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Aria · (This post was last modified: 10-05-2010 04:10 PM by Aria.)

(09-05-2010 02:26 PM)Silktie Wrote: Loved Harry and his disdain for the politician, Guy Facer. He made many a true statement during his arguments with Facer, and also a very shrewd decision not to let the government have the G&J key.

Though I also loved Harry's dislike for Guy Facer and the Establishment in this episode, I believe it would have been better to bring back Oliver Mace as Harry's nemesis rather than introduce another character who just wasn't as good.

**A Cousin** · (This post was last modified: 10-05-2010 05:08 PM by A Cousin.)

I work with security standards all day long. Lucky me. I am a business manager and not a technician, but I think that the concept of the G&J code, while kind of true in advent, is a grossly simplified version of the current uses of electronic encryption codes. Many business' have several different types of codes securing data. Or rather they should. I guess this is the point being made with the something a simple and basic as a password. "Password" - Hysterical! One code that will bring the financial world down? No. However, I suspended my disbelief for the larger theme of this episode.

Which is, I think this episode successfully grapples with the idea of balancing individual human-ness with the professional requirements placed on the characters. Danny and Ruth factor quite largely, of course. However, Adam/Fiona factor in as does Harry.

The reason Danny is so uninvolved with the professional is his personal state at the time re: Zoe/Will. Will challenges him with his humanity right off the bat, and Danny refuses to give into it. Still fighting it, Danny takes it out on Ruth b/c she extends the invitation to connect on a human level. It is brought to a head in the conversation with Harry about Will's request to be told where Zoe is.

D: They were going to get married. She trusts him.
H: Its a human failing she'll have to overcome.

Danny takes it out on the kid who doesn't leave the computer quickly enough during the raid b/c he doesn't know where the line is anymore. But when it needs to be called on, to find Ruth, his human-ness saves her.

Harry is the antithesis of Danny for most of the episode - completely a spy, less a human.

I think that no one realizes that there is anything really wrong with Ruth b/c they keep being tugged back into the professional from the personal. Danny is the only one fully in touch with it at that time.

And one of my favorite Peter Firth (Actor Extrordinaire!) moments occurs in this episode. In the scene when Andrew is introduced, when Harry realizes that there is "history" between Ruth and Andrew, he goes through about 6 different emotions in the course of one line of exposition. God! He's good!

And then there is the Adam and Fiona plot line which is an example of the perfect balance between being an individual and being a spy.

I don't care how James Bond it is, I want one of those RC helicopters!

**Nitrus** · 10-05-2010, 05:33 PM

There can't be one code to take down everything, but all codes can be broken or bypassed. Even one-way encryption methods such as SHA-1 can be decrypted using rainbow tables.

lwhite53 · 10-05-2010, 05:42 PM

In the dvd extras, the writer talks about this code stuff and says that it's broken every couple of years whereupon they have to ramp it up another level to make it safe again. Hackers -- the ultimate job security for programmers!

**A Cousin** · 10-05-2010, 06:43 PM

And to just fanwank something for a moment.... (Love that term. Forgot who on this forum coined it.)

A technical question for the computer gurus amongst us: I go back and forth on whether or not I believe that Ruth, as someone who can hack into the French Security Services database (amongst others), can't change a ring tone or text. Is that believable to you? I can imagine that she chooses to live a text free existence. Unusual? Yes. Incapable? No.

**Nitrus** · 10-05-2010, 06:46 PM

There is software which does the hacking for you, you give it a target, it will scan the target for vulnerabilities and then gives you a list of options depending on what you want do, add an admin account, delete some data etc, you just select which one you want and bang you're in.

So I think it's believable that she could do that and not use a mobile properly. Besides, I think her incapability with her mobile were exaggerated by Danny to grab Harry's attention.

lwhite53 · 10-05-2010, 07:26 PM

(10-05-2010 06:46 PM)Nitrus Wrote: So I think it's believable that she could do that and not use a mobile properly. Besides, I think her incapability with her mobile were exaggerated by Danny to grab Harry's attention.

Yeah, I agree with this --no one seemed to take Ruth's absence too seriously and Danny, sensing there was something wrong, embellished a little.

**A Cousin** · 10-05-2010, 07:47 PM

Well, thank you for the How To Hack Into Foreign Security Databases For Dummies lesson! I can understand point and click. I suppose that in past series it is not that Ruth can hack into them but rather that she had the guts and resourcefulness to think of doing it at all.

Fanwank over.

And a fan fic request if it doesn't already exist: the phone call from Adam to Harry after finding Ruth from Harry's POV, please and thank you! I would but I do not have the talent nor capability to write in that way.

**JHyde** · 11-05-2010, 12:20 PM

I'm almost sure that one has been written but it's not a bad idea at all Cousin!

I love this episode. This is the episode that made me love Ruth and lots of good Danny and Adam stuff too.

I agree that the Harry line doesn't always make sense in the context of Ruth having a sick day (he should have twigged without being prompted) but I'm not prepared to read such a huge amount into the way he looks after her when she chats with Andrew. One of the times I probably disagree with the HR crowd.

**A Cousin** · 11-05-2010, 02:47 PM

Ruth didn't firmly ensconce herself in my heart until early S4

Spoiler: show

There were moments prior to that, but that is what did me in for good. I was blissfully ignorant for a very long time. But that is for another board.

I think Danny has a particularly strong character arc in this episode. He really takes a journey and makes his choice. Ruth's line at the end, "Promise me we will never end up as broken or as bitter" is heartbreaking. By choosing to find Ruth and dispose of the code on his own, he has made the choice to not be bitter or broken both personally and professionally.

After reading the DVD commentaries for this episode, I was wondering if anyone else, in their first viewing, figured out that Andrew was the culprit just before he asked Ruth to dinner? I did, which one of the rare times I was ahead of the game and not lagging pitifully behind.