{ Spooks, 8x07. }

[delga]

I have decided that I enjoy this live reaction business and am going to do it again this week. The only problem is that I then forget to make a vaguely intelligent post thereafter. This week, though, I have to wrap some presents at the same time. One of these is going to fall by the wayside but I'm betting it's not my super!spies.

The nice thing about watching the pre-air on BBC3 is that I always catch the tail-end of the Merlin behind-the-scenes show. This week Katie McGrath is talking about Morgana, and it's just lovely. The meta in this week's episode is nicely handled, though the gender issues are (natch) skipped over. Still nice though.

On the cool side: watching the sword fights get choreographed! I especially love the part where Katie teased Bradley about being, uh, hot. AWESOME. I'm psyched for the end of the season.)

Not so nice: SUPERSPIES!

+ UGH, the inevitable Pakistan&India story.

+ This is apparently India? Or an Egyptian market; difficult to tell by the set dressing and weird camera effects

+ ...someone just got shanked. OW.

+ Oh, that was actually London? What? Shanked guy was alive enough to lift his phone from his jacket but not enough to answer it.

+ The credits have a BEAUTIFUL shot of Ros and Lucas walking as a pair.

+ 'Dickie'? How Colonial! But also fairly accurate.

+ Hindu suicide bombers. I am ALREADY OVER THIS STORY. I'm not saying these don't exist.

+ These names are GREAT. Ashok Vikhal! Harish D(h)illan!

+ "The kind of unrest unseen on these shores since the English Civil War!" Shut up, Harry.

+ Sarah is still alive! BBC iPlayer's subtitles were terribly misleading.

+ Oh Lucas, quit being such a muppet.

+ Ros looks fucking AMAZING in that suit.

+ Oh goodness - a baby!Home Sec!

+ "Actually, he's Anglo-Indian." I missed everything in this scene before this line.

+ "Lucas - why didn't she kill you?" The pursuant conversation is completely idiotic on Lucas' part.

+ The Hindu terrorists chant 'speak in the name of God'.

+ Are we just ignoring Tariq's ethnicity during this plot, then?

+ I miss Zafar.

+ Jeez, I love this Ashok kid already. (I hate it that the only roles Brit Asians can get is as terrorists or terrorist victims. It's tiresome.)

+ "Yeah, I do." Ashok is right, but for all the wrong reasons. MI5 would totally sell his ass out to get what they want.

+ Oh, hey, the Thames!

+ "Pakistanis, Indians, bloody Martians, okay?" Oh, beautiful.

+ Still no British Asian actresses, despite the plot. I know

+ Speaking in Sanskrit! Lovely.

+ "He's just a boy." Oh Ruth. This is the Jez story all over again, though Ruth is playing Zoe this time. "He has to take the risk; a seventeen-year-old boy has to take the risk."

+ NW is beautiful in that scene and then Harry hams up the dialogue. I wish this show was women-heavy because the whole place would be less of a mess.

+ The boy who's playing Ashok is subtle in the strangest moments. It's quite lovely to see.

+ And now they freak out about Ashok's placement?

+ "GODSE" meaning Victor? LET IT NOT BE A FUCKING RUSSIAN. Oh, wait; Gandhi's killer. And now we see how Nightingale ties in: time to start another war, I guess.

+ Tariq watches as all the info gets deleted. Niiice.

+ Lucas and the tac team are in close, but I can't work out why?

+ "Two dates, two attacks." "Victor's running a second cell." Now a reason to leave Harish in play. And Harish just gives over the target?

+ Ruth and Harry trying to put the pieces together would be much more interesting if it didn't feel so last minute. It should feel like we've beenbuilding to this all season (like Sugarhorse last year, though that was ultimately a fuck up) but it's more just...tacked on.

+ OUCH AND ALSO GROSS. Stabbed guy is still alive?

+ Ruth has apparently just spoken to GCHQ. As herself? So. Not dead then?

+ Stabbed guy just hurt a cop and is now walking. I really, really need to pay more attention because I still don't really get what's going on.

+ "This is the Age of Kali." Oh, the Sanskrit was lovely. I can't translate but it's a beautiful rhythm. The Age of Kali is the age of the apocalypse.

+ Now some Sabbatical thing that I ALSO DON'T GET, though Lucas apparently does? What?

+ "This language is like a woman - thing of beauty, many shades." HEH.

+ "You're always busting in on Asians in the middle of the night." I lol'd.

+ "In the big balance of things, my life is shit, yeah." I love this character. Jez was open to the bullshit, but not like this.

+ "You out there, Liar Man?" No, but really: LOVE HIM. I'm going to be pissed if this kid dies.

+ The whole confrontation scene - with the cicumcision, the phone, everything - that was neatly played except for the fact that I hate this whole story.

+ I love boss!lady Ros. I just want her to give SUPER PRECISE instructions ALL THE TIME.

+ Wait, stabbed guy is Victor Chatterjee?

+ "If I was a less moral woman--" That was a really weird place to break off, Ruth.

+ "We have to let this one run, Ruth." "It's the right call." HANDS WHAT NO.

+ I love this Sanskrit guy. He's EATING PAN LEAVES. Beautiful man.

+ "Do not underestimate this Victor, he is a Bengali. They are many things, but above all they are poets." The discussion about who is and who isn't a terrorist was lightly played, and still way too ambiguous to make up for the fact that this whole episode is running on a centuries' old conflict that even the people inside don't fully understand. The kind of hatred bred by this conflict is unbelievable. I've seen it and I do not fucking understand it. So to see it trivialised or sensationalised - I have never had time for this. I barely had time for that fucking Tehran plot. But I guess I'm extra-sensitive this time? Whatever.

+ Tariq still speaks beautifully, guys.

+ LOL, did Lucas just get stopped by a rail crossing? Spying is hard, yo.

+ Ros finds Victor! How did that happen? No, really, I need to pay WAY MORE ATTENTION.

+ "Dropped your potato peeler?" LOL.

+ "Not Nightingale [...] not the money. This is about revenge, isn't it?"

+ "The second attack's Muslims on Hindus." So what we have is the central guy who hates everyone. And STILL this episode doesn't even begin to cover the difficulty of being Anglo-Indian in the Karachi region, or the fact that the root of the conflict isn't religion; it just sounds like it. The root of the conflict is people and inherited prejudice, and let me tell you: escaping that is the mos difficult

+ Super!Ros gets the target! "Well I lied." Dickie obviously didn't see last week's episode: Ros is a lying liar who lies, Dickie!

+ Baby!Home Sec turns out to be as ridiculous as every other politician on this show. And look! Helpless British Asian females! Because fuck no, we don't have autonomy. I'm certainly not sitting here with a liberal attitude and a BA Hons in English. Fuck this bullshit. We are not victims; stop making out like we are.

+ The girl who does speak up is lovely. And also looks a lot like someone I know! And now Ashok speaks. "You betrayed us. You let Kalmesh die in your place." / "You shared my food. YOU ATE WITH ME!" Breaking bread, breaking bones. Something about purifying fire (agni; I'll explain later. It's not as Christian as it sounds). The dialogue is interesting but so convoluted that you can't really understand what he's saying. It sounds so straightforward - the way extremist Muslims speak about their crusades or whatever - but the language is completely different.

+ ENTER LUCAS NORTH. "I will shoot yer!"

+ As a note: not all Hindus hate Muslims. And not all Muslims hate Hindus. I don't think anyone has actually fucking said that yet.

+ And naturally the voiced woman gets drenched in gasoline. Dramatically this is intense; I'm not denying that. But there's a lot of bullshit in-between that is clouding my judgement. I'm aware of the technical levels in this episode - and it's probably very good, actually; I can't tell from here but I'll be clearer on Wednesday's re-watch - but I am more aware than ever that the history behind the stories are never researched properly. Like. How often is something like this distilled to, oh, they've been fighting for years, leave 'em to it? Because. It's really not that straightforward. And I get that some effort was made - we followed the Hindu-on-Muslim attack, not the cliched Muslim-on-Hindu one, and the conflict was triple-sided, not double - and I'm also aware of how stupid it is that I'm even thinking about taking this personally considering my own issues with everything in the world ever, but I still found a lot of this episode insulting. Not overtly. But it's that blanket racism. AND NO FEMALE BRIT ASIANS WHAT THE HELL.

+ "You've become what you hate." SERIOUSLY: THIS ASHOK ACTOR IS FUCKING AMAZING, hammed dialogue or not.

+ Oh, hey, I seriously thought Harish would die! That's what normally happens. Some really strong performances from the guest cast this week.

+ Baby!Home Sec. ARE YOU A BADDIE? And Harry feels the same.

+ Global attacks in US and Holland. That's not global, guys. "This was never about the UK." THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN OBVIOUS, YOU EGO-FUELLED IDIOTS.

+ Next week's trailer is wonderfully low-key and serious. GUYS I'M SO CONFLICTED.

--

Well. That was exhausting.

Comments

[belantana.livejournal.com]

This is apparently India? Or an Egyptian market; difficult to tell by the set dressing and weird camera effects - Oh good god yes. Enough of the camera effects already.

Oh goodness - a baby!Home Sec! - Heeee, spinnd and I were just talking about how we were going to distinguish him from the old Home Sec - this will do very nicely!

I hate it that the only roles Brit Asians can get is as terrorists or terrorist victims. It's tiresome. - THIS. Your commentary on the ridiculous race/religion issues is hitting lots of nails on the head, while I could only be inarticulately annoyed. And thanks for expanding on some of the history about which I know nothing - interesting and way complex.

The boy who's playing Ashok is subtle in the strangest moments. It's quite lovely to see. - He was great, wasn't he? I was so relieved that he didn't die. I'd love to see him back but I also hope that Lucas keeps his word and sees to it that he's never fucked over so thoroughly again.

Now some Sabbatical thing that I ALSO DON'T GET, though Lucas apparently does? What? - Yes, apparently Lucas got to do lots of reading in Russian prison? It is now in my canon that he's read The Path To Zen. OBVIOUSLY.

[hestia8.livejournal.com]

I spent most of yesterday evening trying to work out why Harish Dillon was familiar. For a change, it was the name: the guy who plays Michael Spence on Holby is Hari Dhillon, ha ha.

Ros looked amazing.

There was a MASSIVE missed opportunity with Tariq. Is it now policy not to have ANY background for anyone who isn't a main character?

I think Lucas was possibly implying he'd read a lot in Russia? IDK, that didn't actually make any sense to me. Like Russians prisons are going to have a good library...

I LOVED Ashok. SO MUCH.

There were so many problems, though, none of which I actually need to tell you about, but OH MY GOD would it have been too much to ask to have a non-white woman who wasn't a victim (and while the girl in the school wasn't a victim in the same way as his sister, she was singled out because of who she was)? It gets to the point where you think they MUST be doing this on purpose, they must have noticed by now, and they KEEP DOING IT (even down to Ashok's introduction - he was playing football with these guys, so this is a boy's story, because football is not for girls, yeah, thanks for that).

I'll save the rest for the recap and not fill up your comments...

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about that Alexander Siddig episode in S2 and the girl in that was a) defending the Bad Guy and then b) beaten by her father for the intel. Like. What the hell? And this time - every. singe. girl was a victim. EVERY SINGLE ONE. ONE spoke up; one showed autonomy, and got soaked in gasoline for her trouble. Because of course, as girls, we wouldn't have polarising political opinions. We're just the victims.

SHUT UP.

I look forward to the recap. I can't even judge the quality of the episode until I rewatch.

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

I LOVED ASHOK. He was lovely. And also the linguist. The spoken Sanskrit was also just beautiful.

[hestia8.livejournal.com]

YES, but also

(i) You have to go back to season TWO for that, which is fucking pathetic (I could probably scrape up 3 or 4 more examples where the terrorists were women)
(ii) The climatic scene: Lucas, Ashok, Harish, the other boys, that one girl. WOW, THANKS.

The recap won't be as horrible to do as the 802 one, but I imagine there will be long paragraphs explaining how they're doing it wrong.

And yet, this is the same show that gave us Ros, and Connie, and Zoe and Ruth and Jo etc, and....what? You can only be a kickass woman if you're in MI5?

Also, a question: where was harish's/his sister's (did she even get a name?) mother?

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

We've got a couple female terrorists; Nina, this season, at least. But then a lot of the female 'baddies' have turned out to be MI-5 agents gone rogue, so - stfu, Spooks.

So, I hated the plot, but I don't think the execution was so bad. Idk. We'll see on Wednesday.

re:Harish, I have no idea. I doubt it.

[hestia8.livejournal.com]

There was Her in 310 (I can't remember her name), and That One in 40...something or other (damn, I used to know all this stuff!!)

The more I think about it, the worse it is, actually. Ashok will remain lovely on second viewing, I'm sure, but I'd twigged that this was All About The Boys, and the more I think about it, the more it is, and UGH, frankly.

ANYWAY, I have three other recaps to get through before I even think about this one...