[spoilers] Sir Harry Pearce 2.0

[The Grid]

Hey everyone, I've been reading through this thread over the past few days and some brilliant posts have been written here about Harry. There's some great analysis of Harry's character and some points that I hadn't even really considered.

I find the poll quite difficult to answer though.. I'd agree that Harry is the lynchpin of the show. He's developed so much over eight series that to no longer have him in Spooks would cause a negative impact. Ruth is brilliant too, but Lucas is my favourite leading man out of all the series, so it's hard to choose.

I've rewatched Series 1 over the past two days and I adore Harry from the very start. What I love about him is his sarcastic and dry sense of humour. He has some cracking one liners, "What do you want? My tongue down your throat?" "Stroke him.... see if he meows!".

I do believe he sees his team like a family in Series 1. Harry treats Danny and Zoe like his children, sometimes refusing that they are involved in the bigger operations and keeping secrets from them, like a parent trying to maintain some of their child's innocence. He does this with Danny and Zoe in a way. There are some things he'd rather they didn't know, as they aren't yet experienced. He treats Tom more like their older brother, who is allowed to be in the know about certain things. He takes Zoe and Danny under his wing and is rather sympathetic towards them - Harry taking Danny's credit cards after he fiddled with his credit rating, but not coming down too hard on him and showing some compassion towards Zoe but politely telling her to get it together after she confesses Tessa's betrayal. Treating the team like a family helps give you the sense that Harry doesn't have a close family of his own, so uses his MI5 team as a replacement for that. Maybe he treats his team like this, as he regrets how he treated his actual family (e.g. Catherine) in the past so he sees his team as a second chance to right his wrongs? Or I could be looking too deep into it..

Getting rid of Tessa showed to us how secure he wants to keep his team. No matter how long he knew Tessa for, he was willing to push whatever personal feelings he had aside and do the best for his team or "family".

3.4 is one of my favourite episodes because we see that different side to Harry. That emotional side where he is forced to connect with his personal feelings and confront his regrets, something you feel he'd rather he didn't do. I hope in Series 9, we have an episode where his son Graham features.