is to the viewer because it seems such a not-Ros thing to have done. Even at the same time, that response makes us realise that we don't really know what a not-Ros reaction is. That element of unknowingness, I thought, kept the character compelling and intriguing.