{ Spooks, 9x02. }

[delga]

I liked that! Hurrah! I enjoyed the various superspy shenanigans - dropping to the floor! Palming the phone! Learning the camera numbers! Pretending to be the driver! Interrogation room we haven't seen in a while! - whilst also liking Beth more, too. I still dislike Sophia Myles' choices a lot, and sometimes they throw me, but the character is solid, and she has sort of a reverse arc - she's already dirty when she comes in, and she's trying to break clean. (This is NOT the same as Ros. Ros' ideals were always clean, but they got her into a lot of trouble.)

I feel like Lucas' story this year is going to be a MASSIVE BORE. Why is Lucas Always Cranky now? Why should I care about whoever the fuck John is? I get it: he did something Bad and Wrong, became Lucas North, and spent his sins in a Russian prison. And-- so? Why is all his character development retroactive? Instead of changing in the present, they keep going back and fiddling with his past. I-- don't care. I really enjoyed him walking around that guy's house and learning the camera numbers; I really didn't enjoy seeing him with That Lady (the actress is tres lovely, by the way! Is that Rouas?) I felt like this episode showed you Lucas at his best and his worst. His best: ninja brain powers. His worst: sappy lap dog. Lucas' weakness isn't that he's the human equivalent of an onion - something that should make him interesting, but somehow fails to - it's that he falls in love too easily. Which. Um, okay?

There was the scene in the conference room when Tariq and Dimitri were sat side-by-side. EVERYTHING ABOUT THAT WAS GREAT. I suddenly felt that they needed more interaction. Maybe people on the Grid talk to each other face-to-face sometimes, not through headsets?! Also, whatever filter they are using on Tariq is abysmal. He looks more anaemic than me. "I'm like a shark, Lucas." Yes, a DYING ONE. Dimitri is incredibly efficient at Getting Things Done, isn't he? I like that.

OH HARRY. Harry's attitude to Traitors is so-- is there any consistency there? No-one gets a second chance. Except for Ruth. Oh, and Ros. And Tom Quinn that one time, even though you suspected he was a lost cause. AND, YES, YOU YOURSELF. I always wondered why he felt he had to reprimand Tessa so strongly back in the first season when it never really panned out that way again. But that is arc work, because, of course, his idealism has faded even more since then. And now Lucas wants Beth around (...okay) and Harry doesn't? ...OKAY. I don't know. I don't even really understand why there was a fight about it. I understand that those men came to kill Beth and slaughtered everyone else, and I understand why that is A Bad Thing. But. Okay, never mind.

RUTH. Ruth and her red wine; Ruth and her late night epiphanies; Ruth and her attention to detail! I saw this collage on tumblr the other day, re:3x01, when she's been buying up the cabs in London to save time and money, and I remember thinking how GREAT she was, and how much I miss that side of her. But she is still great now; just Sad.

So, anyway, mostly I thought that was enjoyable fare! Excellent.

--

edit: Apparently I have decided to take the same approach to S9 as I did to SpyGran and 2.0: hysterical amusement. I have been reading some of the comments in the comm - enthusiastic and not - and I realised: I don't care if it turns out to be terrible, as long as it is entertaining. I don't want to be bored.