(29-09-2011 09:55 AM)Tea Lady Wrote:  On another note I do wonder how Towers got to see the file Harry prepared on Ruth. Harry left the Inquiry with it. The panel didn't need to see it. Surely that means Harry gave Towers the file?? Why would Harry do that??

I am pretty sure I remember several copies of the report on Ruth being passed out to the panel just prior to Towers calling the High Inquisitor out of the room. Upon re-watch, I noticed that it wasn't one big thick file on Ruth, rather it was several copies - enough for each inquisitor. Since the panel clearly takes directive from the HS, I think he got it from one of them.

The Towers/Harry relationship is interesting this time around. I am very glad that SRB has more to do. No idea where it is going though. Maybe Towers is the impersonator? (Mostly joking on that one.... )

(29-09-2011 01:25 PM)A Cousin Wrote:  The Towers/Harry relationship is interesting this time around. I am very glad that SRB has more to do. No idea where it is going though. Maybe Towers is the impersonator? (Mostly joking on that one.... )

That thought has crossed my mind more than once and is not too unrealistic. Perhaps he doesn't really want the Russian deal, but can't be seen to lose face and he knows Harry is the best person to resist it, OR maybe he just wants Harry and MI5 out of the way and is using Harry to shoot himself in the foot. Plus he's very keen to get his hands on Ruth to get her out of the fall out?

(29-09-2011 01:48 PM)loladom Wrote:  

(29-09-2011 01:25 PM)A Cousin Wrote:  The Towers/Harry relationship is interesting this time around. I am very glad that SRB has more to do. No idea where it is going though. Maybe Towers is the impersonator? (Mostly joking on that one.... )

That thought has crossed my mind more than once and is not too unrealistic. Perhaps he doesn't really want the Russian deal, but can't be seen to lose face and he knows Harry is the best person to resist it, OR maybe he just wants Harry and MI5 out of the way and is using Harry to shoot himself in the foot. Plus he's very keen to get his hands on Ruth to get her out of the fall out?

I try to not move ahead any further than I have too or I get hopelessly confused. I have a hard enough time keeping up with it as it is happening much less keeping up with all the possible speculative theories! Which is part of the reason that I am not reading the BBC press releases this time around. So take that into consideration as you read the below.

As the facts stand right now (end of 10.2), Towers called the "stay of execution" of Harry because Gavrik requested it. (Not sure Towers would have done it otherwise?) Towers has told Harry in no uncertain terms that he needs to make nice-nice with the Russians. Towers arranged for the Gavrik's to come to the UK without informing the security services and have met in secret. Gavrik and Harry have "something else" between them that I think has nothing to do with Elena. Maybe the killing of British officers in the past as Harry tells the HS. Am I missing anything?

The only speculation I will make is that those three men (and probably Coaver as well) are intertwined in a way not yet fully revealed. Elena might just be a smoke screen by the writers to get us looking in one direction (Harry/Elena/Ruth) when we should be looking in another (Harry/Gavrik/Towers). If so, it's probably like shooting fish in a barrel.

You are wise not to read any BBC press releases. They are pretty depressing for episodes 4 and 5.

I think you are right about Harry/Gavrik/Towers/Coaver. It would not be Spooks if the storyline was only Harry/Ruth/Elena. It would be too obvious. There must be a political aspect to the arc.

I understand how Harry/Gavrik/Coaver are linked through their Cold War past. I wonder how Towers fits with these men. Does he suspect that Harry's liaison with Elena, which he might know about, might have provoked the killing of British officers in the past? Would he seek revenge on Harry and Ilya? Didn't the HS once talked about his misspent youth traveling through Israel and others places.

The secret visit of the Gavriks to Towers is very suspicious. I can't remember whether the talks are supposed to be secret? Or is there a more sinister signification to that visit?

I do not even want to get into the Harry/Elena/Ruth/Towers relationships. Somehow I feel it safer to speculate about the repercutions of the intelligence wars from the 70s to the present.

From the 10.2 discussion thread. Harry mentions that he had made arrangements for Elena's defection but it didn't proceed. How did you interpret this line?

Did Harry make the arrangements and then turn his back on her and leave her (like Erin did to Martha) OR did Elena refuse to go? Do we know?

Would she have been able to defect with Sasha?

I thought Harry decided against it, because it would have put Elena and Sasha in danger. If she defected, the Russians would know she'd been a spy, and would probably have tried to get to her and kill her wherever the British took her. It could also have nullified the intelligence they got from her - Russia would have changed everything she'd had access to.

But I'm just speculating, I don't think it has been made clear yet. It will probably be gradually revealed in the future episodes.

I took it to mean the decision was taken by Harry, as you say, because it was too dangerous for Elena and Sacha. (Not to mention Harry) It clearly wasn't the CIA's decision. Perhaps taking Sacha was too difficult. If Ilya still thought Sacha was his, as a high ranking KGB officer, he would've scoured the earth for his only son and Harry did say Ilya thought the world of ELena. Would he have let them go?

I took it to mean Harry burned Elena at great personal cost. He may have persuaded Elena it was too dangerous and she may therefore not resent him for it. Didn't Ruth say as much in ep1?
I think more about that will emerge and I don't think it will cast Harry in a good light, but his decision, like always, will have been about a great good dilemma.

I know some fans have thought that Elena wants revenge on Harry because she was left behind, but I got the impression that she didn;t want to leave. Harry was cagy about the details, but that was because he hadn't told his team he had been sleeping with Elena, but it makes more sense to me logically that Elena wouldn't have left. I mean why would she leave a husband as powerful as Ilya - presumably with a good job, v good money and also the status that being his wife entailed - when Harry had nothing to offer her except possibly be his mistress? He was married with kids and I'd bet he wasn't planning on leaving his wife at that point for a woman he'd 'presumably' fathered a child with - which could also have been her husband's. There was probably a lot of passion and desire between them but its not like they got to know eachother properly or had a normal relaionship. I dount Harry and Elena woudl have lasted in a 'real relationship' even if he did leave his wife and kids. I also don't see Elena chucking all her prestige away for an uncertain life in England with Harry. I think she loved both Harry and Ilya and preferred her current life/lifestyle. Just a thought.

(01-10-2011 01:20 AM)A Cousin Wrote:  From the 10.2 discussion thread. Harry mentions that he had made arrangements for Elena's defection but it didn't proceed. How did you interpret this line?

Did Harry make the arrangements and then turn his back on her and leave her (like Erin did to Martha) OR did Elena refuse to go? Do we know?

Would she have been able to defect with Sasha?

As Silktie says this will probably become clearer in future episodes..hopefully But for me, everything is pointing to Elena choosing not to defect. Not to have a life with Harry. Harry said to Ruth in 10.2 that he did try to see Sasha, to make it work. If you look at the timeline, Harry met Elena in 1981 and burned her in 1983. So lets say that Sasha was born late 1981 then. How on earth can Sasha therefore remember meeting Harry like he said, when Sasha turned up in his flat in 10.1? Sasha would only have been 1 or 2 years old when Elena was burned. You wouldn't remember at that age. Also in the flashback scene, the child looks about 5 yrs old?

Was it possible for Harry to have seen Elena and Sasha in 1986-87 perhaps in West Berlin or West Germany? Otherwise, Sasha could not have been Harry's son if they met for the last time in 1984. He was really Ilya's son. But why does Harry think that Sasha is his son?

Angie - I agree. I also thought that Elena would never have left Ilya for Harry in 1984 or even more so now that he is a disgraced Head of Section. I don't think that Elena had a liaison with Harry out of love. It might have been lust or to spy on him. The privileges that the powerful position Ilya had as a high-ranking KGB official and his current wealth would have prevented Elena to leave him. Look at her garde-robe! I don't think that Harry could afford to offer her these luxuries.