Series 9 Episode 7 discussion

[BravoNine]

(03-11-2010 12:36 PM)Kirayuki Wrote:  I don't fell cheated at all. To be perfectly honest i never thought Lucas was squeaky clean. Not in the slightest. He has pretty much always been under some suspicion since series 7 so it's not all that surprising to me.

No one said he was squeaky clean, he was always toeing the lines and testing boundaries, running off being a maverick, and making horrible choices when it comes to his love life. But ultimately he was always shown to be the guy whom his team can depend on, who backed up his people in a crisis, and risked everything to get Harry out of trouble.

So now I'm suppose to turn around and believe that one freakin' suitcase and a picture of an old girlfriend suddenly turned him into this traitorous psychopath?

Maybe you don't have difficulty disgusting this, but I hope you understand why myself and other fellow Spooks fans have trouble swallowing this storyline that is full of holes.

We've been told from numerous interviews that Lucas is a complex character who is ambiguous, carries both shades of light and dark, goodness and distrust, but who is ultimately a hero. And now suddenly we have him going crazy psycho on everyone and being a straight-up dark character of evil? We were never given indications that he told anything while he was in prison for those 8 years, but now we are being told that the last two series were just lies? And really, is MI5's vetting process really THAT bad?

If they were to run a storyline that Lucas is really working with the Russians and turned against his country, I would hate it, but then at least I can accept it, that I can understand that through his pain and suffering and feelings of abandonment that he turned against his country in anger or whatever, but this gigantic big fat lie is just way too much for me to swallow.

I never believe that Lucas was pure good and squeaky clean, but this, while it's very exciting, is just way too ludicrous and ridiculous.....

I'm glad you enjoy this and feel good about it, I wish I would too, but I would have to stop crying first...

[HellsBells]

I have some questions concerning 9.7.
1) At the beginning after Harry and Lucas get back from seeing Vaughn, Vaughn calls Lucas and the Chinese are listening in, do the Chinese then make a phone call and speak french ?
2)Is Vaughn in love with Maya because I think he was genuinely protecting her from the Chinese and still had her photo ?
3)How did Lucas find Vaughn and Maya, what people did he speak to that wouldn't speak to Harry?

Off to change my signature now because I think we might just find out what Harry will do to Lucas if he's lying !!

[Kirayuki]

BravoNine: Okay, maybe squeaky clean wasn't the phrase i was after.

I also don't think it was as simple as a suitcase turning up and he's now bad. It took longer than that. He did try to stay loyal and good for a very long time in this series. He only actually flipped halfway through episode 7, so it was a gradual submittance to the darker side of him. Once you reach that state in your mind there is no going back. (I do have my doubts over him actually blowing up the Embassy and killing Lucas, i think his original version is much more likely that he wasn't bad before). Whether or not this is the case i just doubt that he could see a way out of the messy situation he was in and so threw himself right in the deep end. It's quite common amongst people in trouble.

Hope this makes more sense on where i stand.

HellsBells: I thought Vaughn was in love with Maya too. Jealously is a very powerful thing.

[molecatcher]

(03-11-2010 10:45 AM)BravoNine Wrote:  I also had an issue with why suddenly Blake was a bad guy, I mean, sure Blake was never always a goody-two-shoes character, but Harry always said that he was one of the few good politicians left and a good man, and now he's a part of Nightingale, which makes me wonder if they just did it for the shock value/storyline purposes rather than real character development. And that's the same parallel to Lucas/John with whom we have been shown for two series as a complex and ambiguous character who had both shades of light and dark but was ultimately loyal when it counted, but now suddenly we find out that those two years were just a bunch of lies and that he's really a psychopath.

Needless to say, the writers seem very into shock value this season.....

I guess the theme of this series is no one is who you think they are, so trust no one.......

You've hit the nail on the head with the parallels and that's why the writers made Blake the traitor at the beginning. In real life there are some dodgy high-powered organisations out there that are made up of politicians, including members of our government, businessmen and financial bods who get together on the quiet to discuss God knows what but the theory is they wish to influence world events, so it doesn't seem out of character that Blake would have been involved in Nightingale. The storyline has been Harry unravelling after killing Blake but just about holding it together. Now we come to the end of the series when his reaction to Lucas telling him he was in fact John was "God knows I've had my share of betrayal, but you?" so this could send him over the edge, literally!!

I can see why you feel betrayed by the writers for what they've done to Lucas but in many ways that says its a very clever story because you've been drawn in by him just as Harry was. AND, it is fiction so they're allowed!!

[Logsie]

Right, there several things we don't know yet.

Malcolm turned up at Thames House while Harry was out, yet he was shown into Harry's office and was left sitting there alone and unsupervised until his return to the grid! His security clearance obviously hasn't been revoked so does that mean he isn't actually retired?

John said to Harry that there were some people he could talk to (to help him find Vaughn) but that they wouldn't talk to Harry. They obviously came through because it didn't take John long to find his safe house. Why wasn't Harry more curious who these "people" were?

Did Maya know that John was consorting with drug dealers when he was a student? Surely he must have given her an explanation why he abandoned his studies and took off to Africa? If John was recruited from university to be groomed as a fall guy for the embassy bombing, was Maya in on it? Did she know the so-called "drug dealer", which would make her a honey trap. Also we don't know whether John's bomb was the real one. The building could have already been rigged to explode and they just needed a "patsy" to carry out a dummy bombing. He would believe he was responsible for the atrocity which was actually carried out by someone else - just like Lee Harvey Oswald in the JFK conspriacy theories.

[BravoNine]

(03-11-2010 01:10 PM)Kirayuki Wrote:  BravoNine: Okay, maybe squeaky clean wasn't the phrase i was after.

I also don't think it was as simple as a suitcase turning up and he's now bad. It took longer than that. He did try to stay loyal and good for a very long time in this series. He only actually flipped halfway through episode 7, so it was a gradual submittance to the darker side of him. Once you reach that state in your mind there is no going back. (I do have my doubts over him actually blowing up the Embassy and killing Lucas, i think his original version is much more likely that he wasn't bad before). Whether or not this is the case i just doubt that he could see a way out and so threw himself right in the deep end. It's quite common amongst people in trouble.

Hope this makes more sense on where i stand. .

While I certainly can accept that people in trouble just keep digging themselves deeper into that hole as I myself have gone down that path way too many times to not understand, however Lucas's reasons and this change into a near psychopath is a little more than drastic, and not to mention this supposed "great love" with Maya that he had which I just can't see, maybe if Maya showed a personality I would, but I saw much more chemistry between Lucas/Elizabeta and Lucas/Sarah than this dreadful pairing.

And even if I believe in Lucas/John's change in behavior, this storyline still remains full of holes, first of which is important....how the hell did MI5 miss the identity change? I've had more identity checks and finger-prints enlisting in the military than apparently MI5 has for its agent applications, how is this even possible?

I've suspended A LOT of my beliefs when watching TV shows, but even THIS is so ridiculous that it just ruins it....

(03-11-2010 01:12 PM)molecatcher Wrote:  I can see why you feel betrayed by the writers for what they've done to Lucas but in many ways that says its a very clever story because you've been drawn in by him just as Harry was. AND, it is fiction so they're allowed!!

True, it is allowed, it is fiction, but are the writers trying to insult my intelligence purposely? If I can't trust what they're writing into the characters, then why the hell am I watching this show then? If everything I ever believe in is just gonna end up being a whole bunch of lies, then this show is just not worth wasting my time then.

Oh yes it's very very clever that they drew me in with two series of good loyal Lucas and now suddenly shock me with evil bastard John, it's so clever that they must be laughing at how they duped me into believing their pot of lies.....well if they enjoy it so much, fine, I'll just stop watching it then, because anything this insulting is not worth my effort to believe in their characters.

I wasted pretty much two series-worth of my lifetime believing in their writing, believing in what they created with Lucas, and now I'm suppose to forget all that and accept that it's just lies. Fine. Then I will be done with this show, because if I can't trust the writing, if what I am shown to believe in can just be erased so easily without a thought, then I can't watch the show. If they can change Lucas like this, then how am I suppose to believe what they write for Beth is true? Or Dimitri? Or Tariq? Or even Ruth and Harry? They could all just be lies, then what is so worth believing in this show?

It's just how I feel, the day I stop trusting the writers, it's the day this show ends for me, and right now, it's dangerously drifting close to that end.....

[agent68]

(03-11-2010 11:25 AM)BoHenley Wrote:  Going back to Maya, the woman doesn't even SMILE at Lucas, there's no passion in her eyes, there's nothing. To be fair, maybe her better scenes have been cut, but the photo from the much-boasted-about-love-scene looks the clumsiest and most awkward scene in years - thank God they cut it! Yet he's almost frantic around her. Doesn't add up.

I thought that too. Thank goodness the 'steamy kitchen table' scene turned out to be nothing more than a glimpse of a photo taken from a distance. Any closer or more detail I might have been reaching for the sick bucket.

[A Cousin]

(03-11-2010 12:54 PM)HellsBells Wrote:  I have some questions concerning 9.7.
1) At the beginning after Harry and Lucas get back from seeing Vaughn, Vaughn calls Lucas and the Chinese are listening in, do the Chinese then make a phone call and speak french ?

Yeah, they do. I *think* they are talking to the French assassin.

And while I am on the subject, did anyone catch the tatoo they kept zooming in on? If so, does anyone know the meaning? I tried to freeze on it a couple of times but can only get the text: patria (homeland) legio (legion) nostra (family?). Can anyone see the image? It just seems like it should be significant.

[HellsBells]

Why did Lucas tell Harry he was in Dakar at the time of the bombing ? Surely he would have been safer if he had just kept quiet then Harry would not have gone searching the records.

[BravoNine]

(03-11-2010 02:18 PM)A Cousin Wrote:  

(03-11-2010 12:54 PM)HellsBells Wrote:  I have some questions concerning 9.7.
1) At the beginning after Harry and Lucas get back from seeing Vaughn, Vaughn calls Lucas and the Chinese are listening in, do the Chinese then make a phone call and speak french ?

Yeah, they do. I *think* they are talking to the French assassin.

And while I am on the subject, did anyone catch the tatoo they kept zooming in on? If so, does anyone know the meaning? I tried to freeze on it a couple of times but can only get the text: patria (homeland) legio (legion) nostra (family?). Can anyone see the image? It just seems like it should be significant.

I read in a comment on the Spooks Fan Blog that it's a symbol for the French Foreign Legion that was supposedly based in Senegal (or Dakar) or something....so maybe it has a relation to Lucas/John and the whole Dakar situation.....