Series 10 - Episode 6 Discussion

[beatrice4ruth]

(25-10-2011 12:26 AM)Morello Wrote:  I really loved that ending – it was gripping and contained some humour as well as being genuinely moving, even for an occasional watcher like me who has only really become thoroughly hooked this series. I didn’t find the ending too soapy, mainly because I’ve always seen Spooks as a soap. This isn’t a criticism – it’s wonderful, well-acted spy soap of the highest order – good quality entertainment.

The ending was very sad, and I thought also very fitting. I like the fact that the possibility of a happy ending had an existence in the idea of Ruth’s seaside cottage – a ‘nice dream’ that both of them knew was never likely to become a reality. The acting was great – I loved Harry with literal and metaphorical blood on his hands unable to touch Ruth properly because of it. The way Peter Firth acted that was beautiful – I couldn’t stop looking at his hand. I found that part even more touching than the too-late kiss. That whole scene was very 'Romeo and Juliet' – Ruth getting between Sasha and Harry, and the sense of everyone somehow being punished for the past. In this show no one is entirely innocent, and I always prefer morally shaded drama.

Personally I really liked all three of the Gavriks as characters. Perhaps it’s because, as a relative new-comer, I don’t have anything like the investment in the Grid characters that more die-hard fans do, but I found all three performances quite engrossing. I read a reviewer on another site who said that, since he wasn’t Harry’s son after all, Sasha’s character was pointless. I can’t agree with that at all. I found him to be the one I was following, because I was as confused as he was. I was pretty sure that Harry had lied to Elena about her parents in order to turn her, but I had no idea that she knew she was lying to Sasha when she gave him her reasons for being Harry’s spy, after Sasha killed his friend to protect her! Maybe I’m just naïve, but, although I didn’t trust her, I hadn’t worked out the plot at all, and it did grip me throughout the season. Sasha was also necessary to link Harry to Elena for the viewers. Would we care much about Harry/Elena and their past without a son in the picture? Poor Sasha! He’s going to need therapy for the rest of his life. (I’m assuming he survived – he was only shot in the leg, and he didn’t look too bad when we last saw him on the ground next to Callum.) Ilya was brilliant – such presence. Yes – the whole Gavrik plot was quite melodramatic, but I found all three of them surprisingly sympathetic characters at different times (and, as I said, I do view the whole thing as good soap over all). I’d like to have seen something of Sasha’s relationship with Ilya too – but I guess there was no time.

For me, Harry’s inability to see through Elena didn’t come across as weakness, but as very human. He had so much invested in her – his sense of guilt – his almost thirty year belief that Sasha was his son – that he just couldn’t make a leap that huge, to see her for what she really was quickly enough. Ruth making the right decision seemed perfect here – reminding the viewer of how they complement each other and how effective they can be as a team. It makes the ending even more tragic.

As a fanfic writer (mainly in other fandoms) I completely understand the Harry/Ruth shippers’ sorrow – this ending is (to my mind effectively) very bleak. But I just can’t see either of these characters happy in that cottage in a realistic future. My one quibble with the whole episode was originally that shot of the location of the cottage, which seemed to be neither in Suffolk (the White Cliffs of Dunwich?) or all that close to the sea. But having seen the episode twice now, I don’t mind that any more. I don’t think it was supposed to be realistic. It’s an English rural idyll – unobtainable. I love the high angle of the shot, and then the sense of almost claustrophobia at the cottage itself – the narrow lane, the fences, the closed door, the kitchen counter like a barrier. It’s too much a retreat – shut off from the real world. It was never going to happen, and I’m glad of that. This is all only my opinion, of course, but I couldn’t see an ending there as being in character for either of them. As many people have already said so eloquently, this series is ultimately about sacrifice and what these characters have had to give up to protect their country. In that context, the White Cliffs of Dover shot makes perfect sense, as does Harry’s return to work, and the strong sense that the department will carry on defeating the bad guys who want to kill us.

Compelling drama – thank you to all concerned.

It is strange how we all see things differently. I did not find the cottage shut off from the real world. In fact I was surprised that it was so close to the other houses. (I live in the States and I am now used to extensive uninhabited areas). I thought that Ruth would have chosen an isolated cottage in the countryside. I was wrong. She and Harry were too urban to live in a rural area and they needed neighbors around them.

Ruth knew Harry very well and had reserved the small room of the cottage as a work room for him. I thought it was so touching and so loving that she was trying to make his retirement more meaningful. He could have work as a consultant, perhaps with Tom. Life goes on even when one quits the intelligence services. In fact former intelligence officers make more money with the private industry, at least where I live! Look at Ilya and at former CIA agents.

I was really shocked by Harry's degrading decision making over the last two series. I should also remember that we are talking about fictional characters and not a real person. Ruth is no longer here to stop him. He is going to be even more reckless than before. Even if the HS gives Harry a second chance, I do not think that the other high-ranking officials will be as tolerant if he messes up again.

Harry himself had realized that when he told Ruth that it was time for him to retire. I am so sad for him. It is truly awful to go on working out of duty and mostly when one has lost one's fighting spirit. Ruth was the one who encouraged him to keep fighting the bad guys in series 9 and in her honor he will continue to protect the realm, even if it is at a heavy cost for him.

It is such a bleak and unfair ending for Harry and Ruth. It would have been better for Harry to die and for Ruth to survive. I just hope that Kudos or the BBC do not intend to plan another Spooks series in the future.