Episode 1 Discussion

[JHyde]

It kept buffering but I got through it. Try fastpasstv.com if you want to watch outside UK.

Personally, I loved it. I've been meanign to say for quite some time that one of the most moving moments in the entire show is that scene in 5.1 when Malcolm has an outburst at Harry about Colin. Malcolm so rarely loses his temper that I blub when he does it. It has the same effect at the beginning of 8.1.

As to Ruth being different. Ruth had always longed for normality. Think back to season 3, with 3.5 and 3.7 in particular. She loves her work but she also always wanted life to matter in an everyday sense. Her life in Britain was over, and of course she would move on and try and experience it from the other side. But, of course, the stashed passports and bag bely that the spy in her was alive and well and ready.

The writers used an old and brilliant trick to keep Harry and Ruth apart at least for the beginning few episodes, and it looks like she's not back until maybe right at the end of episode 2 (judging by some of the photos taken on set by fans). Remember that Ruth was never a field officer, thinking rationally in the field was never something she had to do. In her heart of hearts, she knows what Harry did was right. She's not naive ( ) but she's not trained in the field and she'd just watched her husband die for God sakes! Of course she wasn't thinking rationally. This isn't Adam immediately after Danny's death.

It's a difficult thing to overcome. I'm not sure how they plan to.

Spoiler: show

But Peter Firth and Richard Armitage have both dropped big hints that the "chaste attraction" develops nicely, and really that's all we can ask for.

In some ways, terrible and dreadful and possibly insurmountable as this is to overcome, I rather think it levels the playing field. Nicola Walker once described Ruth as "worshipping" Harry, a little bit of hero worship maybe which is perhaps what her initial feelings came from. This experience must surely remove that. When she says "you heartless bastard" you can almost see it melting away. Maybe something more honest can grow from this, although truthfully, in real life, I think it would be very hard to do. And of course we know that Harry would have died rather than see what happened, happen.

I always found that internal conflict about Ruth one of the great things about her - she loved being a spy, but she loved normality too. Personally, I loved the episode, and I'm really excited for next week.