between the Devil and the deep blue sea.
My (very, very general) reactions to Spooks series 7 with a (very, very detailed) reaction to a key character in 7.07 and 7.08.
I'll start with some general bits and pieces before I get to Connie (dealing with all that will take a while) and I'm going to try and deal with them quickly. First, I still love Ros (despite the lack of death by fork) - she makes an excellent head of section, looks fantastic, interacts well with everybody (especially Harry) and, as implied by 7.08, she can speak Russian. All the coolest characters speak Russian. I like Lucas too and the way he absolutely isn't Adam (and I liked Adam a lot). I especially liked the part in 7.06 (I think) where he whipped out that sonic screwdriver. That was hilarious. I think that Jo's been sidelined a bit - but she looks great this series and I still love Malcolm, but he needs more screen time! As always, very little of the plot is plausible but that makes it all the more enjoyable. This is Spooks back on really good form - bring on series 8 and please, BBC, back to ten episodes, yes?
Also, they've gone all out on the explosions this year. That's cool. Fire pretty.
But now.... My attempt to make sense of the Connie thing (and I genuinely believe that it does make sense) is in three parts. Call it a before, a between and an after...
Originally, Connie's betrayal upset me a bit - I'd always liked her and the way that she wasn't young and brash, but very clever and really good at her job. And it turns out that she was good at her job. A little bit too good. I always spoil myself horribly for upcoming episodes, so it's my own fault, but I really felt like Connie wouldn't work as the traitor and that I would end up completely hating that particular plot: I thought it would be a complete waste of a character who was unusual for both the genre and TV in general, and that it would come completely out of the blue and thus be confusing and just plain wrong.
When I saw 7.07 my first thought was that it had been reasonably well done, even if it was rather unrealistic. OK, so she was in love with Hugo Prince, but could anyone else actually see a motive before 7.08 aired? I couldn't. But, that said, it didn't really bother me, for one thing I knew that she would be in episode 8, for another both Gemma Jones and the director (sorry, I can't remember who it was) did a really wonderful job of making the story work. I'm thinking particularly of the scene where Connie is listening to the recording that gives her away whilst Jo and Ros repeatedly turn to watch her. I like to think that this is paranoia, rather than truth, but either way the scene is almost suffocating - just as Connie can't relax, neither can the viewer. The following scene in which Connie kills Ben isn't frightening for the blood and that rather ugly gaping neck wound, but rather for Ben's absolute innocence (it's as though he can see what's coming and he turns from her not because he's stupid, but because he can't bear to watch, just as many a viewer couldn't) and Connie's whirlwind of emotions - from deep felt regret when he refuses the tea (poison, anyone?), to icy cold as she dispatches him - quick and clever and ruthless, to a state that seems part sorrow, part relief, part acceptance - I believe that she genuinely feels that she had no choice and that she really was trying to comfort him. The hiss, though it's a bit awkward (as if they said 'Now, Gemma, we want to really show the anger there, but Connie wouldn't shout and we did the smashing-the-room-up thing already. Could you try hissing?') is, in my opinion, Connie mocking Harry - she's kept this secret for so long, from Harry for so long and she isn't about to give up just like that - and the sort of primal sound that arises when you want to say everything but can't find any words at all.
(And hey, wasn't young Connie attractive? Attractive and dressed like something out of Poirot...)
7.08 reaffirmed my belief that Connie is a good character. Despite everything. Despite the fact that her motive makes her actions seem a little extreme - would killing a lot of British agents and countless others in the fallout really correct the balance? Plus, whose idea was this anyway? Hugo Prince's... Qualtrough's... Connie's...? Did we ever find out who was the real mastermind? That particular aspect of the plot passed me by completely.
Anyway, the first scene with her in the cell, nursing her tea and knowing that she's about to be tortured was really quite tense. Despite all that had happened, I didn't want Connie to get hurt and I think that's the key here. Somehow, I always wanted to believe that there was more to Connie and that she might still show other, if not true, colours. When talking to Harry, Ros and Lucas she was cold, yes, but you could also see the fear and exhaustion in her eyes: to me it seemed that all she really wanted was to rest after years of keeping such a big secret. I love that in the panic and the fear she's still as quick and intelligent as ever, knowing what Harry wants and how to get what she wants in return. I love that, when running through those disused tunnels, she's just an old woman, tired and secretly frightened. I love that from the moment the homeless woman was shot, the woman who might well have been in the wrong place at the wrong time but regardless the woman who is now alone and without a proper place in the world, we know that Connie won't survive the episode. But the part I love the most is her very last scene - and not for the fact that she's sacrificing herself for the others, though it is a fitting final act and the wonderful line 'it's just a bomb, and I'm not frightened of bombs' is beautifully delivered. No, it's the fact that Connie tells Lucas that she betrayed him to the Russians. Now this is just me, but I don't believe this for a second. 'What's lost can be found', this she says as she frees Lucas by taking all the blame and hurt for his suffering. He can hate her all he likes now because she's dead. I believe that she's protecting the team dynamics and Lucas in one go - Lucas will stop resenting Harry and will be able, perhaps, to properly deal with what happened to him. This I believe is Connie's greatest act - the one in which she is redeemed, rather than the sacrifice of her life. She must have known, as everyone knew in 6.08 when it was Ros who was the traitor, that she wouldn't come out of this alive - whether her death was at the hands of the Russians, the British or the bomb. Connie was dead when she first agreed to turn traitor, just as Ros was. That's the way that Spooks likes to work.
That got a bit long, but I have one more point about Connie and then I promise to stop - despite my earlier belief that this plot would come out of nowhere, I challenge you to go back and watch series 6 and then not decide that it is plausible. She was highly suspicious in her first episode, but even if you put that down to shock and nerves at suddenly finding herself back in the world of MI5, then her later episodes definitely confirm that there's something secretive about Connie. Even if the cast and crew knew nothing of the series 7 plots, it seems that Gemma Jones always played Connie as an ambiguous character. I also played the interactive game from last year the other day and I defy anyone to not find the one with Connie unsettling - she's actually a bit scary! I'm leaving a lot of the things I could say about Connie's backstory (I'm halfway though a fic that attempts to explain it) and I'm lagging a bit. There's a part of me who would like Connie to have cheated death (we never saw a body) and part of me that hopes she's gone for good. Ben certainly didn't deserve what he got and to me Connie's motives still aren't entirely clear, but she was still a character I liked. I like to imagine her going home at the end of the day and doing something really mundane like cooking cottage pie. Now that might have made good TV...
I'll start with some general bits and pieces before I get to Connie (dealing with all that will take a while) and I'm going to try and deal with them quickly. First, I still love Ros (despite the lack of death by fork) - she makes an excellent head of section, looks fantastic, interacts well with everybody (especially Harry) and, as implied by 7.08, she can speak Russian. All the coolest characters speak Russian. I like Lucas too and the way he absolutely isn't Adam (and I liked Adam a lot). I especially liked the part in 7.06 (I think) where he whipped out that sonic screwdriver. That was hilarious. I think that Jo's been sidelined a bit - but she looks great this series and I still love Malcolm, but he needs more screen time! As always, very little of the plot is plausible but that makes it all the more enjoyable. This is Spooks back on really good form - bring on series 8 and please, BBC, back to ten episodes, yes?
Also, they've gone all out on the explosions this year. That's cool. Fire pretty.
But now.... My attempt to make sense of the Connie thing (and I genuinely believe that it does make sense) is in three parts. Call it a before, a between and an after...
Originally, Connie's betrayal upset me a bit - I'd always liked her and the way that she wasn't young and brash, but very clever and really good at her job. And it turns out that she was good at her job. A little bit too good. I always spoil myself horribly for upcoming episodes, so it's my own fault, but I really felt like Connie wouldn't work as the traitor and that I would end up completely hating that particular plot: I thought it would be a complete waste of a character who was unusual for both the genre and TV in general, and that it would come completely out of the blue and thus be confusing and just plain wrong.
When I saw 7.07 my first thought was that it had been reasonably well done, even if it was rather unrealistic. OK, so she was in love with Hugo Prince, but could anyone else actually see a motive before 7.08 aired? I couldn't. But, that said, it didn't really bother me, for one thing I knew that she would be in episode 8, for another both Gemma Jones and the director (sorry, I can't remember who it was) did a really wonderful job of making the story work. I'm thinking particularly of the scene where Connie is listening to the recording that gives her away whilst Jo and Ros repeatedly turn to watch her. I like to think that this is paranoia, rather than truth, but either way the scene is almost suffocating - just as Connie can't relax, neither can the viewer. The following scene in which Connie kills Ben isn't frightening for the blood and that rather ugly gaping neck wound, but rather for Ben's absolute innocence (it's as though he can see what's coming and he turns from her not because he's stupid, but because he can't bear to watch, just as many a viewer couldn't) and Connie's whirlwind of emotions - from deep felt regret when he refuses the tea (poison, anyone?), to icy cold as she dispatches him - quick and clever and ruthless, to a state that seems part sorrow, part relief, part acceptance - I believe that she genuinely feels that she had no choice and that she really was trying to comfort him. The hiss, though it's a bit awkward (as if they said 'Now, Gemma, we want to really show the anger there, but Connie wouldn't shout and we did the smashing-the-room-up thing already. Could you try hissing?') is, in my opinion, Connie mocking Harry - she's kept this secret for so long, from Harry for so long and she isn't about to give up just like that - and the sort of primal sound that arises when you want to say everything but can't find any words at all.
(And hey, wasn't young Connie attractive? Attractive and dressed like something out of Poirot...)
7.08 reaffirmed my belief that Connie is a good character. Despite everything. Despite the fact that her motive makes her actions seem a little extreme - would killing a lot of British agents and countless others in the fallout really correct the balance? Plus, whose idea was this anyway? Hugo Prince's... Qualtrough's... Connie's...? Did we ever find out who was the real mastermind? That particular aspect of the plot passed me by completely.
Anyway, the first scene with her in the cell, nursing her tea and knowing that she's about to be tortured was really quite tense. Despite all that had happened, I didn't want Connie to get hurt and I think that's the key here. Somehow, I always wanted to believe that there was more to Connie and that she might still show other, if not true, colours. When talking to Harry, Ros and Lucas she was cold, yes, but you could also see the fear and exhaustion in her eyes: to me it seemed that all she really wanted was to rest after years of keeping such a big secret. I love that in the panic and the fear she's still as quick and intelligent as ever, knowing what Harry wants and how to get what she wants in return. I love that, when running through those disused tunnels, she's just an old woman, tired and secretly frightened. I love that from the moment the homeless woman was shot, the woman who might well have been in the wrong place at the wrong time but regardless the woman who is now alone and without a proper place in the world, we know that Connie won't survive the episode. But the part I love the most is her very last scene - and not for the fact that she's sacrificing herself for the others, though it is a fitting final act and the wonderful line 'it's just a bomb, and I'm not frightened of bombs' is beautifully delivered. No, it's the fact that Connie tells Lucas that she betrayed him to the Russians. Now this is just me, but I don't believe this for a second. 'What's lost can be found', this she says as she frees Lucas by taking all the blame and hurt for his suffering. He can hate her all he likes now because she's dead. I believe that she's protecting the team dynamics and Lucas in one go - Lucas will stop resenting Harry and will be able, perhaps, to properly deal with what happened to him. This I believe is Connie's greatest act - the one in which she is redeemed, rather than the sacrifice of her life. She must have known, as everyone knew in 6.08 when it was Ros who was the traitor, that she wouldn't come out of this alive - whether her death was at the hands of the Russians, the British or the bomb. Connie was dead when she first agreed to turn traitor, just as Ros was. That's the way that Spooks likes to work.
That got a bit long, but I have one more point about Connie and then I promise to stop - despite my earlier belief that this plot would come out of nowhere, I challenge you to go back and watch series 6 and then not decide that it is plausible. She was highly suspicious in her first episode, but even if you put that down to shock and nerves at suddenly finding herself back in the world of MI5, then her later episodes definitely confirm that there's something secretive about Connie. Even if the cast and crew knew nothing of the series 7 plots, it seems that Gemma Jones always played Connie as an ambiguous character. I also played the interactive game from last year the other day and I defy anyone to not find the one with Connie unsettling - she's actually a bit scary! I'm leaving a lot of the things I could say about Connie's backstory (I'm halfway though a fic that attempts to explain it) and I'm lagging a bit. There's a part of me who would like Connie to have cheated death (we never saw a body) and part of me that hopes she's gone for good. Ben certainly didn't deserve what he got and to me Connie's motives still aren't entirely clear, but she was still a character I liked. I like to imagine her going home at the end of the day and doing something really mundane like cooking cottage pie. Now that might have made good TV...