There are several creators of fictional stories of British National Security, and convert operations whose work has impressed, engaged, moved and become part of my life commencing with Graham Greene, and then David Cornwell, otherwise known as John le Carré, Callan with Edward Woodward and for the past decade Spooks, with Peter Firth as Harry Pierce and where the last episode of the last series came to its emotional and intellectually challenging conclusion on Sunday evening 23 October 2011.
In a documentary about his life and work, included in the Tinker Tailor 2 DVD set of the BBC production, Cornwell explained that he had written The Spy who Came out of the Cold quickly, subsequently editing to what became the International best seller and film with such popularity that it led him to having to leave his main profession as a member of MI6, but knowing that the book was everything he wanted from a creation as a writer.
I felt like that when I embarked upon my Artman 101 project, with the inherent paradox that at present I know the work needs recognition during my lifetime for it to be secured after my death, yet that any recognition before my death would prevent me from continuing to complete the work with the originality and consistency that has developed over the past eight years.
For the greater part of today I have attempted to write about the experience of viewing the seven episode BBC production of Tinker Tailor yesterday following by the documentary in the first hours of this morning, only halting to watch the final episode of Spooks and then knowing that I needed to write this before continuing with the other and that completion of the second writing would only become part of further work in relation to Le Carré and Greene and which in turn puts back but also brings forward the rereading and writing about the CP Snow ten book series Strangers and Brothers and the Anthony Powell 12 book series of A Dance to the Music of Time. I see these works as precursors of what I am attempting to do, to write about the experiences of a life over time.
Sir Harry Pierce KBE (Peter Firth) is no Smiley in that he is unable to detach himself from the pain of his professional and private life, such as it is, and that although he takes horrendous decisions which destroy, sometimes sacrificing, his own and the lives of those he cares about, he continues because he is certain that what he does is for the greater good as well as for the immediate security and individual safety of his fellow countrymen.
Harry is a creative thinker with an ability to use that blend of intuition and previous experience which few possess with the consistency to be trusted with high office whereas George Smiley has methodical academic persistence and thoroughness as had his predecessor at MI6-the Circus, which is not surprising as the character was based on a Master at Sherbourne School and then of an Oxford College with an uncanny resemblance to Sir Alec Guiness, or more accurately vice versa.
But the two men only come fully alive when at their desks or out successfully completing a task but whereas George has his academic and other interests that provide an alternative satisfying life when not required or can be assumed during retirement, Harry has no life, and thus it is when at the end of the series he has lost the only chance left of finding a life outside the work, it is taken from him, although he and we know it would never have worked anyway.
There is also one other fundamental factor which connects much of the work of Graham Greene. Le Carré, Callan and the Spooks’ writers, that the stories however authentic in their construction and believable in their representation of life within MI5 and 6 are always secondary to the moral ambiguity of their roles, protecting life but also taking life, upholding democratic values and the Rule of Law but also invading personal rights and privacy and breaking the law whenever necessary.
The only other continuing member of the Spook’s team is Ruth Evershed (Nicola Walker) who was officially believed to have died at the end in the 2006, but Harry arranged for her to disappear, and she goes to a Greek Island where she established a relationship and brings up a step child. Prior to this Harry and Ruth had become close but knew their relationship could never become official because of their roles and the past. She reluctantly returns after her partner is killed and the child is brought up by others members of his extended family. There is a strong bond between Ruth and Harry and vice versa, which is deeper than most describe as love and beyond physical attraction. They will protect and if necessary cover up for each other and as emerges die for each other, as well as for their beliefs and their country.
Ruth has the same role at MI5 as Connie in Le Carré world, the super analyst who makes sense of vast quantities of information and sees what needs to be understood and this is prove Harry’s and the nation’s saviour in the last series, but alas not her own.
In the 9th series Harry forced the Administration to do a trade to rescue captured Ruth and Lucas North who has cracked from his time imprisoned by the Russians, becomes a traitor, so Harry is placed on gardening leave with a new acting head of service while his conduct is officially investigated by a Tribunal.
The Coalition Home Secretary has continuing doubts about Harry after his years of service to the previous Order and offers Harry a way back on the basis that the Tribunal decision is kicked into the long grass but can be resurrected if he fails to cooperate.
A retired former Spook Max Witt (Giles Havergal) has been killed at his home although the death is first made to look natural. It has emerged that Witt was killed because he knew somebody is posing as Harry using his old coded messages from the Cold War to gain the confidence of a former agent and gain current information about Russian activities.
This leads to learning that a Russian businessman, Government Minister and former KGB hard line officer akin to Le Carré’s Karla (Ilya Gavrik (Jonathan Hyde) is in London within his wife and son on a secret mission for the establishment of a new intelligence and anti terrorism relationship with the UK, and in secret from the USA who appear to want to keep control but distance themselves from issues in Europe. Harry has his doubts about opening up of British intelligence information to the Russians again similar to the situation that arose at the Circus of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and this is shared by his USA link officer in London Alton Beecher (Colin Salmond) who appears to know that something is afoot and warns Harry against such a development.
Harry has another reason for concern which he tells Ruth who is to accompany him as his partner at a reception in the London to begin the forging of the new relationship. Two decades ago Harry converted the man’s wife, Elena (Alice Krige) and the two had an affair and the couple‘s only child is Harry‘s. He arranges a secret meeting at the reception to arrange another meeting so he can warn her that he has not made previous contact and she has been sending information to an unknown third party. Their son Sasha Gavrik (Tom Weston-Jones) is a serving officer in the current Russian security service and is part of the delegation with responsibility to protect his parents on their secret mission to London. The son is waiting for Harry at his home threatens to kill him because he knows Harry was responsible for his mother being a traitor and the young man refuses to listen when Harry tries to reassure him that he had not resurrected the relationship in any form.
An attempt to assassinate the Russian emissary, ostensibly by a Chechen rebel is foiled and the man is killed by the new Director of Operations of the team and is her first kill. She resists the invitation to go out for a drink with a male colleague who says he knows they both lead lonely lives without friends because of the nature of their work, a theme constantly explored in the previous series. In fact she returns to a normal home life where her mother looks after her daughter while she away at work.
In the second episode a member of the team is mugged on his way to a meeting and his laptop containing the identities of five high level assets is stolen, one of which is Martha Ford (Lydia Leonard), an attractive woman who works for one of Gavrik's companies in London
Those behind the taking of the laptop appear to know what they were doing and threaten to release the identity of the uncover officers unless their conditions are met, The Team’s skilled technocrat attempts to trace the origin of the messages and eventually this is tracked to a former disenchanted spy but he has been working for someone else to organised the snatch of the information. The first undercover agent is revealed in the media and he commits suicide.
While the decision is taken to remove from the danger and take Martha to a safe house and offered protection she is asked to undertake one more mission and gain a copy of the hard drive of the Russian’s office computer. She is reassured she will be safe and is nearly caught but is able to leave the building having seen her face on the news on a TV monitor. It is evident to the Team that this is an attempt to undermine the proposed new relationship with Russian intelligence and where no doubt there are those in Moscow who are also unhappy about the new policy.
The Russian emissary demands that the girl is cut adrift as the price for enabling the new relationship to develop. This is a very hard thing for the head of Operations to implement as she has made promises about protecting the young woman who is now terrified about being paid off without the ongoing assistance and protection of the state. Harry is confident that his senior assistant can cope and one day becomes his successor. The betrayal of a promise made in good faith is a frequent aspect of the work of the Scalphunter and their managers.
Meanwhile Sasha tells his mother he is aware she has been a traitor and wants to know why she did it before he agrees to protect her. She explains that her parents disappeared and were killed by old regime because they were kind and wanted help others. One of Sasha’s closest friends and also a member of service begin to track down that there is a traitor within the mission and this forces Sasha to kill him and call on Harry to help in the cover up.
Meanwhile they try to find out who is behind the attempt to derail negotiations on the new relationship. While working at home their computer expert Tariq Masood (Shazad Latif) discovers vital information from studying close circuit footage of the area where the laptop was snatched. On his way to the HQ someone bumps into him and these results in his death from a secret injection. He dies on the steps of the building where he is found about another colleague. Harry meets Elena to warn her someone has been posing as him and he also asks Ruth to check up of the London CIA man Jim Cover (William Hope), believing the is the impostor.
As has been a regular feature of previous series the main story is interspersed with other others and in the third episode the belief that someone Johnny Grier (Mel Raido) is attempting to detonate a dirty bomb in London (as if there is such a thing as a clean bomb). Trace amounts of radioactive material have been found at Heathrow Airport and closed circuit camera film reveals that a well known anarchist and international protestor has re-entered the county and that he has a sister who uses an on line site for relationships. Another new member of the team Dimitri Levendis (Max Brown) is asked to operate a honey trap against his better judgement the sister, Natalie (Georgina Rich), via Internet dating.
She knows nothing which makes Dimitri even guiltier especially she wants more than one night stand. The brother arrives on the scene and is suspicious of Johnny but eventually takes to him which complicates his wanting to get out of the relationship with the sister. It appears that the target of the bomber and his many associates in London is a London based investment company which made millions out of the nuclear disaster in Japan.
The target is taken into custody and because of pressure Johnny reveals that he thought he was bringing heroin in to the UK and no idea a bomb was involved with the intention of killing and maiming. He gives information which leads capture of those in a vehicle reaching the destination building; however it is empty with no trace of the nuclear material. The team realises that Greer was lying and that this was a ploy to enable him to launch a personal attack on the Chief Executive Officer of the company. He breaks the phial over himself so only he is affected, hastening his end after the CEO escapes. He persuades Dimitri to end the relationship with his sister without revealing she was being used.
Throughout the episode there are links with the series story as Ruth goes to meet the wife of the Russian accompanied by the son to reveal that the CIA appear to be behind the sending of messages as if it was Harry underlining their intent to undermine the proposed new relationship between Russian and the UK. The team then find out the reason for the murder of Tariq, he had identified that the individual who stole the laptop works indirectly for the CIA and that she was also present at the party where the assassination attempt was to have been made. This suggests that the CIA killed Tariq
Meanwhile there has been another development which suggests the there is more afoot. The Home Secretary asks that Ruth keeps him informed as she high hopes for her in the future. Ruth goes along with this, we presume to gain knowledge for passing on to Harry. He follows up the first overture by taking her out to dinner.
This is what I had written at the end of the third episode but over the next three episodes everything is stood on its head and then given several twists and shake before the truth emerges in the final episode which I am sure will become the TV drama production event of 2011.
In episode 4 an Islamic extremist leader Zubier Al-Saad (Jeffery Kissoon), has application for release on licence turned down so he instructs two recently released inmates to commit a revenge suicide attack. One of those released, Ashur Mohali (Asif Khan), has been working for MI5 keeping them informed of what is being discussed inside the prison and he agrees to help stop the attack if his young daughter is protected and given British citizenship. Those organising the attack distrust Ashur and kidnap not only his daughter but that of units’ new number 2. Her daughter is rescued and mother pretends it has been no more than an adventure but she seriously considers leaving the service. The other girl is also rescued and the attack foiled but at the price of Ashur losing his life because he had become the instrument of suicide bombing in Trafalgar Square.
Convinced that it is the head of the CIA in London who is behind plans to wreck the proposed deal with Russia, and therefore was responsible for the death of Tarik, Harry with Ruth set up the wife of Russian Minister and his official son as bait to catch Coaver. They spot Coaver’s official car close by and then the woman who stole the laptop approach the car and speak to the driver hidden from view inside. The Car drives off, someone narrowly misses shooting Elena and the independent agent is killed. Satisfied with the evidence that Coaver, the CIA man, was responsible, Harry tells him he is coming after him.
In the penultimate episode, Harry has told Ruth to take the job as independent Security Adviser to the Minister and to take up the appointment immediately because of how he believes the situation will develop. He leads the team in kidnapping the CIA man who then denies as strongly as he can that he was not involved although he had used the independent female agent in the past and had gone to a meeting with her that she had requested but which had quickly come to nothing so he had driven off. Out of loyalty to her new boss Ruth discloses the action taken and his location. A CIA USA Embassy team arrive with instructions for the immediate release of Coaver but then they realise they have been duped as the official release team arrive. Coaver is dumped onto the roadway dying as the unit give high speed chase. He tells Harry that the truth is on his lap top. He was not working against British Intelligence.
Harry decides that it is the Russian Minister who is secretly trying to stop the treaty being signed and he tells the wife of this. The couple have had a frank exchange in which the husband admits that he was aware that his wife had become a traitor and had had set about protecting her and their son. In discussion between Harry and Jim we learn that it was Coaver who had intervened to prevent Elena and her son joining Harry in the West as she had been stood up at the agreed location where they had to wait for him.
The Unit is too late get the laptop from the hotel as it has been removed as part of the personal effects to the USA Embassy storage, and Sasha who has planted surveillance devices learns about the lap top and the subsequent successful attempt by Ruth who accompanies the Minister to the Embassy to discuss the death of the CIA officer and the role of Harry, to gain access to the computer and record the contents of the hard drive. Off screen we learn that Sasha has taken the data transfer stick from Ruth before she can transfer the contents to unit (one of the few weaker moments in the overall plot) and we observe the son finding out that Harry is his father, increasing his emotional turmoil and he smashes his personal lap top although as we know the data probably remains intact. (It is important to remember that Coaver says that the truth was on the lap top).
Meanwhile the Minister tells Ruth he had no alternative but to hand over Harry to the Americans for extradition to the USA. When in custody at the embassy a senior military officer attacks Harry because his own father had served with Coaver. Harry knows that his life as well as his career is now under threat along with the prospect of long term imprisonment. The situation is building up dramatically to a finale and only discovery and proof of who is the lead individual attempting to stop the Treaty can save Harry.
As Harry faces deportation to the United States via a special military authorised flight later in the day. The wife of the Russian Minister and Harry‘s former lover and agent contacts to say she must speak to Harry as a major attack is being planned on London costing thousands of lives to wreck the Treaty which her husband is signing on behalf of the Russian Government in London that morning. We the audience had watched Elena in contact with some in Russia who says they will initiate action and we then see an operative take a device in an attaché case through airport control in Moscow using a coded message and insists on keeping the case at his feet against the advice of a stewardess who keeps observation because of his suspicious behaviour
Two members of the Unit plant devices in the roadway which immobilise the two vehicles ahead and behind that transporting Harry to the airbase and rescue Harry as meanwhile Ruth and a member of the Unit collect Elena who has been with her husband at the Embassy giving a press conference and her son Sasha who has noted developments insists on accompanying them and they all meet up at a former Ministry of Defence site on the coast which has a secure interview room with listening and observation position outside.
It is here that with her son and the other members of the Unit and Ruth listening Elena reveals that she was part of a special Karla type unit in Moscow and that she had been instructed to seduce Harry, appear to become his agent, providing some good material as well as “chicken feed.” When Harry had fallen in love and said she he did not want to use her as an agent (under USA CIA pressure) she had been told to defect with her son although the son was that of her husband, saying he was Harry would add to the emotional pressure for Harry to arrange the defection. This had been stopped by Coaver.
Her group had continued to function following the collapse of the Soviet Union and widened their membership to include leading figures who wanted a return to the former power and status of Russia and therefore the attempt to wreck the Treaty with the UK which the group regarded as retrograde and humiliating. She had sent the messages to herself and help arrange the death of the former agent who was being sent the messages, the attempt to assassinate her husband and then the death of Tarik, the attempt on her life providing details which only someone directly involved would know.
The reason she was now intervening was because she was against the loss of innocent lives as the plane carrying some 400 Russian and UK citizens was going to crash/blow up over or on central London - a mixture of Lockerbie and 9/11 and she was against the loss of innocent lives (this immediate struck me as inconsistent and should have struck Harry as it did Ruth although they were both caught up in the emotions of the moment.
Elena had become aware that Ruth was in love with Harry but that his secret love affair with Elena and its ending through the intervention of Jim Coaver resulting in the separation not just from her but his son was a barrier to his having a viable relationship with anyone else. She tells Ruth she will show what kind of man Harry really is. Elena says that Harry converted her into being a spy by providing documentation which revealed that her parents been tortured and killed by the Russian Regime, but she knew they had been killed in a road accident and that Harry’s story was a fake. Ruth interpreted this revelation different from the way Elena anticipated appreciating that Harry would have emotionally torn apart by having to use the story to convert Elena with whom he had fallen in love and believed her child was his.
At these points she reveals only the British contact telephone number of the agents in the UK who are undertaking the outrage mission with the help of those in Moscow. She does not reveal her knowledge of the man on the plane that meanwhile has killed the inquisitive stewardess and opened the box of tricks which appears to contain radar type positioning screen as well as devices which look like some kind of bomb.
The Unit trace the telephone number to a factory site where they find someone killed in the midst of destroying documentation but one document has all the content blacked out but with a photo of the man on the plane remaining. Elena says he is their top notch operative and they then are able to trace his latest whereabouts as having boarded the particular flight. Harry draws the conclusion that this is a suicide plane mission and on the principle of the American 4th plane it is proposed to destroy the plane and its passengers before it reaches UK airspace. At this point it was evident to me that this was the clever part of Elena and her group’s plan, that is to get the British Government to shoot down a plane full of Russian citizens and then fore not just end the Treaty before it was established but provoke the Russian government into some form retaliation and with the Americans unsympathetic because of what had happened to their chief CIA man in London.
Harry is able to convince the Minister to take action to shoot the plane from the sky but Ruth remains concerned and tell the members of the Unit to recheck the scene at the London centre of the group. Meanwhile Elena’s husband has expressed concern at the disappearance of his wife and son and Ruth tells him where they are and he decided to find out what is happening by driving himself on his own.
The Unit discovers that thedocument shredder had been fixed to stop just before the photo was being destroyed rather than the machine had broken down. It was also not clear why the assassin of the operative had not removed the documents with him or her. The Minister who is attending a meeting of the National Security team is reluctant to abort the mission, especially as it has entered British airspace. It is the Russian Minister who is able to convince the British Minister warning of the retaliation which would take place if he does not abort. Gavrik is convinced that his wife has been lying about her unwillingness to cost innocent lives when Harry warns that he will shoot her son and now someone he knows is not his, if she not admits she is behind the double or triple bluff. She is fanatical in her devotion to the cause that she is prepared to give up the life of her husband and now the life their son.
The Russian Minister agrees to talk to the British Minister only when Ruth gives him the key to the room in which his is being held He enters, locks himself in and strangles his wife to death. The son who is watching and throughout has put the love and respect for his mother above everything else attempts in vain to smash in a window into the room but does so with the help of Unit using heir firearms. They are too late and he picks up a long silver of the broker window and goes off in search of Harry who shaken by all the revelation and shattering of his illusions for the past thirty years is out walking on the beach where Ruth has gone to join him. She had previously talked of a countryside coastal cottage she had contemplated buying when she thought they were going to be together but had not inspected because when she realised the barrier between them. Now she appreciated that it the layers of secrets which each of them up which made them the people they were and the strength of bond between them. She pleads with Harry that they should both give up their Service lives before there is nothing left of their true selves.
At this point the son arrives and moves to attack Harry as he believes it is Harry who gave the key to his father. Ruth intervenes and is stabbed. Other members of the Unit shoot the son. We are not told if the boy lives who is one of the victims of the situation. Similarly we do not know what happens to the Russian Minister but who in the circumstances it can be assumed returns home to sort out the enemy within. It is uncertain for a while if Ruth will survive. She does not.
Harry goes to see the cottage home Ruth had mentioned and he is so upset he leaves. It is not clear if he had intended to buy it and live in but he is too emotionally disturbed. There is phone conversation between Harry and the Minister in which the Minister says he will support whatever Harry decides to do. It is evident the situations created with the Americans has been resolved, In the final scene we see Harry returning to his desk at the Unit after looking at and touching the memorial stone at the centre to which Ruth’s name has been added to the list of all the other agents who have died in service during the ten years of the series. The others look to the room in amazement but the number 2 tells them to go on as normal and asks for a briefing as to what is happening. Someone replies that the baddies are still trying to kill them. Harry’s phone rings, He lets it ring. Harry then answers Harry Pierce letting us know he is back in charge.
I debate if this is really the end of the series. Perhaps it is being held over for the year of the Olympics. Perhaps Harry has some other work in hand or wants to leave. Perhaps they have run out of stories. I think now that everyone is dead or departed who was there at the beginning of the series except Harry it is a fitting moment to end the series. By his way, the individual exchanged for Ruth in the previous series is used by Harry to help sort out the Russian dissidents.
Nicola Walker who played Ruth is a fine actor who commenced serious performing when at New Hall Cambridge she joined he footlights with one of the writers of Spooks and the comedienne Sue Perkins. While at University she played a part in the TV adaptation of A Dance to the Music of Time. She has continued to act in TV and on the stage during her time with Spooks. She is married to an Actor and they have a son who they called Harry, and yes it is named after Harry of Spooks.
Peter Firth who played Harry throughout its ten years was born 1953 but looks older was a child actor who continued into adult roles on TV and the stage including an Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for his role in the film version of Equus and has appeared on the Broadway stage as well as several other films, some 30 in total as well as on TV in the USA and Canada. He has been married twice with in the first instance his wife moving on to a relationship with the son of Diana Dors. He has four children by his second marriage. If they do not receive awards for their performances there aint any dramatic justice.
In a documentary about his life and work, included in the Tinker Tailor 2 DVD set of the BBC production, Cornwell explained that he had written The Spy who Came out of the Cold quickly, subsequently editing to what became the International best seller and film with such popularity that it led him to having to leave his main profession as a member of MI6, but knowing that the book was everything he wanted from a creation as a writer.
I felt like that when I embarked upon my Artman 101 project, with the inherent paradox that at present I know the work needs recognition during my lifetime for it to be secured after my death, yet that any recognition before my death would prevent me from continuing to complete the work with the originality and consistency that has developed over the past eight years.
For the greater part of today I have attempted to write about the experience of viewing the seven episode BBC production of Tinker Tailor yesterday following by the documentary in the first hours of this morning, only halting to watch the final episode of Spooks and then knowing that I needed to write this before continuing with the other and that completion of the second writing would only become part of further work in relation to Le Carré and Greene and which in turn puts back but also brings forward the rereading and writing about the CP Snow ten book series Strangers and Brothers and the Anthony Powell 12 book series of A Dance to the Music of Time. I see these works as precursors of what I am attempting to do, to write about the experiences of a life over time.
Sir Harry Pierce KBE (Peter Firth) is no Smiley in that he is unable to detach himself from the pain of his professional and private life, such as it is, and that although he takes horrendous decisions which destroy, sometimes sacrificing, his own and the lives of those he cares about, he continues because he is certain that what he does is for the greater good as well as for the immediate security and individual safety of his fellow countrymen.
Harry is a creative thinker with an ability to use that blend of intuition and previous experience which few possess with the consistency to be trusted with high office whereas George Smiley has methodical academic persistence and thoroughness as had his predecessor at MI6-the Circus, which is not surprising as the character was based on a Master at Sherbourne School and then of an Oxford College with an uncanny resemblance to Sir Alec Guiness, or more accurately vice versa.
But the two men only come fully alive when at their desks or out successfully completing a task but whereas George has his academic and other interests that provide an alternative satisfying life when not required or can be assumed during retirement, Harry has no life, and thus it is when at the end of the series he has lost the only chance left of finding a life outside the work, it is taken from him, although he and we know it would never have worked anyway.
There is also one other fundamental factor which connects much of the work of Graham Greene. Le Carré, Callan and the Spooks’ writers, that the stories however authentic in their construction and believable in their representation of life within MI5 and 6 are always secondary to the moral ambiguity of their roles, protecting life but also taking life, upholding democratic values and the Rule of Law but also invading personal rights and privacy and breaking the law whenever necessary.
The only other continuing member of the Spook’s team is Ruth Evershed (Nicola Walker) who was officially believed to have died at the end in the 2006, but Harry arranged for her to disappear, and she goes to a Greek Island where she established a relationship and brings up a step child. Prior to this Harry and Ruth had become close but knew their relationship could never become official because of their roles and the past. She reluctantly returns after her partner is killed and the child is brought up by others members of his extended family. There is a strong bond between Ruth and Harry and vice versa, which is deeper than most describe as love and beyond physical attraction. They will protect and if necessary cover up for each other and as emerges die for each other, as well as for their beliefs and their country.
Ruth has the same role at MI5 as Connie in Le Carré world, the super analyst who makes sense of vast quantities of information and sees what needs to be understood and this is prove Harry’s and the nation’s saviour in the last series, but alas not her own.
In the 9th series Harry forced the Administration to do a trade to rescue captured Ruth and Lucas North who has cracked from his time imprisoned by the Russians, becomes a traitor, so Harry is placed on gardening leave with a new acting head of service while his conduct is officially investigated by a Tribunal.
The Coalition Home Secretary has continuing doubts about Harry after his years of service to the previous Order and offers Harry a way back on the basis that the Tribunal decision is kicked into the long grass but can be resurrected if he fails to cooperate.
A retired former Spook Max Witt (Giles Havergal) has been killed at his home although the death is first made to look natural. It has emerged that Witt was killed because he knew somebody is posing as Harry using his old coded messages from the Cold War to gain the confidence of a former agent and gain current information about Russian activities.
This leads to learning that a Russian businessman, Government Minister and former KGB hard line officer akin to Le Carré’s Karla (Ilya Gavrik (Jonathan Hyde) is in London within his wife and son on a secret mission for the establishment of a new intelligence and anti terrorism relationship with the UK, and in secret from the USA who appear to want to keep control but distance themselves from issues in Europe. Harry has his doubts about opening up of British intelligence information to the Russians again similar to the situation that arose at the Circus of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and this is shared by his USA link officer in London Alton Beecher (Colin Salmond) who appears to know that something is afoot and warns Harry against such a development.
Harry has another reason for concern which he tells Ruth who is to accompany him as his partner at a reception in the London to begin the forging of the new relationship. Two decades ago Harry converted the man’s wife, Elena (Alice Krige) and the two had an affair and the couple‘s only child is Harry‘s. He arranges a secret meeting at the reception to arrange another meeting so he can warn her that he has not made previous contact and she has been sending information to an unknown third party. Their son Sasha Gavrik (Tom Weston-Jones) is a serving officer in the current Russian security service and is part of the delegation with responsibility to protect his parents on their secret mission to London. The son is waiting for Harry at his home threatens to kill him because he knows Harry was responsible for his mother being a traitor and the young man refuses to listen when Harry tries to reassure him that he had not resurrected the relationship in any form.
An attempt to assassinate the Russian emissary, ostensibly by a Chechen rebel is foiled and the man is killed by the new Director of Operations of the team and is her first kill. She resists the invitation to go out for a drink with a male colleague who says he knows they both lead lonely lives without friends because of the nature of their work, a theme constantly explored in the previous series. In fact she returns to a normal home life where her mother looks after her daughter while she away at work.
In the second episode a member of the team is mugged on his way to a meeting and his laptop containing the identities of five high level assets is stolen, one of which is Martha Ford (Lydia Leonard), an attractive woman who works for one of Gavrik's companies in London
Those behind the taking of the laptop appear to know what they were doing and threaten to release the identity of the uncover officers unless their conditions are met, The Team’s skilled technocrat attempts to trace the origin of the messages and eventually this is tracked to a former disenchanted spy but he has been working for someone else to organised the snatch of the information. The first undercover agent is revealed in the media and he commits suicide.
While the decision is taken to remove from the danger and take Martha to a safe house and offered protection she is asked to undertake one more mission and gain a copy of the hard drive of the Russian’s office computer. She is reassured she will be safe and is nearly caught but is able to leave the building having seen her face on the news on a TV monitor. It is evident to the Team that this is an attempt to undermine the proposed new relationship with Russian intelligence and where no doubt there are those in Moscow who are also unhappy about the new policy.
The Russian emissary demands that the girl is cut adrift as the price for enabling the new relationship to develop. This is a very hard thing for the head of Operations to implement as she has made promises about protecting the young woman who is now terrified about being paid off without the ongoing assistance and protection of the state. Harry is confident that his senior assistant can cope and one day becomes his successor. The betrayal of a promise made in good faith is a frequent aspect of the work of the Scalphunter and their managers.
Meanwhile Sasha tells his mother he is aware she has been a traitor and wants to know why she did it before he agrees to protect her. She explains that her parents disappeared and were killed by old regime because they were kind and wanted help others. One of Sasha’s closest friends and also a member of service begin to track down that there is a traitor within the mission and this forces Sasha to kill him and call on Harry to help in the cover up.
Meanwhile they try to find out who is behind the attempt to derail negotiations on the new relationship. While working at home their computer expert Tariq Masood (Shazad Latif) discovers vital information from studying close circuit footage of the area where the laptop was snatched. On his way to the HQ someone bumps into him and these results in his death from a secret injection. He dies on the steps of the building where he is found about another colleague. Harry meets Elena to warn her someone has been posing as him and he also asks Ruth to check up of the London CIA man Jim Cover (William Hope), believing the is the impostor.
As has been a regular feature of previous series the main story is interspersed with other others and in the third episode the belief that someone Johnny Grier (Mel Raido) is attempting to detonate a dirty bomb in London (as if there is such a thing as a clean bomb). Trace amounts of radioactive material have been found at Heathrow Airport and closed circuit camera film reveals that a well known anarchist and international protestor has re-entered the county and that he has a sister who uses an on line site for relationships. Another new member of the team Dimitri Levendis (Max Brown) is asked to operate a honey trap against his better judgement the sister, Natalie (Georgina Rich), via Internet dating.
She knows nothing which makes Dimitri even guiltier especially she wants more than one night stand. The brother arrives on the scene and is suspicious of Johnny but eventually takes to him which complicates his wanting to get out of the relationship with the sister. It appears that the target of the bomber and his many associates in London is a London based investment company which made millions out of the nuclear disaster in Japan.
The target is taken into custody and because of pressure Johnny reveals that he thought he was bringing heroin in to the UK and no idea a bomb was involved with the intention of killing and maiming. He gives information which leads capture of those in a vehicle reaching the destination building; however it is empty with no trace of the nuclear material. The team realises that Greer was lying and that this was a ploy to enable him to launch a personal attack on the Chief Executive Officer of the company. He breaks the phial over himself so only he is affected, hastening his end after the CEO escapes. He persuades Dimitri to end the relationship with his sister without revealing she was being used.
Throughout the episode there are links with the series story as Ruth goes to meet the wife of the Russian accompanied by the son to reveal that the CIA appear to be behind the sending of messages as if it was Harry underlining their intent to undermine the proposed new relationship between Russian and the UK. The team then find out the reason for the murder of Tariq, he had identified that the individual who stole the laptop works indirectly for the CIA and that she was also present at the party where the assassination attempt was to have been made. This suggests that the CIA killed Tariq
Meanwhile there has been another development which suggests the there is more afoot. The Home Secretary asks that Ruth keeps him informed as she high hopes for her in the future. Ruth goes along with this, we presume to gain knowledge for passing on to Harry. He follows up the first overture by taking her out to dinner.
This is what I had written at the end of the third episode but over the next three episodes everything is stood on its head and then given several twists and shake before the truth emerges in the final episode which I am sure will become the TV drama production event of 2011.
In episode 4 an Islamic extremist leader Zubier Al-Saad (Jeffery Kissoon), has application for release on licence turned down so he instructs two recently released inmates to commit a revenge suicide attack. One of those released, Ashur Mohali (Asif Khan), has been working for MI5 keeping them informed of what is being discussed inside the prison and he agrees to help stop the attack if his young daughter is protected and given British citizenship. Those organising the attack distrust Ashur and kidnap not only his daughter but that of units’ new number 2. Her daughter is rescued and mother pretends it has been no more than an adventure but she seriously considers leaving the service. The other girl is also rescued and the attack foiled but at the price of Ashur losing his life because he had become the instrument of suicide bombing in Trafalgar Square.
Convinced that it is the head of the CIA in London who is behind plans to wreck the proposed deal with Russia, and therefore was responsible for the death of Tarik, Harry with Ruth set up the wife of Russian Minister and his official son as bait to catch Coaver. They spot Coaver’s official car close by and then the woman who stole the laptop approach the car and speak to the driver hidden from view inside. The Car drives off, someone narrowly misses shooting Elena and the independent agent is killed. Satisfied with the evidence that Coaver, the CIA man, was responsible, Harry tells him he is coming after him.
In the penultimate episode, Harry has told Ruth to take the job as independent Security Adviser to the Minister and to take up the appointment immediately because of how he believes the situation will develop. He leads the team in kidnapping the CIA man who then denies as strongly as he can that he was not involved although he had used the independent female agent in the past and had gone to a meeting with her that she had requested but which had quickly come to nothing so he had driven off. Out of loyalty to her new boss Ruth discloses the action taken and his location. A CIA USA Embassy team arrive with instructions for the immediate release of Coaver but then they realise they have been duped as the official release team arrive. Coaver is dumped onto the roadway dying as the unit give high speed chase. He tells Harry that the truth is on his lap top. He was not working against British Intelligence.
Harry decides that it is the Russian Minister who is secretly trying to stop the treaty being signed and he tells the wife of this. The couple have had a frank exchange in which the husband admits that he was aware that his wife had become a traitor and had had set about protecting her and their son. In discussion between Harry and Jim we learn that it was Coaver who had intervened to prevent Elena and her son joining Harry in the West as she had been stood up at the agreed location where they had to wait for him.
The Unit is too late get the laptop from the hotel as it has been removed as part of the personal effects to the USA Embassy storage, and Sasha who has planted surveillance devices learns about the lap top and the subsequent successful attempt by Ruth who accompanies the Minister to the Embassy to discuss the death of the CIA officer and the role of Harry, to gain access to the computer and record the contents of the hard drive. Off screen we learn that Sasha has taken the data transfer stick from Ruth before she can transfer the contents to unit (one of the few weaker moments in the overall plot) and we observe the son finding out that Harry is his father, increasing his emotional turmoil and he smashes his personal lap top although as we know the data probably remains intact. (It is important to remember that Coaver says that the truth was on the lap top).
Meanwhile the Minister tells Ruth he had no alternative but to hand over Harry to the Americans for extradition to the USA. When in custody at the embassy a senior military officer attacks Harry because his own father had served with Coaver. Harry knows that his life as well as his career is now under threat along with the prospect of long term imprisonment. The situation is building up dramatically to a finale and only discovery and proof of who is the lead individual attempting to stop the Treaty can save Harry.
As Harry faces deportation to the United States via a special military authorised flight later in the day. The wife of the Russian Minister and Harry‘s former lover and agent contacts to say she must speak to Harry as a major attack is being planned on London costing thousands of lives to wreck the Treaty which her husband is signing on behalf of the Russian Government in London that morning. We the audience had watched Elena in contact with some in Russia who says they will initiate action and we then see an operative take a device in an attaché case through airport control in Moscow using a coded message and insists on keeping the case at his feet against the advice of a stewardess who keeps observation because of his suspicious behaviour
Two members of the Unit plant devices in the roadway which immobilise the two vehicles ahead and behind that transporting Harry to the airbase and rescue Harry as meanwhile Ruth and a member of the Unit collect Elena who has been with her husband at the Embassy giving a press conference and her son Sasha who has noted developments insists on accompanying them and they all meet up at a former Ministry of Defence site on the coast which has a secure interview room with listening and observation position outside.
It is here that with her son and the other members of the Unit and Ruth listening Elena reveals that she was part of a special Karla type unit in Moscow and that she had been instructed to seduce Harry, appear to become his agent, providing some good material as well as “chicken feed.” When Harry had fallen in love and said she he did not want to use her as an agent (under USA CIA pressure) she had been told to defect with her son although the son was that of her husband, saying he was Harry would add to the emotional pressure for Harry to arrange the defection. This had been stopped by Coaver.
Her group had continued to function following the collapse of the Soviet Union and widened their membership to include leading figures who wanted a return to the former power and status of Russia and therefore the attempt to wreck the Treaty with the UK which the group regarded as retrograde and humiliating. She had sent the messages to herself and help arrange the death of the former agent who was being sent the messages, the attempt to assassinate her husband and then the death of Tarik, the attempt on her life providing details which only someone directly involved would know.
The reason she was now intervening was because she was against the loss of innocent lives as the plane carrying some 400 Russian and UK citizens was going to crash/blow up over or on central London - a mixture of Lockerbie and 9/11 and she was against the loss of innocent lives (this immediate struck me as inconsistent and should have struck Harry as it did Ruth although they were both caught up in the emotions of the moment.
Elena had become aware that Ruth was in love with Harry but that his secret love affair with Elena and its ending through the intervention of Jim Coaver resulting in the separation not just from her but his son was a barrier to his having a viable relationship with anyone else. She tells Ruth she will show what kind of man Harry really is. Elena says that Harry converted her into being a spy by providing documentation which revealed that her parents been tortured and killed by the Russian Regime, but she knew they had been killed in a road accident and that Harry’s story was a fake. Ruth interpreted this revelation different from the way Elena anticipated appreciating that Harry would have emotionally torn apart by having to use the story to convert Elena with whom he had fallen in love and believed her child was his.
At these points she reveals only the British contact telephone number of the agents in the UK who are undertaking the outrage mission with the help of those in Moscow. She does not reveal her knowledge of the man on the plane that meanwhile has killed the inquisitive stewardess and opened the box of tricks which appears to contain radar type positioning screen as well as devices which look like some kind of bomb.
The Unit trace the telephone number to a factory site where they find someone killed in the midst of destroying documentation but one document has all the content blacked out but with a photo of the man on the plane remaining. Elena says he is their top notch operative and they then are able to trace his latest whereabouts as having boarded the particular flight. Harry draws the conclusion that this is a suicide plane mission and on the principle of the American 4th plane it is proposed to destroy the plane and its passengers before it reaches UK airspace. At this point it was evident to me that this was the clever part of Elena and her group’s plan, that is to get the British Government to shoot down a plane full of Russian citizens and then fore not just end the Treaty before it was established but provoke the Russian government into some form retaliation and with the Americans unsympathetic because of what had happened to their chief CIA man in London.
Harry is able to convince the Minister to take action to shoot the plane from the sky but Ruth remains concerned and tell the members of the Unit to recheck the scene at the London centre of the group. Meanwhile Elena’s husband has expressed concern at the disappearance of his wife and son and Ruth tells him where they are and he decided to find out what is happening by driving himself on his own.
The Unit discovers that thedocument shredder had been fixed to stop just before the photo was being destroyed rather than the machine had broken down. It was also not clear why the assassin of the operative had not removed the documents with him or her. The Minister who is attending a meeting of the National Security team is reluctant to abort the mission, especially as it has entered British airspace. It is the Russian Minister who is able to convince the British Minister warning of the retaliation which would take place if he does not abort. Gavrik is convinced that his wife has been lying about her unwillingness to cost innocent lives when Harry warns that he will shoot her son and now someone he knows is not his, if she not admits she is behind the double or triple bluff. She is fanatical in her devotion to the cause that she is prepared to give up the life of her husband and now the life their son.
The Russian Minister agrees to talk to the British Minister only when Ruth gives him the key to the room in which his is being held He enters, locks himself in and strangles his wife to death. The son who is watching and throughout has put the love and respect for his mother above everything else attempts in vain to smash in a window into the room but does so with the help of Unit using heir firearms. They are too late and he picks up a long silver of the broker window and goes off in search of Harry who shaken by all the revelation and shattering of his illusions for the past thirty years is out walking on the beach where Ruth has gone to join him. She had previously talked of a countryside coastal cottage she had contemplated buying when she thought they were going to be together but had not inspected because when she realised the barrier between them. Now she appreciated that it the layers of secrets which each of them up which made them the people they were and the strength of bond between them. She pleads with Harry that they should both give up their Service lives before there is nothing left of their true selves.
At this point the son arrives and moves to attack Harry as he believes it is Harry who gave the key to his father. Ruth intervenes and is stabbed. Other members of the Unit shoot the son. We are not told if the boy lives who is one of the victims of the situation. Similarly we do not know what happens to the Russian Minister but who in the circumstances it can be assumed returns home to sort out the enemy within. It is uncertain for a while if Ruth will survive. She does not.
Harry goes to see the cottage home Ruth had mentioned and he is so upset he leaves. It is not clear if he had intended to buy it and live in but he is too emotionally disturbed. There is phone conversation between Harry and the Minister in which the Minister says he will support whatever Harry decides to do. It is evident the situations created with the Americans has been resolved, In the final scene we see Harry returning to his desk at the Unit after looking at and touching the memorial stone at the centre to which Ruth’s name has been added to the list of all the other agents who have died in service during the ten years of the series. The others look to the room in amazement but the number 2 tells them to go on as normal and asks for a briefing as to what is happening. Someone replies that the baddies are still trying to kill them. Harry’s phone rings, He lets it ring. Harry then answers Harry Pierce letting us know he is back in charge.
I debate if this is really the end of the series. Perhaps it is being held over for the year of the Olympics. Perhaps Harry has some other work in hand or wants to leave. Perhaps they have run out of stories. I think now that everyone is dead or departed who was there at the beginning of the series except Harry it is a fitting moment to end the series. By his way, the individual exchanged for Ruth in the previous series is used by Harry to help sort out the Russian dissidents.
Nicola Walker who played Ruth is a fine actor who commenced serious performing when at New Hall Cambridge she joined he footlights with one of the writers of Spooks and the comedienne Sue Perkins. While at University she played a part in the TV adaptation of A Dance to the Music of Time. She has continued to act in TV and on the stage during her time with Spooks. She is married to an Actor and they have a son who they called Harry, and yes it is named after Harry of Spooks.
Peter Firth who played Harry throughout its ten years was born 1953 but looks older was a child actor who continued into adult roles on TV and the stage including an Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for his role in the film version of Equus and has appeared on the Broadway stage as well as several other films, some 30 in total as well as on TV in the USA and Canada. He has been married twice with in the first instance his wife moving on to a relationship with the son of Diana Dors. He has four children by his second marriage. If they do not receive awards for their performances there aint any dramatic justice.
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