Episode 5.5 [Rewatch]

[A Cousin]

Watched this last night with Mr AC he brought up a question I could not answer. How did Ros and Zaf get a key to Mik Maudsley's house? We know Ruth got it by going through his pockets at the morgue. I does look as if they use a key to get in.

His other question was, did MI5 murder the cadaver Harry identifies as Ruth or was there just conveniently a cadaver roughly the same race, size and colouring as Ruth. When I told him that you just have to go with this one, he said, so somewhere in the UK that persons family members are in the dark regarding her fate? Um...yes.

[JHyde]

I'm pretty sure the body was merely an unclaimed one.

[Tea Lady]

I think they must have checked the body had not been reported missing by anyone and was just a suicide, probably a homeless person. Being in the Thames for sometime, probably meant it was also not in a good condition if you catch my drift. If it was a homeless person then the body would have just remained on a slab for months or years and then got a paupers funeral. Neither way is ideal but at least the person got a funeral this way.

Not sure about the key thing. Magic keys??

[A Cousin]

I was able to explain the cadaver, its Ros & Zaf getting into Maudsley's house I can't explain. Not that I need to. Some things you just have to let go. I thought maybe Ros picked the lock? But if she did, it took her one turn to do so. Ruth definitely locks it when she leaves.

Another question he brought up was how much did Harry know going into identifying Ruth's body? Mr AC thinks that the faking of Ruth's death and/or the acquisition of the cadaver would have had to have been vetted through him to happen at all so he must have known it wasn't Ruth before he got to the morgue. My take is that, while he may have hoped or even suspected, he did not know, given his reaction to the phone call, because it all happened while he was in custody. Adam arranged it all. Mr AC thinks that Harry's reaction to identifying the cadaver is an act. For whom? I say. Adam? The Morgue attendant? I think he did not know it wasn't Ruth until the sheet was removed. At which point, he twigs to what they have done and goes with it. What do you think?

Oh, Mr AC loved the dock scene. In our family, I'm the pragmatist and he's the romantic. When Ruth stopped Harry from verbally expressing the something wonderful, he blurted out, "That's it. Say it with a kiss." Good man!

[Silktie]

I'm with Mr AC. By the time Harry has to go and identify the body, he knows it's not Ruth. They may have organised it all whilst he was in jail, but by the time he gets that call, he knows what's what. His reaction to the call is, to my mind, him mourning the loss of Ruth. Because even though she is still alive, once the fake dead Ruth is found and 'identified' by him, the real Ruth MUST leave and the process is irreversible. Thus the real Ruth is also in effect dead to him from that point on.

[A Cousin]

(13-05-2011 05:41 PM)Silktie Wrote:  I'm with Mr AC. By the time Harry has to go and identify the body, he knows it's not Ruth. They may have organised it all whilst he was in jail, but by the time he gets that call, he knows what's what. His reaction to the call is, to my mind, him mourning the loss of Ruth. Because even though she is still alive, once the fake dead Ruth is found and 'identified' by him, the real Ruth MUST leave and the process is irreversible. Thus the real Ruth is also in effect dead to him from that point on.

Doggonit, Silktie! Why do you always explain things in a way that makes so much sense but requires me to re-evaluate my position!?!

I love Adam's reaction to Harry when Harry says something to the effect of, I hope you have a good plan in place. Adam looks at him as if to say, We do, but you're not going to like it.

So do you think there is a missing scene when Adam briefs him after they leave the prison? Or, does Harry only know they have "a plan" and fully twigs when the phone call comes in? As in an, Oh sh**, I was afraid of that. Maybe I am just being stubborn, but I tend to go with this one because there is no scene written where Adam tells him their specific plan.

Another question is, is the "Malcolm's contact in the morgue" in on it? The morgue attendant appears twice, once after Ruth asks Malcolm if he still has his contact and once when Harry is identifying Ruth. Harry's reaction in the morgue confuses me. Mr AC thinks that Harry is playing up his reaction when he identifies her. He isn't putting on a show for Adam because Adam knows. So is it for the attendant? However, back in the office after the phone call, when Harry says, They found her, he is not referring to Ruth but rather the unidentified corpse? So Malcolm's connection must be in on it?

[Naivety]

I've always thought that as Ruth's disappearance had to be top secret, they had to make it look as though it was all real.

When the phone call comes through it does look as though at that point Harry doesn't know that the body is not Ruth. The devastated look on his face seems so real. But then as SilkTie says, it may be because he knows he has to say goodbye to Ruth for ever.

The moment when he sees the body at the morgue, seems fake to us, but for the benefit of the attendant it would look as though he was visibly upset. If the attendant was to be questioned by Mace then he would honestly say that Harry reacted to the sight of 'Ruth' on the slab.

[Agent Acme]

I don't think Harry did know the full details of the plan Adam, Zaf, Ruth and possibly Malcolm cooked up. Probably at Ruths' insistance.
For a start, Harry would never have agreed to Ruth sacrificing herself for him, so I would imagine Adam would not have given him all the details, only the ones that he thought Harry should need to know, and certainly not Ruths exile. I think the cadaver was pure coincidence, a chance not to be missed, but probably earlier than they wanted, Malcolm using his morgue contacts, to seal the deal as it were, to make Ruths disapearance plausible.
Harrys reaction to the phone call was genuine, he believed that her body hady been found, and I imagine his reaction at the morgue to the body he thought was going to be Ruth was a mixture of grief, shock and relief that it wasn't her, and the realisation of what they had planned. Its only then, he asks Adam where Ruth was.

Harry: " So, where is she?"

And again at the dock Ruth said, " I told Adam not to tell you."

Which could be taken two ways, either she didn't want the goodbye scene on the dockside, or she didn't want Harry to be told of her impending exile just yet, in case he tried to stop it, as I don't think she would have known about the cadaver.

I don't think Adam would have told Harry the full plan until after Ruth had gone, it was too dangerous for both of them, but, once the convenient body had been discovered, he knew Harry would want to know everything.

If that makes sense?

Well thats my take on it anyway.

[Tea Lady]

Harry knew. When Adam collected him from the police station he told him the plan and that Ruth had sacrificed herself. Yes there is a missing scene there, when Harry and Adam probably fight about the decision, but at that point the decision is already made. Ruth has threatened that woman with a gun and the plan is already in its final stages. There is little Harry can do now.

When the call comes through to his office, Harry has to act that he is devastated to the rest of the team. Don't forget that Ros is not exactly to be trusted. He knows the body is not Ruth.

Also Ruth told Adam not to tell Harry where she is because there was a chance he could talk her out it.

[Silktie]

Another thing, if Harry wasn't in on the plan, was there not a chance he would have blown the whole thing at the morgue by going "Woot! It's not the woman I love that's dead!" That was too big a chance to take, so I agree with TL that there's a missing scene where Adam informs him. There are plenty of things that we never saw but which we know must have happened off screen and this is one of them.

Re Harry's reaction at the morgue, I tend to interpret it as him playing it up for anyone who might be watching, and who knows whether there aren't security cameras that Mace et al might have checked later? So it's not just about the attendant. Or it could simply be a reaction to the fact that he's just condemned Ruth to exile by going through with the identification.

And Ruth's "I told Adam not to tell you" refers to her location, not to the whole plan. She didn't want Harry to come and say goodbye, as she knew how hard that would be for both of them. Avoidance is their default position, remember.