Episode 5 Discussion [re-watch]

[Silktie]

I found this episode exceedingly bleak, and I agree with Condor that its pace is too slow. I'm usually the first one to ask for more character moments, but I actually feel this episode suffers from having too many. The A plot is not really about a threat to the UK, but rather about Danny's personal journey in having to kill this man. Perhaps, then, it would have helped if the B plot had been about a real threat to the UK, but instead we got another personal story about Ruth's lonely existence. Then, to top it all, we got the C plot about Danny/Zoe/Will. Don't get me wrong, I love all these storylines individually, but it's just too much all crammed into one episode.

I loved Malcolm helping Ruth, and looking on all brotherly and proud as she talked to the bloke at the Requiem. I half expected him to pop up from behind the fountain in that last scene, as he was so keen to support Ruth. I'm not sure what the hell Sam was doing though. I thought it was pretty low of her to be spying on Ruth and reporting to Harry, and then actually encouraging Ruth to continue doing what she knows Harry didn't approve of. Poor Ruth. She did look lovely in that dress though.

I agree with JHyde on Adam in this episode, he was really wonderful with Danny. It's interesting that in the first scene where Adam and Harry is telling Zoe that she'll have to kill the guy, Harry seems a lot less sympathetic to their feelings than Adam does. It's as though Harry, with his many years in the field behind him, has been emotionally stunted to situations like these, and basically feels that this is the job that needs to be done and you just get on with it. The younger Adam still realises what it feels like to do this for the first time and therefore relates better to the young agents in the field.

Danny was really shitty with Zoe, specifically in the way he told her about Will's brother and the photos. This episode is full of people failing spectacularly to separate the personal from the professional, just like Harry did in the previous episode. So perhaps the moral of these two episodes is that you can never fully separate the two, however hard you might try.