Series 9 Episode 8 discussion

[Kirayuki]

(13-11-2010 07:23 AM)Naivety Wrote:  Perhaps Kudos will include the alternative ending in the DVD set that comes out in February 2011.

I really hope they do! Would make my month.

[conniesachs]

A bit late coming in with my assessment of ep 8 but I was so numb, then sad, then angry with what they did with Lucas I needed a few days to let it all sink and reflect.

On the positive side I liked all the action sequences, Lucas running rings round Section D. It was amazing how he organised it all in such a short time, but it is Spooks so I'll give them a bit of poetic licence. The acting of RA, NW and PF, nothing more to add to what's already been said.

But on the resolution, no!

The writers spent the series turning hero Lucas into evil John with a story line that had so many loopholes that even non-Lucas fans had problems with. But we stuck with it and waited for the Spooks final twist and explanation. But there wasn't one. John was evil. Being Spooks we don't expect happy endings for our agents, but we a least expected some sort of redemption, however small, for John/Lucas. But instead we got an ignominious end and seasons 7 & 8 were spoilt for many. It didn't even tie up the loose ends, in fact it created more;
* Why did John still go for Albany? With his past out in the open he couldn't be blackmailed and
Maya was safe.
* Why go to the Chinese? When Vaughn told him he was working for them J/L told him he was stupid
so he clearly didn't trust them. If he wanted to finance his future with Maya he could have gone to
the Russians, he knew how to deal with them. Then he would have found out Albany was useless.
* What made him think Maya would just up and leave at a moments notice? In ep 2 she told him she
had a job, friends, family - a life.
* Did he really think Harry would betray his country? We knew he wouldn't and Lucas had worked
with/admired/respected Harry for 6 years.
* Once Maya was dead why did he go through with the deal? Then having given Albany to the
Chinese why didn't he leave? He had £20m. He could set up a medical trust in Maya's name if
he wanted to atone.
Many of these questions have already been discussed, but they shouldn't need to have been. Everything should have been resolved. I think most of us could have written a more plausible ending. Even given the position J/L was in at the end of ep 7 even I could have talked my way out of it and I'm not Lucas, let alone John;
Harry knows John's version of what happened in Dakar and with Vaughn dead there is no one to challenge it. Harry wants to believe that John didn't knowingly bomb the embassy or kill the real Lucas North, and thought he was working indirectly for the British government. Harry knows Vaughn has a dubious past and could think badly of him. Even trying to steal Albany isn't so heinious once it is known he is being blackmailed over the revealing of his past and Maya's life has been threatened. Maya can confirm Vaughn abducted her at gunpoint, chained her up and threatened to hand her over to the Chinese if John didn't get Albany.
So what's the worse that can happen to John? He's not going to trial for the Dakar bombing, the only evidence against him is his confession and he could retract that. He's not going on trial for stealing state secrets either, because his defence would be blackmail and that would bring out Dakar and how he was able to pass himself off as Lucas North and become a MI5 agent.
He may not be able to go back to MI5, but maybe he wouldn't want to, but he could hope that Maya would also believe his version of Dakar and try to re-build the lives of John and Maya.
It doesn't give us a dramatic finale, Lucas would be lost to Section D, but John would have a chance to re-build his life. And we would be left to decide who's version of Dakar we wanted to believe, John's or Vaughn's.


Last thought on the £20m. Perhaps we can set up a fund to counsel distraught Lucas fans!

[BoHenley]

Great summary, Conniesachs, and you're right, everything should've been resolved.

[binkie]

Well, that was a waste of shellfish...

Like conniesachs above, I thought I would leave it a while before posting so I could try to get some perspective on the thing. I thought perhaps that would reduce the extent to which my response would be just a stream of incensed invective. I’m not sure that’s worked, though, as a brilliant plan!

I watched most of season 9 with someone who hasn’t seen an episode of Spooks since about season 5. She knew very little of Lucas, or his back story, beyond what I had mentioned in passing since 2008 (I might also add that she has no interest in Richard Armitage). She did, however, have fond memories of Spooks as an engaging piece of television with a good handle on emotionally coherent storytelling, and was pleased to see Harry and Ruth still in place. At the end of 9.8, which she watched in silence, she sighed and said: “Well that was pretty insulting.”

Almost a week later, that’s still a pretty accurate summation of my feelings towards this season in general, and even this episode in particular. I find also that the further away from it I get, the worse the whole thing begins to look; the more the errors and shortcomings are compounded and highlighted, and shown up for the panicky low-grade carbon copy (Mad Men, anyone?) get-out clauses they are. I take no pleasure in this criticism. It makes me sad, because one of the things I have always liked best about Spooks was the way in which it has managed so admirably to sketch a credible narrative between a set of heightened, and incredible, circumstances. Spooks is not a documentary, or a piece of gritty realist drama. It requires, and makes usually excellent use of, a different set of devices to tell a different kind of story inside the skin of an enjoyable drama. I don’t mean to suggest that there was nothing enjoyable about season 9, and of course I will watch season 10, but I am saddened at what I can’t help but see as a somewhat high-handed and dismissive attitude on the part of the writers towards not only the characters, but also the audience.

A number of problematic logic and narrative gaps have been mentioned already (and, really, it shouldn’t be necessary to call attention to ‘a number of problematic logic and narrative gaps’ in a piece of high-value programming). What troubles me even more than these, though, is that it is so obvious the writers feel they have done a good job of re-casting in retrospect Lucas’ actions and motives from previous seasons. It is possible to identify all the incidents and dialogue from seasons 7 and 8 which we are now to take as evidence of John, but which in fact fail utterly to convince in this light because they were so clearly never intended to be taken as such. When, for example, Lucas says to Sarah in 8.6, as she holds a gun to his head, “Take me with you”, it is not an indication of his criminal need to take advantage of the next opportunity for reinvention, it is an acknowledgement that here is a profoundly isolated, psychologically battered, institutionally abused human being who is incapable of identifying himself as an individual unless it is in the context of his value as an object of exploitative interest. This is the rhetorical function of that moment. Trying to superimpose some other purpose on moments like this is an example of bad and lazy writing because it shows such a lack of awareness of structural integrity. By far the worst facet of this kind of lazy writing, with its conscious ignorance of purpose, is that 9.8 itself functionally requires the audience to conclude that Lucas did indeed deserve everything that happened to him in prison, and that he is self-obsessed and cowardly for being reluctant to accept incarceration for a second time. That is a morally reprehensible conclusion, even taking into account the ludicrous John factor, and I am more than disappointed in the writers for having drawn it.

This post is in danger of getting out of hand! I suspect most of it should have gone under the ‘What did you think of season 9?’ thread. I may yet visit that thread to add more. Certainly, I have things to add to the Lucas thread. I shall finish for now, though, by saying that I am quite aware there were more elements to this season than the Lucas storyline. At some point, I may find sufficient motivation to consider some of them.

Apologies to anyone who finds my writing style impenetrable. I’m not this stuffy in real life!

[harrbd]

“After we hear the scream and the car alarm there are clearly audible hurried footsteps and they don't sound distant like the other sounds drifting up from 26 storeys below. They sound close very close.”

Agree with this (although I didn't hear the steps on first viewing.) However, I don't think that Lucas can have had a body on the roof ready to throw off. Harry did look around when he got to the roof and Lucas would have made some noise pushing a body over. But, he could have paid a woman on the ground to scream and break a car window on his signal. We don’t know if there is a body or not. I believe that someone said that they filmed a body falling off the roof but this wasn’t shown just to leave some doubt.

Also, the HS, when talking to Harry said, “this business with your section chief” – didn’t mention a death. The music when focusing on Ruth and Tariq and then Alex, Beth and Dimitri was very sombre but it could also be used for the fact that Lucas had got away as well as for his death.(I may have expected a bit more action on their part if Lucas was still alive though !)

Re the other ending which I'd love to know about. Peter Firth saying that he had blood on his shirt leads to so many possibilities. The fact that Harry had to re film the end does unfortunately make me think that he was going to be killed which doesn’t bode well for the next series.

[HellsBells]

With reference to all the cars and equipment that Lucas had in 9.8, could the Chinese have organised it if Lucas gave them a list. It was in their interest to help. But Beth did mention Lucas was cloning credit cards, he could have used these to hire the cars.

(13-11-2010 12:10 PM)conniesachs Wrote:  Last thought on the £20m. Perhaps we can set up a fund to counsel distraught Lucas fans!

Yes Please I think we all need it!!

[femaleBertieWooster]

(13-11-2010 05:33 PM)binkie Wrote:  Well, that was a waste of shellfish...

When, for example, Lucas says to Sarah in 8.6, as she holds a gun to his head, “Take me with you”, it is not an indication of his criminal need to take advantage of the next opportunity for reinvention, it is an acknowledgement that here is a profoundly isolated, psychologically battered, institutionally abused human being who is incapable of identifying himself as an individual unless it is in the context of his value as an object of exploitative interest.

I think that might be a good starting point for the rehab team in Texas. Thanks for your suggestion.

[binkie]

(13-11-2010 09:13 PM)femaleBertieWooster Wrote:  

(13-11-2010 05:33 PM)binkie Wrote:  Well, that was a waste of shellfish...

When, for example, Lucas says to Sarah in 8.6, as she holds a gun to his head, “Take me with you”, it is not an indication of his criminal need to take advantage of the next opportunity for reinvention, it is an acknowledgement that here is a profoundly isolated, psychologically battered, institutionally abused human being who is incapable of identifying himself as an individual unless it is in the context of his value as an object of exploitative interest.

I think that might be a good starting point for the rehab team in Texas. Thanks for your suggestion.

Oh, you're quite welcome! Someone should be able to salvage something from this mess

[BoHenley]

Salvage...? Good luck! It's still a mess in my book. Thanks for a great post, Binkie. Summed up (and more) what a large percentage of us are thinking.

[binkie]

(14-11-2010 10:11 AM)BoHenley Wrote:  Salvage...? Good luck! It's still a mess in my book. Thanks for a great post, Binkie. Summed up (and more) what a large percentage of us are thinking.

You're quite right, of course. You'd think I would have applied the rules of my own rant as far as flippancy goes!! Sadly, all my salvage models are AU