Episode five of Tinker Tailor begins with Jim Prideaux ((Ian Bannen) allowing one of the school boys to drive his Alvis around the sports field supported by other boys who it is evident he has taught to drive in the past. Jim draws attention to someone at the edge of the field pretending not to be looking at them which raises his suspicion because the man is not a master or someone from the village. He says in a tell tale phrase that we cannot have a JuJu man going around and he asks the boys to report if they see him again or any other stranger.
Later at night we see Jim in his caravan check the dressings on the wounds on his back where he was shot. He then goes out and digs up a package which proves to be a revolver and this is seen by Jumbo Roach, a small wimp of boy wearing glasses who Jim identifies as someone who like him is a loner and keen watcher and observer. The boy has taken to heart to be on the look out for Jim and sees him dig up the package and uses the caravan door stepping stool to see what is happening through slightly opened curtains. He falls and injures himself so Jim explains that like the wound in his back the gun is a souvenir from his life as soldier and his secret to be respected by Jumbo who he trusts. Jumbo says they nearly decided to call him Bulldog after Bulldog Drummond but chose instead to nickname him Rhino because the creature was bigger and more suitable for how they viewed him.
Smiley goes to see Sam Collins, who is to feature so much in the Honourable Schoolboy, at the gambling club where he works. He wants to talk to him about the night Jim Prideaux was shot and explains that he has been called in by Lacon with the Minister’s approval as the case has been reopened. Jim has returned to London from three years in Tokyo and was about to go for a holiday in the South of France when Mendel, Control’s Minder, called him to act as Duty officer for the night.
He had found the condition of Control a shock. It was like opening a coffin lid and he did not waste time on pleasantries. Control explained that he had officer on an important mission which could change everything. Sam had to bring any message by any means to him direct by hand but waiting to ensure the coast was clear. Afterwards he is not telling anyone anything including Smiley, Haydon or Bland.
During the night suddenly everything happened with contact from the Foreign Office and then approaches or reports from the media including Reuters that someone accused of being a British agent had been shot. Sam had gone to see Control who appeared stunned and speechless by the news. He had said that whether the man was shot or not they could deny they were not involved. He asked for Smiley who Sam reminded was out of the country. Control said it did not matter Sam should fine someone, anybody. Control asks for Mendel to get him a taxi and Sam reminds that Mendel was sent home. He contacts Mrs Smiley just as the communications officers reports that that the man has been named.
Haydon arrives and Sam assumes he was advised by Mrs Smiley as a family friend. Haydon says he heard about the shooting party on the ticket tape at his club. Sam reports that the man is Prideaux accused of trying to kidnap a General in a forest near the Austrian border. There are reports of tank and troop movements. The Minister and Lacon have been in contact wanting to know what has been going on. He has sent out calls to Smiley, Alleline and Brand. Haydon takes charge and tells Sam to contact Esterhase to pick up the two Czech students at the London School of Economics they had their eyes on and lock them up. Jim is worth more than these two but it is a start. If Jim is dead he will strip the staff of Czech embassy to the bone and pass that on to his master (Control).
Sam praises the way Haydon handled the situation including the Foreign office press statement which he dictated. Sam had then had a good breakfast at the Savoy and gone for two great months in the South of France. On return he had been called to Alleline who was acting Chief. Wanted to know how he came to be duty officer as someone called Masterman was on the rota. Sam had denied Control’s involvement saying he had needed the extra cash for his trip to France. They had sacked him for alcoholism because he had taken five cans of beer to get him through the night and there was a standing Order against drinking while on duty. Smiley explains he had also been sacked because he could not convince them he was not involved.
Sam offers to help in anyway so George points out that it was too late for the ticker tape at the club and that Haydon had been with Smiley’s wife Anne. She had kicked him out of bed and he had come in but Sam had not told him about Czecho yet Bill knew all about Czecho.
Jim goes to meet George by prior arrangement outside the school but nearby. George explains that he does not have access to the papers because he is black balled by the Circus but he has got some information from Lacon including a reference by Haydon to the man at Oxford who recruited Jim. Haydon had said Jim has that heavy quiet which commands. He is my other half- Between us we make a marvellous man. He asks nothing better to be in my company or that of my wicked divine friends. He’s a virgin about eight feet tall and built by the same firm as Stonehenge. Jim comments that they were then children.
They go to a motel. Jim says he came round in a hospital where they patched him up after a fashion and in a prison cell. He worked out a campaign to survive and tell a story which would convince leaving out what they wanted to know. So he commenced with the cover story given by Control so he could keep away from the subject of the Mole and Control and keeps his networks which he was the first to establish in that country. However they knew it all, the networks and the names, Controls briefing in St James, and Tinker Tailor. They knew about his flat but did not know about the charts, until later. Smiley tells him that all his agents were shot and the story is that he blew them to save his own skin but Smiley knew this was not true. Jim is sick and they go for walk when he tells about what happened after capture and the use of electrical torture. He was always on the move and once in a plane in which was hooded. He thinks he was in Russia part of the time. He hoped he would go mad but they knew how far to go before the long interrogation where he broke because he ran out of stories.
He told them all they wanted to know and the interrogator was a frosty bearded man who smoked powerful cigarettes non stop. He asked about Circus title tattle and re Smiley he explained how he had got the lighter with the inscription and then added that after Bill Haydon’s involvement Smiley might like to change the inscription. Smiley says that Haydon was one never to use the regulations while Jim added you were one never to see him straight. Smiley mentions that Haydon did all he could to get Jim back but poses why there was never contact between the two afterwards. He moves on to what happened at the debriefing centre and if the interrogators were sympathetic or hostile.
Jim says that he was left alone and eats, drank and slept a lot until Esterhase arrived in a new suit and gives him £1000 on top of his gratuity. Tells him Circus had nearly gone under and Jim is number one leper. Toby knew the whole story about Tinker Tailor and Smiley asks how did Toby know that. Jim says that is what he had been doing obeying orders and leaves but as with Sam Collins George has been sowing the seeds which should eventually get back to those involved that he knew what had been going on.
Part six begins with Smiley meeting Jerry Westerby the Honourable Schoolboy of the second book in the trilogy played by Joss Ackland and who in judgement does not fit the concept of Jerry the Honourable Schoolboy novel. Not Ernest Hemingway enough for my liking.
Jerry is now a journalist drinking heavily and at the margin of financial stability, sounds like Le Carré father. Smiley mentions that he destroyed the letter sent to him after the Prideaux fiasco but he not acted upon it as Jerry might have suspected.
Jerry elaborates what was in the letter he had undertaken what proved to be his last job as a courier for Toby Esterhase, delivering a package and had to go to Prague for his official newspaper role when what he came across was by accident and nothing to do with Tobe. He was in a bar in Prague with a crowd at a corner table when a youth with a military haircut shouts in the ear of Jerry after realising he is British: does he want to know the truth about the English spy that had been caught. The big point was the Russian contingent full works with a big car load of sinisters. The Russians are after a British Spy who was kidnapping a General. This was a day before the event so they knew what was going to happen. Big story so he took it back to Toby. Big story. Bad for Chief bad for tribe. His reaction was thanks a million, at first. He would go and POW WOW with the top and the following morning Toby rants at him says he is so plastered these days and is in cuckoo land. Toby says the boy was plant to sell a false story to the Circus.
Jerry says he will sell story to his paper although not the bit the advance information. He was called in by the Editor who had been told to keep Jerry off the story and make no further reference as to so would not be in the National Interest. He had sounded off to Smiley and thought it was Smiley who had then contacted the Editor. He had felt bad about this when Smiley had got the heave ho.
Jerry comments as they eat their meal and drink beer that Toby was rum just as he had thought something was odd about the reaction to what he had been told and passed on. He ends by asking his love to be passed on to Ann- one of the great marriages which leads Smiley to say out with it and for Jerry to say some tale which he told Toby to stuff up his silk draws
We now go back to the school where the headmaster (John Wells) is upset because Jim has taken off on leave because his mother is dying. The headmaster is on the rugger field as the school is losing. His mother comments that at least it is not an excuse Jim can use again. Wells comments that he will ask for a medical diagnosis next time. Jumbo Roach reassures the other boys that although Jim has taken the Alvis because he would not trust other forms of transport, he is coming back as he has left the caravan and has not said goodbye.
Toby is called out by Peter to meet a prospect, a Pole in the Fur trade who could be a courier only to be confronted by Smiley, Guillam and Fawn, Smiley thinks there is someone in the street, a shadow, perhaps, and sends Fawn down the street to check. Toby says that if he had brought baby sitters there would have ten or twelve individuals walking up and down.
George tells Toby what he thinks happened; how someone sold Merlin and Witchcraft to Alleline saying all the right things which would feed into his aspiration to be become Control. Esterhase who starts defiant becomes more and more anxious as George reveals the inquiry and meeting is official with the backing of Lacon and the Minister and that far from sending chicken feed in return for gold dust they have been giving away the crown jewels. He then explains to Esterhase that in order to demonstrate to Moscow that they have a Mole with in the Circus that would have had to create a legend...a history of someone who was not the real Mole and the obvious choice was Toby because it was he that delivered the packages of information to Merlin and kept him supplied with film to photograph documents within the Embassy. If things went wrong as they now had, Toby was the fall guy at which Toby offers all his support including that of his Lamplighters although he would have to see Lacon personally to get his authority. George says all he needs is the address of the safe house which they use to meet with Merlin which he readily gives whereupon he told he will be kept secure for a few days and will have to provide a convincing cover for his absence to the Circus and to his wife.
There is one fascinating aspect of the address where Toby is taken to meet the fictitious Fur Trader, Lexham Gardens and which I visited for meetings during 1961 some fifty years ago although these were not of clandestine nature.
After the meeting George walks back from Lexham Gardens to the Hotel in Paddington which he has made his headquarters and from where he had come for the confrontation with Guillermo acting as his baby sitter and Mendel keeping watch on both of them. This is a fair walk from the Cromwell Road in Kensington going up to Kensington High Street and then paralleled along the Western side of Kensington Gardens into Bayswater and the Hotel to meet Lacon for an update meeting, one presumes sometime later after Lacon had consulted the Minister.
Smiley is given the green light with Minister through Lacon pleading to avoid anything messy such as the Russian boasting how they got all the secrets for years. He comments that what the Russians achieved would be beautiful in another context.
He would arrange something to cause panic and force Gerald have a crash meeting with Merlin alone at the safe house. To achieve this Smiley sends Ricki Tarr to the Paris Office where he forces his way into the Circus station communications office and send a message to Alleline saying he has evidence vital to safeguarding the welfare of the service. Alleline can be assumed to consult with Haydon and Bland now that Esterhase was out of the frame.
The seventh episode is the grand finale when most viewers should know who the villain is even if they have not read the book or now seen the film for such have been various clues.
At the start of each episode there is a short reminder finale of the previous and then the opening credits with Russian multiple doll indicating the layers or levels of the story to be unravelled.
Smiley with Guillam prepare Merlin’s safe house by putting two milk bottles out to indicate safe entry. Guillam shows the new recording system which is voice activated to save in recording tape. Mendel has positioned himself outside the Circus to report the arrival of the trio and to try and spot who leaves first for the crash meeting with Merlin. George still has the sense that they have been followed by one individual on their recent movements. He goes out for a brief walk while waiting admitting that he is nervous about what is to happen.
In order to maintain dramatic momentum we are not immediately a party to the recorded conversation between Haydon and the Russian. We have to wait for this until Alleline and Bland are summoned, Lacon called and Esterhase brought from his location and the recording is played with us hearing the key moment when Haydon asks the Russian to get Karla to get him out.
Smiley suggests to Alleline that they do a trade with Karla over Bill in exchange for as many of their agents in the field whose cover Bill has blown. They have professionally ended their usefulness hence in the Honourable Schoolboy there is great excitement when the Station on the hill suddenly closes and all the electronics of the day dismantled, as they are elsewhere in the world. This is all mater of fact except for Peter who strikes at Haydon and demands to know how many agents he has been responsible for their deaths 200, 300, 400?
To rub Alleline’s nose in it Smiles suggests that he gets cracking right away with the Russian who is after all his direct link to Karla, Lacon agrees saying that he still the official head of the Service, for the time being. The inquisitors arrive to take Haydon away. As he goes Haydon calls out- All the best Percy! Fawn goes with Haydon while Peter and Smiley walk back to Smiley’s home this time. They are being watched by Jim Prideaux s they leave.
Peter apologies for striking Haydon expressing his disappointment at the downfall of the man he regarded as a hero. George thanks him for his important contribution
Jim is now keeping watch on Haydon at his holding in a military style camps with large huts with a simple see through wire fencing around the compound. George visits Haydon who moans about the quality of the interrogators who imagine he knows the names of the other moles Karla has placed around the world. It is evident that through Lacon Haydon has asked to see Smiley to press for the exchange and to answer his questions. Smiley says why, when how? Haydon laughs saying you ask that why, because it was necessary, someone had to. He refers to their recruitment and role as freedom protectors and service to the great cause and then breaks down in tears.
Do you know what’s killing Western democracy George Greed and constipation moral political aesthetic? I hate America very deeply. The economic repression of the masses institutionalised. Even Lenin could not forsee the extent of that. Britain Oh dear no viability in world affairs. I suppose that is where it began When I saw how trivial we’d become as a nation say in the forties. By 1950 I was slipping Karla occasional gifts of intelligence carefully selected morsels to help the Russian case against America. At that time I was scrupulous not to give Moscow anything harmful to ourselves, against our own agents in the field. I still believe the secret services are an expression of the nation‘s character. Until the mid fifties I still had hopes of what we represented. Self delusion of course. We were already America’s street walker. I was granted soviet citizenship twelve years ago. They have given him a couple of medals. Smiley listens to all this impassively.
When he reports to Lacon he wonders what medals? He hopes they will get more information from him of substance George echoes Bill’s observation about the laxity of arrangements where he is being held and where noone patrols the perimeter day or night. Smiley is concerned about Haydon’s safety. Lacon says George is being melodramatic. He can only go to Russia and we are sending him there.
Lacon also wants to know why Percy Alleline was put in charge and not Bill. Bill explains this directly to George saying it was better Alleline was the front man attending to the admin, the dinners, the meetings chewing the cud in Whitehall which would have bogged him down. He had Bland an Esterhase to run around for him. George says never happened to Control. Haydon explains that Control was a natural recluse (he could have added like you George). I could never have got away with it.
Later inside the detention room Haydon admits that Control had got close, did well which and surprised Karla given that Control was so ill. The offer from the General which caused the near death of Prideaux had not been a genuine one. He had been confident Control would send for Jim, someone outside of London station because of background. It had to be someone who was old Circus to bring the Temple down a bit. It was the most famous partnership the Circus had the iron fist and iron glove. I got him home didn’t I? Yes says Smiley, that was good of you.
Bill adds the thing with Anne was Karla’s idea. He said you were the one threat and that if you were preoccupied with what we were getting up to and if it was well known around the place I was her lover it was bound to look like personal vengeance. Karla said not to strain it but if possible join the queue. Presumably it was n Karla‘s instructions you were with Ann on the night of the shoot out, as insurance. Oh yes he was adamant about it. Lacon has discussed with George the need to tell Anne about Haydon and to ensure she report any form of contact in the future, Smiley said he had proposed to tell her anyway as a kind of balancing.
Before Smiley leaves he agrees to pas on a cheque and note to female friend of Haydon and to arrange £200 from the reptile fund for a boy, not an angel but a Cherub.
Jim who has been staking out the situation, seeing Jim clothes be collected for a cleaners visits and this enables him to get a message to see Haydon. After questioning about what happened he breaks Haydon’s neck.
Jim returns to the school and helps Jumbo Roach with a reading in the school chapel. Smiley holds a meeting with Alleline, Brand and Esterhase with Peter and Lacon present. He speculates how Haydon died via a message with his suit delivered from the cleaners; He announces he has been asked to look after things for the time being and that everyone should take leave after which there will be some redeployment, for those who wished to remain in the service.
Smiley presses his wife with the question did she love Bill which she says no, poor George. Life is still such a puzzle to you. She had previously suggested that Bill enjoyed being a traitor and she was glad his life had ended because he would not have enjoyed retirement.
Later at night we see Jim in his caravan check the dressings on the wounds on his back where he was shot. He then goes out and digs up a package which proves to be a revolver and this is seen by Jumbo Roach, a small wimp of boy wearing glasses who Jim identifies as someone who like him is a loner and keen watcher and observer. The boy has taken to heart to be on the look out for Jim and sees him dig up the package and uses the caravan door stepping stool to see what is happening through slightly opened curtains. He falls and injures himself so Jim explains that like the wound in his back the gun is a souvenir from his life as soldier and his secret to be respected by Jumbo who he trusts. Jumbo says they nearly decided to call him Bulldog after Bulldog Drummond but chose instead to nickname him Rhino because the creature was bigger and more suitable for how they viewed him.
Smiley goes to see Sam Collins, who is to feature so much in the Honourable Schoolboy, at the gambling club where he works. He wants to talk to him about the night Jim Prideaux was shot and explains that he has been called in by Lacon with the Minister’s approval as the case has been reopened. Jim has returned to London from three years in Tokyo and was about to go for a holiday in the South of France when Mendel, Control’s Minder, called him to act as Duty officer for the night.
He had found the condition of Control a shock. It was like opening a coffin lid and he did not waste time on pleasantries. Control explained that he had officer on an important mission which could change everything. Sam had to bring any message by any means to him direct by hand but waiting to ensure the coast was clear. Afterwards he is not telling anyone anything including Smiley, Haydon or Bland.
During the night suddenly everything happened with contact from the Foreign Office and then approaches or reports from the media including Reuters that someone accused of being a British agent had been shot. Sam had gone to see Control who appeared stunned and speechless by the news. He had said that whether the man was shot or not they could deny they were not involved. He asked for Smiley who Sam reminded was out of the country. Control said it did not matter Sam should fine someone, anybody. Control asks for Mendel to get him a taxi and Sam reminds that Mendel was sent home. He contacts Mrs Smiley just as the communications officers reports that that the man has been named.
Haydon arrives and Sam assumes he was advised by Mrs Smiley as a family friend. Haydon says he heard about the shooting party on the ticket tape at his club. Sam reports that the man is Prideaux accused of trying to kidnap a General in a forest near the Austrian border. There are reports of tank and troop movements. The Minister and Lacon have been in contact wanting to know what has been going on. He has sent out calls to Smiley, Alleline and Brand. Haydon takes charge and tells Sam to contact Esterhase to pick up the two Czech students at the London School of Economics they had their eyes on and lock them up. Jim is worth more than these two but it is a start. If Jim is dead he will strip the staff of Czech embassy to the bone and pass that on to his master (Control).
Sam praises the way Haydon handled the situation including the Foreign office press statement which he dictated. Sam had then had a good breakfast at the Savoy and gone for two great months in the South of France. On return he had been called to Alleline who was acting Chief. Wanted to know how he came to be duty officer as someone called Masterman was on the rota. Sam had denied Control’s involvement saying he had needed the extra cash for his trip to France. They had sacked him for alcoholism because he had taken five cans of beer to get him through the night and there was a standing Order against drinking while on duty. Smiley explains he had also been sacked because he could not convince them he was not involved.
Sam offers to help in anyway so George points out that it was too late for the ticker tape at the club and that Haydon had been with Smiley’s wife Anne. She had kicked him out of bed and he had come in but Sam had not told him about Czecho yet Bill knew all about Czecho.
Jim goes to meet George by prior arrangement outside the school but nearby. George explains that he does not have access to the papers because he is black balled by the Circus but he has got some information from Lacon including a reference by Haydon to the man at Oxford who recruited Jim. Haydon had said Jim has that heavy quiet which commands. He is my other half- Between us we make a marvellous man. He asks nothing better to be in my company or that of my wicked divine friends. He’s a virgin about eight feet tall and built by the same firm as Stonehenge. Jim comments that they were then children.
They go to a motel. Jim says he came round in a hospital where they patched him up after a fashion and in a prison cell. He worked out a campaign to survive and tell a story which would convince leaving out what they wanted to know. So he commenced with the cover story given by Control so he could keep away from the subject of the Mole and Control and keeps his networks which he was the first to establish in that country. However they knew it all, the networks and the names, Controls briefing in St James, and Tinker Tailor. They knew about his flat but did not know about the charts, until later. Smiley tells him that all his agents were shot and the story is that he blew them to save his own skin but Smiley knew this was not true. Jim is sick and they go for walk when he tells about what happened after capture and the use of electrical torture. He was always on the move and once in a plane in which was hooded. He thinks he was in Russia part of the time. He hoped he would go mad but they knew how far to go before the long interrogation where he broke because he ran out of stories.
He told them all they wanted to know and the interrogator was a frosty bearded man who smoked powerful cigarettes non stop. He asked about Circus title tattle and re Smiley he explained how he had got the lighter with the inscription and then added that after Bill Haydon’s involvement Smiley might like to change the inscription. Smiley says that Haydon was one never to use the regulations while Jim added you were one never to see him straight. Smiley mentions that Haydon did all he could to get Jim back but poses why there was never contact between the two afterwards. He moves on to what happened at the debriefing centre and if the interrogators were sympathetic or hostile.
Jim says that he was left alone and eats, drank and slept a lot until Esterhase arrived in a new suit and gives him £1000 on top of his gratuity. Tells him Circus had nearly gone under and Jim is number one leper. Toby knew the whole story about Tinker Tailor and Smiley asks how did Toby know that. Jim says that is what he had been doing obeying orders and leaves but as with Sam Collins George has been sowing the seeds which should eventually get back to those involved that he knew what had been going on.
Part six begins with Smiley meeting Jerry Westerby the Honourable Schoolboy of the second book in the trilogy played by Joss Ackland and who in judgement does not fit the concept of Jerry the Honourable Schoolboy novel. Not Ernest Hemingway enough for my liking.
Jerry is now a journalist drinking heavily and at the margin of financial stability, sounds like Le Carré father. Smiley mentions that he destroyed the letter sent to him after the Prideaux fiasco but he not acted upon it as Jerry might have suspected.
Jerry elaborates what was in the letter he had undertaken what proved to be his last job as a courier for Toby Esterhase, delivering a package and had to go to Prague for his official newspaper role when what he came across was by accident and nothing to do with Tobe. He was in a bar in Prague with a crowd at a corner table when a youth with a military haircut shouts in the ear of Jerry after realising he is British: does he want to know the truth about the English spy that had been caught. The big point was the Russian contingent full works with a big car load of sinisters. The Russians are after a British Spy who was kidnapping a General. This was a day before the event so they knew what was going to happen. Big story so he took it back to Toby. Big story. Bad for Chief bad for tribe. His reaction was thanks a million, at first. He would go and POW WOW with the top and the following morning Toby rants at him says he is so plastered these days and is in cuckoo land. Toby says the boy was plant to sell a false story to the Circus.
Jerry says he will sell story to his paper although not the bit the advance information. He was called in by the Editor who had been told to keep Jerry off the story and make no further reference as to so would not be in the National Interest. He had sounded off to Smiley and thought it was Smiley who had then contacted the Editor. He had felt bad about this when Smiley had got the heave ho.
Jerry comments as they eat their meal and drink beer that Toby was rum just as he had thought something was odd about the reaction to what he had been told and passed on. He ends by asking his love to be passed on to Ann- one of the great marriages which leads Smiley to say out with it and for Jerry to say some tale which he told Toby to stuff up his silk draws
We now go back to the school where the headmaster (John Wells) is upset because Jim has taken off on leave because his mother is dying. The headmaster is on the rugger field as the school is losing. His mother comments that at least it is not an excuse Jim can use again. Wells comments that he will ask for a medical diagnosis next time. Jumbo Roach reassures the other boys that although Jim has taken the Alvis because he would not trust other forms of transport, he is coming back as he has left the caravan and has not said goodbye.
Toby is called out by Peter to meet a prospect, a Pole in the Fur trade who could be a courier only to be confronted by Smiley, Guillam and Fawn, Smiley thinks there is someone in the street, a shadow, perhaps, and sends Fawn down the street to check. Toby says that if he had brought baby sitters there would have ten or twelve individuals walking up and down.
George tells Toby what he thinks happened; how someone sold Merlin and Witchcraft to Alleline saying all the right things which would feed into his aspiration to be become Control. Esterhase who starts defiant becomes more and more anxious as George reveals the inquiry and meeting is official with the backing of Lacon and the Minister and that far from sending chicken feed in return for gold dust they have been giving away the crown jewels. He then explains to Esterhase that in order to demonstrate to Moscow that they have a Mole with in the Circus that would have had to create a legend...a history of someone who was not the real Mole and the obvious choice was Toby because it was he that delivered the packages of information to Merlin and kept him supplied with film to photograph documents within the Embassy. If things went wrong as they now had, Toby was the fall guy at which Toby offers all his support including that of his Lamplighters although he would have to see Lacon personally to get his authority. George says all he needs is the address of the safe house which they use to meet with Merlin which he readily gives whereupon he told he will be kept secure for a few days and will have to provide a convincing cover for his absence to the Circus and to his wife.
There is one fascinating aspect of the address where Toby is taken to meet the fictitious Fur Trader, Lexham Gardens and which I visited for meetings during 1961 some fifty years ago although these were not of clandestine nature.
After the meeting George walks back from Lexham Gardens to the Hotel in Paddington which he has made his headquarters and from where he had come for the confrontation with Guillermo acting as his baby sitter and Mendel keeping watch on both of them. This is a fair walk from the Cromwell Road in Kensington going up to Kensington High Street and then paralleled along the Western side of Kensington Gardens into Bayswater and the Hotel to meet Lacon for an update meeting, one presumes sometime later after Lacon had consulted the Minister.
Smiley is given the green light with Minister through Lacon pleading to avoid anything messy such as the Russian boasting how they got all the secrets for years. He comments that what the Russians achieved would be beautiful in another context.
He would arrange something to cause panic and force Gerald have a crash meeting with Merlin alone at the safe house. To achieve this Smiley sends Ricki Tarr to the Paris Office where he forces his way into the Circus station communications office and send a message to Alleline saying he has evidence vital to safeguarding the welfare of the service. Alleline can be assumed to consult with Haydon and Bland now that Esterhase was out of the frame.
The seventh episode is the grand finale when most viewers should know who the villain is even if they have not read the book or now seen the film for such have been various clues.
At the start of each episode there is a short reminder finale of the previous and then the opening credits with Russian multiple doll indicating the layers or levels of the story to be unravelled.
Smiley with Guillam prepare Merlin’s safe house by putting two milk bottles out to indicate safe entry. Guillam shows the new recording system which is voice activated to save in recording tape. Mendel has positioned himself outside the Circus to report the arrival of the trio and to try and spot who leaves first for the crash meeting with Merlin. George still has the sense that they have been followed by one individual on their recent movements. He goes out for a brief walk while waiting admitting that he is nervous about what is to happen.
In order to maintain dramatic momentum we are not immediately a party to the recorded conversation between Haydon and the Russian. We have to wait for this until Alleline and Bland are summoned, Lacon called and Esterhase brought from his location and the recording is played with us hearing the key moment when Haydon asks the Russian to get Karla to get him out.
Smiley suggests to Alleline that they do a trade with Karla over Bill in exchange for as many of their agents in the field whose cover Bill has blown. They have professionally ended their usefulness hence in the Honourable Schoolboy there is great excitement when the Station on the hill suddenly closes and all the electronics of the day dismantled, as they are elsewhere in the world. This is all mater of fact except for Peter who strikes at Haydon and demands to know how many agents he has been responsible for their deaths 200, 300, 400?
To rub Alleline’s nose in it Smiles suggests that he gets cracking right away with the Russian who is after all his direct link to Karla, Lacon agrees saying that he still the official head of the Service, for the time being. The inquisitors arrive to take Haydon away. As he goes Haydon calls out- All the best Percy! Fawn goes with Haydon while Peter and Smiley walk back to Smiley’s home this time. They are being watched by Jim Prideaux s they leave.
Peter apologies for striking Haydon expressing his disappointment at the downfall of the man he regarded as a hero. George thanks him for his important contribution
Jim is now keeping watch on Haydon at his holding in a military style camps with large huts with a simple see through wire fencing around the compound. George visits Haydon who moans about the quality of the interrogators who imagine he knows the names of the other moles Karla has placed around the world. It is evident that through Lacon Haydon has asked to see Smiley to press for the exchange and to answer his questions. Smiley says why, when how? Haydon laughs saying you ask that why, because it was necessary, someone had to. He refers to their recruitment and role as freedom protectors and service to the great cause and then breaks down in tears.
Do you know what’s killing Western democracy George Greed and constipation moral political aesthetic? I hate America very deeply. The economic repression of the masses institutionalised. Even Lenin could not forsee the extent of that. Britain Oh dear no viability in world affairs. I suppose that is where it began When I saw how trivial we’d become as a nation say in the forties. By 1950 I was slipping Karla occasional gifts of intelligence carefully selected morsels to help the Russian case against America. At that time I was scrupulous not to give Moscow anything harmful to ourselves, against our own agents in the field. I still believe the secret services are an expression of the nation‘s character. Until the mid fifties I still had hopes of what we represented. Self delusion of course. We were already America’s street walker. I was granted soviet citizenship twelve years ago. They have given him a couple of medals. Smiley listens to all this impassively.
When he reports to Lacon he wonders what medals? He hopes they will get more information from him of substance George echoes Bill’s observation about the laxity of arrangements where he is being held and where noone patrols the perimeter day or night. Smiley is concerned about Haydon’s safety. Lacon says George is being melodramatic. He can only go to Russia and we are sending him there.
Lacon also wants to know why Percy Alleline was put in charge and not Bill. Bill explains this directly to George saying it was better Alleline was the front man attending to the admin, the dinners, the meetings chewing the cud in Whitehall which would have bogged him down. He had Bland an Esterhase to run around for him. George says never happened to Control. Haydon explains that Control was a natural recluse (he could have added like you George). I could never have got away with it.
Later inside the detention room Haydon admits that Control had got close, did well which and surprised Karla given that Control was so ill. The offer from the General which caused the near death of Prideaux had not been a genuine one. He had been confident Control would send for Jim, someone outside of London station because of background. It had to be someone who was old Circus to bring the Temple down a bit. It was the most famous partnership the Circus had the iron fist and iron glove. I got him home didn’t I? Yes says Smiley, that was good of you.
Bill adds the thing with Anne was Karla’s idea. He said you were the one threat and that if you were preoccupied with what we were getting up to and if it was well known around the place I was her lover it was bound to look like personal vengeance. Karla said not to strain it but if possible join the queue. Presumably it was n Karla‘s instructions you were with Ann on the night of the shoot out, as insurance. Oh yes he was adamant about it. Lacon has discussed with George the need to tell Anne about Haydon and to ensure she report any form of contact in the future, Smiley said he had proposed to tell her anyway as a kind of balancing.
Before Smiley leaves he agrees to pas on a cheque and note to female friend of Haydon and to arrange £200 from the reptile fund for a boy, not an angel but a Cherub.
Jim who has been staking out the situation, seeing Jim clothes be collected for a cleaners visits and this enables him to get a message to see Haydon. After questioning about what happened he breaks Haydon’s neck.
Jim returns to the school and helps Jumbo Roach with a reading in the school chapel. Smiley holds a meeting with Alleline, Brand and Esterhase with Peter and Lacon present. He speculates how Haydon died via a message with his suit delivered from the cleaners; He announces he has been asked to look after things for the time being and that everyone should take leave after which there will be some redeployment, for those who wished to remain in the service.
Smiley presses his wife with the question did she love Bill which she says no, poor George. Life is still such a puzzle to you. She had previously suggested that Bill enjoyed being a traitor and she was glad his life had ended because he would not have enjoyed retirement.
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