Plot-holes

[binkie]

(25-01-2011 02:00 AM)Byatil Wrote:  Completely playing the role of the devils advocate here

Well, hello Devil’s Advocate Shall we dance?

(25-01-2011 02:00 AM)Byatil Wrote:  There's always the possibility that Lucas-is-John was simply too scared to do anything to Vaughn. We're supposed to believe him to be the naive University student who has become caught-up in a drug-trafficking scheme, so it doesn't seem implausible that he wouldn't be the most confident of people at age 19/20.

I’m not convinced confidence has very much to do with anything here. Admittedly, I have never killed anyone for a passport (or, I should add, for any other reason!), but – once Vaughan clarified the sequence of events – it seems pretty clear in narrative terms that Lucas-is-John did not kill anyone (least of all Lucas-really-Lucas) either by accident or in a panic. This was an intentional, considered, planned action. It was almost certainly formulated outside the room, and some time before the action took place. I’m not suggesting it was easily done - there is obviously some incredulity in Lucas-is-John’s response to the completion of the murder, but one could argue that this is an extension of self-pity, rather than regret or moral clarity. The man who kills Lucas-really-Lucas means to escape responsibility for his actions, and - logically, in the context of what the script wants us suddenly to know and accept about Lucas-is-John – this should extend to the destruction of anyone or anything which might speak to that responsibility.

(25-01-2011 02:00 AM)Byatil Wrote:  As we've seen with Lucas' character (not sure if it really 'counts' in the context of S9, but onwards nevertheless) he's obsessed with the idea of controlling his surroundings. Vaughn represents a threat, as you say, in that he cannot be controlled. But as we've seen with Dasharvin in 8.4, Lucas is extremely scared when he loses control of a situation. Could it be said that the same thing happened in regards to his relationship with Vaughn? Lucas realised he had no control over Vaughn and panicked, fleeing Dakar and presumably hoping to bury his head in the sand over the whole ordeal. It could even be argued that he learnt from this experience, and that it was in fact the reason as to why Lucas has such a compulsion to control (once again completely disregarding the fact that it was apparently Russia that affected his personality in S7+8).

I agree with your concluding observation here: Lucas’ compulsion to control is a consequence of institutional conditioning. This was so clearly, coherently and comprehensively detailed in the sense and texture of seasons 7/8, no part of the retcon of season 9 can undo it. Much like the attempt to reinvent the reason for Lucas to divest himself of personal possessions, the projection onto this trait of other reasoning is facile, misguided and rhetorically impotent.

I am having some difficulty in accommodating a comparison of the function and characteristic of the relationships between Lucas and Oleg, and between Lucas-is-John and Vaughan. I realise, of course, that you are in no way suggesting that the dynamic is the same in each case. However, I do think there is a danger in invoking the example of Lucas’ response to any aspect of his relationship with Oleg in the context of his response to any aspect – no matter how superficially similar – of his relationship with someone (anyone) else. This is not the thread for a discussion of the Lucas/Oleg relationship, I know, but I think we should not under-estimate the extent to which this is a relationship which exists almost in a vacuum: it is a still-evolving, still-experienced facet of becoming and being for both Lucas and Oleg, and only for them. I think perhaps an assessment of the relationship context motivated by Vaughan should take that relationship on its own terms (insofar as this is remotely possible with the paucity and inconsistency of the information available).

(25-01-2011 01:18 AM)Byatil Wrote:  

(25-01-2011 12:27 AM)binkie Wrote:  2 – Does Lucas-is-John really believe that “I was so careful” extends to online and telephone research into the whereabouts of the mother of a former MI5 officer using government secure equipment in a government office?

I think in order to make this believable we're expected to think that MI5 have extremely lax security standards... there really is no logical explanation for the way Lucas-is-John managed to land a job with MI5, or as to how he managed to completely cover-up the murder of Lucas-really-Lucas.

Yes, something like this really highlights the extent to which problems with, and arising from, the writing in season 9 carry implications far beyond the character of Lucas. It is, it seems to me, somewhat disingenuous to insist that – unless you are some kind of blinkered, immature ‘Lucas-fan’ – season 9 was a triumph. In dramatic terms, there is a substantial difference between leading an audience to a particular conclusion based on the content of a script or performance, and leaving the audience with no choice other than to draw a particular conclusion based on the total lack of any evidence to the contrary.

In the context of season 9, with its conceit that Lucas-is-John-and-has-got-away-with-it-for-15-years, successful execution of Lucas’ line: “I was so careful” has to mean Lucas was careful and that MI5 thwarted him anyway because it is just that awesome. We have to see him being careful, and we have to understand his behaviour as careful. Not only that, but we have to see in that behaviour a clear and incontrovertible indication of how this behaviour has sustained a 15-year deception. What we see instead is someone who cannot tell a competent lie about public transport, who seemingly can be bothered to clean his fingerprints only from one half of the equipment he uses to access the restricted not-quite-Albany file, and who conducts personal research of dubious note using government secure information channels.

The failure of the script to illustrate its own explicit content does more than give us idiot-Lucas. It also fundamentally alters the way in which we have to conclude the Spooks-universe works. We have spent nine seasons investing in, engaging with, and familiarising ourselves with the operation of this universe. We are drawn into a dramatic environment in which highly committed, necessarily anonymous, men and women are brave, resourceful and selfless against a background of creatively sourced, intelligently interpreted, well-communicated information. Season 9 leaves us to conclude that, actually, MI5 is staffed by sleepwalkers and that intelligence is just a. n. other noun. It wasn’t only the character of Lucas that was undermined by season 9, it was the believability of the sustaining environment of the Spooky-verse. That’s a pretty big plot hole, I'm afraid