Spooks 7x04
Well I think I can safely say that this episode was more plot focused than character focused. I must say that I liked this episode. It was very thought provoking.
And how does this episode start - with a shot of Lucas (and his legs!) walking down a tunnel!
Firstly the bulk of the plot: Al Qaeda speaking to MI5.
It starts with a message from a contact. But before they get that info, Lucas has to do some clever misdirection around a train station, trying to avoid Ossetik or as Ros puts it, the “hostile intelligence services”. Unfortunately, it doesn’t completely work and while Lucas manages to turn and quickly takes down Ossetik, he still manages to stab the contact. And struggling for breath, the contact manages to pass on a SIM card and a message - Khordad wants to talk.
Khordad is set up as a terrorist - Al Qaeda’s number 3. And he has personally tortured 3 MI6 officers to death. Lucas looks up at this point - I think he’s decided not to like Khordad. Can’t say I blame him.
Section D calls Khordad although the very idea of Al Qaeda’s number 3 and a senior MI5 officer having a chat seems repugnant. But as Connie puts it, “sometimes you have to sup with the Devil, just to find out what he wants”.
Then Harry has to try and convince the Home Secretary that meeting Khordad is a good idea:
Harry: It’s an opportunity we have to take.
Home Secretary: It’s an opportunity for the PM to cut my bollocks off!
What is scary is Harry’s assessment of the situation: “You want it without spin? We can’t win the war against terrorism ever. We can contain it. We can prevent its worst consequences but we can never defeat it. So when we get an offer to talk, however tentative, however precarious, we take it. We have to.”
It’s strange that I’ve chosen to review a show which has so much politics in it when I’d rather not talk about politics, or at least not about my view on political stances. But Harry makes this comment without any kind of rose-coloured glasses on. It’s a bare truth to him. It will always be maintained that we will win the war against terrorism, because this is what the public needs to hear. What if a government told us we can’t ever win? There would be no hope. So we continue to believe.
The meet with Khordad is on, but he’s demanded that a human rights lawyer be present as a type of insurance. So Ben and Jo go and ask Sam Stevens ‘nicely’ if he’ll come and help. Very smooth, very hard to say no to. And despite what Stevens may say about being against MI5, Harry is still correct: “ultimately Mr Stevens you and I uphold a common aim: To protect and uphold a free and democratic society.”
Harry has a pretty nifty ring with traceable nano-particles. Do these things exist?
It turns out that a faction within Al Qaeda paid for Ossetik to kill the guy that was giving Lucas and MI5 the contact details for Khordad. So some parts of Al Qaeda don’t like that Al Qaeda’s seniors are talking to MI5. Understandable. But it also makes me more interested in what Khordad’s motives are.
So we meet Khordad. He doesn’t look all that scary. I believe the writers do a very good job here of making us not hate this man. We should, by default, despise what he stands for, but he puts his side across so eloquently, that it is difficult to believe that he is so very bad.
He makes the point that: “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. This is a point that Harry cannot flatly deny. There are too many examples of this in England’s own history to be able to deny it.
And Khordad’s objectives do not seem too bad: “Justice for Palestine, an end to the corrupt regime in Saudi Arabi, America out of the Middle East. Are these such evil aims?” I agree with Ros in that the method used to try and achieve these aims is wrong, but I don’t think that many can argue that the objectives are wrong.
So Khordad suggests that Harry and he exchange “reciprocal tokens of sincerity” in order to gain each other’s trust. Khordad will provide information regarding a military operation (i.e. terrorist attack) in return for a public statement that two men released from wrongfully arrested, illegally incarcerated and tortured and a guarantee that they will face no further charges in the UK. Interesting negotiation techniques (i.e. blackmail).
Jo and Ben are still following Khordad as he goes into a museum (I think it’s a museum?). They loose him for a moment, and it’s he who finds them - or finds Jo. Honestly, it was rather silly to believe that Khordad wouldn’t realise that he was being followed. As Khordad puts it: “I’m relying on MI5 to keep me alive." Jo doesn’t seem to have a full check on her emotions here though: “You disgust me." She’s very different to Ros in that respect, I think.
Meanwhile Ros and Harry are speaking to the Home Secretary about the situation. It’s a strong statement which Khordad has asked them to give, and the Home Secretary is right when he says that he can’t stand up in Parliament and give that statement. But even he knows that with a bomb somewhere in London, he can’t say nothing:
Home Secretary: Following a thorough investigation by the security services, I am therefore now satisfied that there is insufficient evidence that [the terrorists] pose a threat to the United Kingdom. Consequently, I have instructed the CPS to drop further legal action with immediate effect. However, I reserve the right to pursue further investigation in the light of any new evidence that may be forthcoming.
Even then he gets a lot of heckling. As Harry says: “He’s gone as far as he could.”
But even as far as he went, it wasn’t enough for Khordad. So MI5 have 95 minutes to find the bomb, and they have nowhere to start. So they move to pick up Khordad. And then the black car comes along and whisks him away. Except it wasn’t MI5. Later we find out that it was the Americans. And on a second watching, I don’t know why, but the guys that took him away do look American.
I was planning to leave all the Lucas/Elizabeta parts to the end but it turns out that this part is relevant to the main plot - the Russians know that Lucas lied, and think that Elizabeta has lied to. So in order to test whether they can still trust Lucas, they have contacted the bombers and convinced them to bring the time of the bomb forwards 10 minutes. If the bomb goes off 10 minutes early as the Russians have planned, then he still ‘belongs’ to Russia. If not, the FSB will conclude that he’s working entirely for MI5. And if that happens, they’re both dead.
Now during their initial meet, Harry transferred nano-particles to Khordad’s hand and so using this the team are able to find Khordad. He’s with the Americans. In a station that MI5’s not supposed to know about.
Harry essentially threatens the US chick, Laurie, that if the bomb goes off they will reveal that the US was involved and could have helped to prevent it. I’m guessing that she doesn’t want to make the headlines because she let’s Harry talk to Khordad:
Harry: You wanted to negotiate. We still can.
Khordad: …
Harry: What do you want!?!?
Khordad: Respect.
Poor Harry looked like he was going to pop a vein in this scene! It must be so frustration not knowing what he has to do. But he demands that the Americans release Khordad, and Harry and Ros take him away.
And in a very risky show of respect, Harry offers Khordad the opportunity to simply get out of the car and walk away. So he takes it, and sends through the details of the bomb.
But even with the location of the bomb, there’s still the problem of the Russians having moved the time 10 minutes forward. Essentially it’s either Lucas dies or dozens of civilians die. But Lucas has a third way. They evacuate all but one party out the back of the restaurant. The one party goes out the front so the bombers don’t get suspicious.
Ros and Lucas find the bomb and Malcolm gives instructions on how to disarm it. And I must say this is the craziest disarming technique I’ve heard yet - they’re going to zap the bomb in the microwave to stop it:
Lucas: How long does your average Italian land mine take on full power?
Malcolm: 20 seconds should do it.
So the land mine starts getting nuked, and Lucas and Ros set up their briefcases. And instead of the restaurant blowing up, some distractive devices blow up. 10 minutes early just as the Russians organised. Then, just so we know that everything’s okay we see a news report with pictures of Lucas and Ros safely out of the building.
There is one last meeting between Khordad and Harry, because as Khordad says: “We can never be colleagues Mr Pearce but I hope perhaps we can be useful to one another." Khordad tells Harry that there are well built high powered missiles in the possession of ‘people’. If they were to be used, it would set back the achievement of Khordad’s objectives, and of course Harry wouldn’t want the missiles used either. Khordad can’t stop them on his own, and so this is why he has sought out MI5’s help:
Harry: You want me to eliminate elements within your own organisation?
Khordad: We both have dangerous friends. Perhaps between us we can make sure they don’t destroy the world.
No wonder other Al Qaeda factions want him dead. I’m rather ashamed to admit this, but I’m finding it very hard to dislike Khordad. His methods are wrong, but he only wants what he believes is good, and he seems to only want to use violence as a last resort. I think that his character has been painted very well.
Back on the grid we get the news that the plane Khordad was travelling with has crashed where the Americans have an air base. Connie puts it very well: “God defend me from my friends; from my enemies I can defend myself." So any future good that could have come from Khordad is quite literally dead. Which is a pity, despite him being a terrorist.
Speaking of Connie, she has been fingered by Bernard as a possible source of the Sugarhorse leak. Although there is no way that I trust Bernard. As soon as he tells Harry that Connie could be the leak (and then says he doesn’t believe it was her), he makes an arrangement to meet someone. He must be involved in this whole situation. I don’t know how, but I think he is.
Now a bit on the Lucas and Elizabeta involvement. When Ros tells Lucas to contact Elizabeta early in the episode Lucas says that “she’s not a spy". And Ros agrees adding that “she can be manipulated". Which is a bit cruel, but Lucas goes along with it. They obviously believe that Elizabeta can get them information from the FSB, so the ‘not a spy’ reference must mean that Elizabeta doesn’t really know what she’s doing - she’s just a go-between. I think this is right as the only spy type purpose she seems to serve for the Russians is contacting Lucas.
Lucas tells her about the contact he met at the station that got injured:
Lucas: He never regained consciousness.
Elizabeta: It could have been you.
Lucas: No.
I love how he bluntly says no. It’s as though he’s saying ‘he couldn’t possibly have taken me down’. And then when she says it’ll take a few hours to find out the info he says “I’ll wait” with that slight brush of the arm. I guess she can be manipulated, although I still like to think that Lucas cares.
The second time that Lucas meets up with Elizabeta, she has figured out that Lucas has lied to her. Ossetik has come to the FSB and told them everything in return for safe passage:
Elizabeta: Don’t play me Lucas, not again.
Lucas: I’m trying to protect you.
Elizabeta: Thank you. Now they know you lied, and they think I did too.
This is just a messed up couple in a messed up situation. Lucas does think that he’s protecting her, and I suppose he is, because I don’t think she’d be able to lie to the FSB if he did tell her the truth. But because he lies to her Elizabeta thinks he can’t trust her. To be honest, I don’t know if Lucas does trust her. Does he? He certainly doesn’t trust her abilities as a spy…
Jo also gets some attention in this episode. While following Harry and Ros to the meeting with Khordad she bumped into a man who reminded her of Boscard. I get the impression that while she’s trying to move past, it’s still rather raw at the moment. I suppose she’s coping, but I don’t know what more can be done to help her.
Next week - Lucas in that suit that fits him just right. It makes for good viewing but I also tend to get a bit distracted. Ah well, I’ll just have to watch it a couple of extra times!
And how does this episode start - with a shot of Lucas (and his legs!) walking down a tunnel!
Firstly the bulk of the plot: Al Qaeda speaking to MI5.
It starts with a message from a contact. But before they get that info, Lucas has to do some clever misdirection around a train station, trying to avoid Ossetik or as Ros puts it, the “hostile intelligence services”. Unfortunately, it doesn’t completely work and while Lucas manages to turn and quickly takes down Ossetik, he still manages to stab the contact. And struggling for breath, the contact manages to pass on a SIM card and a message - Khordad wants to talk.
Khordad is set up as a terrorist - Al Qaeda’s number 3. And he has personally tortured 3 MI6 officers to death. Lucas looks up at this point - I think he’s decided not to like Khordad. Can’t say I blame him.
Section D calls Khordad although the very idea of Al Qaeda’s number 3 and a senior MI5 officer having a chat seems repugnant. But as Connie puts it, “sometimes you have to sup with the Devil, just to find out what he wants”.
Then Harry has to try and convince the Home Secretary that meeting Khordad is a good idea:
Harry: It’s an opportunity we have to take.
Home Secretary: It’s an opportunity for the PM to cut my bollocks off!
What is scary is Harry’s assessment of the situation: “You want it without spin? We can’t win the war against terrorism ever. We can contain it. We can prevent its worst consequences but we can never defeat it. So when we get an offer to talk, however tentative, however precarious, we take it. We have to.”
It’s strange that I’ve chosen to review a show which has so much politics in it when I’d rather not talk about politics, or at least not about my view on political stances. But Harry makes this comment without any kind of rose-coloured glasses on. It’s a bare truth to him. It will always be maintained that we will win the war against terrorism, because this is what the public needs to hear. What if a government told us we can’t ever win? There would be no hope. So we continue to believe.
The meet with Khordad is on, but he’s demanded that a human rights lawyer be present as a type of insurance. So Ben and Jo go and ask Sam Stevens ‘nicely’ if he’ll come and help. Very smooth, very hard to say no to. And despite what Stevens may say about being against MI5, Harry is still correct: “ultimately Mr Stevens you and I uphold a common aim: To protect and uphold a free and democratic society.”
Harry has a pretty nifty ring with traceable nano-particles. Do these things exist?
It turns out that a faction within Al Qaeda paid for Ossetik to kill the guy that was giving Lucas and MI5 the contact details for Khordad. So some parts of Al Qaeda don’t like that Al Qaeda’s seniors are talking to MI5. Understandable. But it also makes me more interested in what Khordad’s motives are.
So we meet Khordad. He doesn’t look all that scary. I believe the writers do a very good job here of making us not hate this man. We should, by default, despise what he stands for, but he puts his side across so eloquently, that it is difficult to believe that he is so very bad.
He makes the point that: “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. This is a point that Harry cannot flatly deny. There are too many examples of this in England’s own history to be able to deny it.
And Khordad’s objectives do not seem too bad: “Justice for Palestine, an end to the corrupt regime in Saudi Arabi, America out of the Middle East. Are these such evil aims?” I agree with Ros in that the method used to try and achieve these aims is wrong, but I don’t think that many can argue that the objectives are wrong.
So Khordad suggests that Harry and he exchange “reciprocal tokens of sincerity” in order to gain each other’s trust. Khordad will provide information regarding a military operation (i.e. terrorist attack) in return for a public statement that two men released from wrongfully arrested, illegally incarcerated and tortured and a guarantee that they will face no further charges in the UK. Interesting negotiation techniques (i.e. blackmail).
Jo and Ben are still following Khordad as he goes into a museum (I think it’s a museum?). They loose him for a moment, and it’s he who finds them - or finds Jo. Honestly, it was rather silly to believe that Khordad wouldn’t realise that he was being followed. As Khordad puts it: “I’m relying on MI5 to keep me alive." Jo doesn’t seem to have a full check on her emotions here though: “You disgust me." She’s very different to Ros in that respect, I think.
Meanwhile Ros and Harry are speaking to the Home Secretary about the situation. It’s a strong statement which Khordad has asked them to give, and the Home Secretary is right when he says that he can’t stand up in Parliament and give that statement. But even he knows that with a bomb somewhere in London, he can’t say nothing:
Home Secretary: Following a thorough investigation by the security services, I am therefore now satisfied that there is insufficient evidence that [the terrorists] pose a threat to the United Kingdom. Consequently, I have instructed the CPS to drop further legal action with immediate effect. However, I reserve the right to pursue further investigation in the light of any new evidence that may be forthcoming.
Even then he gets a lot of heckling. As Harry says: “He’s gone as far as he could.”
But even as far as he went, it wasn’t enough for Khordad. So MI5 have 95 minutes to find the bomb, and they have nowhere to start. So they move to pick up Khordad. And then the black car comes along and whisks him away. Except it wasn’t MI5. Later we find out that it was the Americans. And on a second watching, I don’t know why, but the guys that took him away do look American.
I was planning to leave all the Lucas/Elizabeta parts to the end but it turns out that this part is relevant to the main plot - the Russians know that Lucas lied, and think that Elizabeta has lied to. So in order to test whether they can still trust Lucas, they have contacted the bombers and convinced them to bring the time of the bomb forwards 10 minutes. If the bomb goes off 10 minutes early as the Russians have planned, then he still ‘belongs’ to Russia. If not, the FSB will conclude that he’s working entirely for MI5. And if that happens, they’re both dead.
Now during their initial meet, Harry transferred nano-particles to Khordad’s hand and so using this the team are able to find Khordad. He’s with the Americans. In a station that MI5’s not supposed to know about.
Harry essentially threatens the US chick, Laurie, that if the bomb goes off they will reveal that the US was involved and could have helped to prevent it. I’m guessing that she doesn’t want to make the headlines because she let’s Harry talk to Khordad:
Harry: You wanted to negotiate. We still can.
Khordad: …
Harry: What do you want!?!?
Khordad: Respect.
Poor Harry looked like he was going to pop a vein in this scene! It must be so frustration not knowing what he has to do. But he demands that the Americans release Khordad, and Harry and Ros take him away.
And in a very risky show of respect, Harry offers Khordad the opportunity to simply get out of the car and walk away. So he takes it, and sends through the details of the bomb.
But even with the location of the bomb, there’s still the problem of the Russians having moved the time 10 minutes forward. Essentially it’s either Lucas dies or dozens of civilians die. But Lucas has a third way. They evacuate all but one party out the back of the restaurant. The one party goes out the front so the bombers don’t get suspicious.
Ros and Lucas find the bomb and Malcolm gives instructions on how to disarm it. And I must say this is the craziest disarming technique I’ve heard yet - they’re going to zap the bomb in the microwave to stop it:
Lucas: How long does your average Italian land mine take on full power?
Malcolm: 20 seconds should do it.
So the land mine starts getting nuked, and Lucas and Ros set up their briefcases. And instead of the restaurant blowing up, some distractive devices blow up. 10 minutes early just as the Russians organised. Then, just so we know that everything’s okay we see a news report with pictures of Lucas and Ros safely out of the building.
There is one last meeting between Khordad and Harry, because as Khordad says: “We can never be colleagues Mr Pearce but I hope perhaps we can be useful to one another." Khordad tells Harry that there are well built high powered missiles in the possession of ‘people’. If they were to be used, it would set back the achievement of Khordad’s objectives, and of course Harry wouldn’t want the missiles used either. Khordad can’t stop them on his own, and so this is why he has sought out MI5’s help:
Harry: You want me to eliminate elements within your own organisation?
Khordad: We both have dangerous friends. Perhaps between us we can make sure they don’t destroy the world.
No wonder other Al Qaeda factions want him dead. I’m rather ashamed to admit this, but I’m finding it very hard to dislike Khordad. His methods are wrong, but he only wants what he believes is good, and he seems to only want to use violence as a last resort. I think that his character has been painted very well.
Back on the grid we get the news that the plane Khordad was travelling with has crashed where the Americans have an air base. Connie puts it very well: “God defend me from my friends; from my enemies I can defend myself." So any future good that could have come from Khordad is quite literally dead. Which is a pity, despite him being a terrorist.
Speaking of Connie, she has been fingered by Bernard as a possible source of the Sugarhorse leak. Although there is no way that I trust Bernard. As soon as he tells Harry that Connie could be the leak (and then says he doesn’t believe it was her), he makes an arrangement to meet someone. He must be involved in this whole situation. I don’t know how, but I think he is.
Now a bit on the Lucas and Elizabeta involvement. When Ros tells Lucas to contact Elizabeta early in the episode Lucas says that “she’s not a spy". And Ros agrees adding that “she can be manipulated". Which is a bit cruel, but Lucas goes along with it. They obviously believe that Elizabeta can get them information from the FSB, so the ‘not a spy’ reference must mean that Elizabeta doesn’t really know what she’s doing - she’s just a go-between. I think this is right as the only spy type purpose she seems to serve for the Russians is contacting Lucas.
Lucas tells her about the contact he met at the station that got injured:
Lucas: He never regained consciousness.
Elizabeta: It could have been you.
Lucas: No.
I love how he bluntly says no. It’s as though he’s saying ‘he couldn’t possibly have taken me down’. And then when she says it’ll take a few hours to find out the info he says “I’ll wait” with that slight brush of the arm. I guess she can be manipulated, although I still like to think that Lucas cares.
The second time that Lucas meets up with Elizabeta, she has figured out that Lucas has lied to her. Ossetik has come to the FSB and told them everything in return for safe passage:
Elizabeta: Don’t play me Lucas, not again.
Lucas: I’m trying to protect you.
Elizabeta: Thank you. Now they know you lied, and they think I did too.
This is just a messed up couple in a messed up situation. Lucas does think that he’s protecting her, and I suppose he is, because I don’t think she’d be able to lie to the FSB if he did tell her the truth. But because he lies to her Elizabeta thinks he can’t trust her. To be honest, I don’t know if Lucas does trust her. Does he? He certainly doesn’t trust her abilities as a spy…
Jo also gets some attention in this episode. While following Harry and Ros to the meeting with Khordad she bumped into a man who reminded her of Boscard. I get the impression that while she’s trying to move past, it’s still rather raw at the moment. I suppose she’s coping, but I don’t know what more can be done to help her.
Next week - Lucas in that suit that fits him just right. It makes for good viewing but I also tend to get a bit distracted. Ah well, I’ll just have to watch it a couple of extra times!