Series 10 - Episode 3 Discussion

[nothingisasitseems]

So the big question is whether Calum saw the full footage of the handover of the suitcase and if he did why has he not disclosed it to the team?

The "revelations" at the end regarding the CIA are exactly what most expected so how will this progress?

Last night I was mostly drooling over Dmitri - having re-watched this morning much as I love Max Brown I will admit that this will not go down as one of his best acting performances but I enjoyed it anyway. Others seem to think differently.

It will be interesting to see how this episode is rated. I was stunned to see over on IMdB that E2 has received the lowest rating ever for any Spook's episode.

[Betty]

About the significance of the painting. It's a portrait of Lady Jane Grey, the brilliant protege/pawn of the Duke of North Umberland, going blindfolded to her own execution for treason. A good choice to reflect what could be happening to Ruth, or at least what she feels may be happening. It's stuff like this that makes me love Spooks--and Ruth!

[harrbd]

(03-10-2011 12:17 PM)Betty Wrote:  About the significance of the painting. It's a portrait of Lady Jane Grey, the brilliant protege/pawn of the Duke of North Umberland, going blindfolded to her own execution for treason. A good choice to reflect what could be happening to Ruth, or at least what she feels may be happening. It's stuff like this that makes me love Spooks--and Ruth!

Or what is happening to Elena ?

[Kazters]

i found last nights ep although good rather slow. not enough harry and really not enough mention of Tariq or his death!

[Tea Lady]

(03-10-2011 09:35 AM)Silktie Wrote:  I loved Calum from the start, and was happy to see him challenge Harry about Tariq. Well done, young man. Re the CCTV footage, I thought the footage found by Calum stopped short of the bit that showed suspected Elena take delivery of the briefcase – so that part was probably corrupted when Tariq’s system went haywire last week. I believe this means it was not necessarily the CIA that killed Tariq, but the Russians to prevent MI5 from finding out about their involvement. But Jim Coaver is the impostor, and the CIA did plot the assassination attempt on Gavrik – remember, it was meant to fail. And the CIA did steal the laptop, but why would they give it to the Russians after that? Perhaps the CIA and the Russians are secretly working together? I’m stumped.

I have another theory Silktie but will take it to the spec thread.

(03-10-2011 12:41 PM)harrbd Wrote:  

(03-10-2011 12:17 PM)Betty Wrote:  About the significance of the painting. It's a portrait of Lady Jane Grey, the brilliant protege/pawn of the Duke of North Umberland, going blindfolded to her own execution for treason. A good choice to reflect what could be happening to Ruth, or at least what she feels may be happening. It's stuff like this that makes me love Spooks--and Ruth!

Or what is happening to Elena ?

Good point. It could be Elena.

[SweetTea]

(03-10-2011 12:17 PM)Betty Wrote:  About the significance of the painting. It's a portrait of Lady Jane Grey, the brilliant protege/pawn of the Duke of North Umberland, going blindfolded to her own execution for treason. A good choice to reflect what could be happening to Ruth, or at least what she feels may be happening. It's stuff like this that makes me love Spooks--and Ruth!

This is so cool! Sorry for this OT comment, but Lady Jane Grey aka The Grey Lady is said to still haunt Alnwick Castle, the seat of the Duke of Northumberland. I actually lived at the castle while in college and several of my classmates reported having strange happenings in the tower where she supposedly is. Just thought I'd throw that in.

And now back to our episode dissection.

[A Cousin]

General impression: I was not as enamored with this episode as the other two. It's not the pace. I like the pace of this series in general. The writing felt a bit more more like S9 - the over-arching theme and the threat of the week were mutually exclusive. They didn't mesh seamlessly. Not altogether sold on that. Ironically, I liked them both individually. The ensemble feel is still there, so that makes me happy.

Thanks to whoever it was who identified the painting (Betty?). I love that kind of stuff too. 10.1 had that great little Easter Egg of Lee Harvey Oswald and then 10.2 with the Beethoven and Wordsworth. I don't think they are hints into big plot revelation. I think they are more like hidden tracks on an album. Really loving that this series.

Definitely a different director for this episode. It felt a lot less stylized and lot more contemporary in filming to me. It also felt very "sepia."

I liked the Dimitri plot. I liked seeing his discomfort with the whole honey trap situation. I cringed for him when she started coming on to him and he and he just couldn't bring himself to do it. I think he was like that for her sake and not his. He knew he was going to have to burn her at some point and what that would do to someone so very lonely and a little bit desperate. The idea of the baddie with absolutely nothing left to lose in the truest sense I found intriguing. It did feel a bit reminiscent? I was way ahead of Dimitri but I wonder if that was intentional? I think the writers wanted us to be very aware that Dimitri was walking into the lions den. I also liked it when Dimitri twigged and slammed the car roof, Harry jumped in and gave him direction.

Was Natalie the same actress who played the reporter that Ruth had to convince to sign the Official Secrets Act in 9.5? Georgina Rich? Just looked the BBC1 Spooks site and it is. Quite a different character very well played.

Soooo....Elena agreed to spy for MI-5 as revenge her parents murder by the KGB? OK. I'll buy that. I much prefer that to her doing it all for *lurve*. Even if it is Harry. But was that before or after she married a KGB agent? Shows that she is sympathetic to the West. Intriguing to know she has that kind of dark side to her. Makes her infinitely more interesting, and slightly more dangerous in her scene with Ruth.

I liked Calum from the start. I knew that he would have a chance to redeem himself at some point. You don't set a character up to be such a pr*ck who is in essence one of the "heros" without letting them redeem themselves at some point. Glad it was Sweet Tariq he's fighting for. I don't think he saw the pass off to she-who-might-or-might-not-be-Elena on the CCTV.

Ruth's progression - I am OK with it. Jhyde and Silktie already said what I was thinking. Great scenes with AK and SRB. I was really looking forward to those and they did not disappoint. Loved NW's delivery on the "I have absolutely no idea how to answer that question - or why I even would." There was a really nice symbiosis going on there. Her scene with SRB was about as truthful and honest as you would ever see Ruth.

Yeah, Harry was being a bit of a jerk handing the explanation of Coaver/Elena over to Ruth. At least he knew there was no way he was going to be able to explain it with any modicum of control. It was yet another personal betrayal not handled very well by him.

[George]

regarding the CCTV footage: when Callum recovers Tariq Computer, it shows that part of the disk is ruined (partition corrupted, if you want to be geeky) so is possible that the rest of the footage with the exchange is gone, or not clear and will need some extra work to be recovered later in a episode.... (say at the end of episode 4 or 5?)

On a different note, again we have no clues on who arrives at the last episode, as on IMDB the last 3 episodes have only Lara Pulver and the CIA man listed...

[Gazelle]

I liked the Harry-Ruth split screen too, thought it was a clever way of symbolising the current divide between them even when in the same room - they want to break through it but somehow can't (what's new there?!)

I'm still disappointed by yesterday's episode, I'd have thought with only 6 to play with the writers could have kept the Russian storyline central to each one, rather than basically stalling it in this episode. Also I read Ian Wylie's interview with Lara Pulver before S10 started saying she felt 6 episodes was good as it kept the writers focused and there wasn't time for a duff episode... so yesterday was a disappointment.

I agree it's odd that no-one in the team picked up on the image of Elena (seemingly) being handed the laptop - afterall it seemed to jump out at Tariq last week prompting his attempted call to Harry - and why no hurry to look at the data on Ilya Gavrik that Martha downloaded last week?

[harrbd]

I hope that Harry and Coaver didn't kill Elena's parents, making it look like the KGB, to get her on their side.