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Sunday, November 7, 2010

Spooks Review 9.6: Now We´re Acquainted

Vaughn: Will you stop torturing yourself? There isn´t a real choice here. Stop pretending that there is.

In which Ruth distracts Harry, Lucas picks up a package or two, Malcolm lives with his mum, Tariq gets a fit, John gets overheard, Dimitri puzzles a bomb, Harry has a crick in the neck, Vaughn gets a fake file and John gets a glimpse of Maya. 
~~~~~~~~

This week the Spooks are tapped by phone, e-mail etc. and locked inside the Grid. That´s because there was a simple discrepancy between the different battlefield networks for a military operation. The Americans are concerned, because the British portal was out of date. They now want to install a cybershell terminal for which their cryptographer will bring the access codes. If possible, they want to be on the Grid as well. Beecher warns Harry that the more allies we include, the more avenues for attack there are. Harry has to allow some men installing it.

Tariq throws a laptop on the ground. Ruth follows him into the toilets. Tariq claims the Grid has been compromised, bugged. Someone is watching the Spooks. Tariq thinks they´re after the archives. There´s no way to freely communicate through phones, security cameras, webcams, security coms or e-mail. Of course they´re being watched.

Harry sits with the Home Secretary and Beecher. Harry needs his core Grid team. Ruth enters the meeting room with news. Ruth has to talk to Harry about ´private matters´ and holds his hand.

Lucas calls Harry that he´s stuck in traffic. Meanwhile he has to chat with Vaughn about Maya and his past for which he loads a weapon. The Albany file turns out to be a painting which leads to a location of the actual file. Vaughn´s employers need that file by two today.

Harry calls everybody on the Grid for a Blue One Emergency. If hackers get in the system by stealing codes of the Americans and English before the cybershell is installed, they will be in there too by testing access codes. Harry doesn´t want the cryptographer or those codes on the Grid. Dimitri and Beth take care of a decoy in some safe house and Dimitri takes pictures of the men who follow them.

Lucas has to pick up that cybergrapher who tells him he breathes funny. Lucas/John receives a text message by Vaughn. Says they are followed by a blue van and switches cars. Lucas calls Harry that he has to find a new route home. Cryptographer girl thinks he should have hobbies, but she outsells him by her tattoos i.e. her reason why she went to prison. Genius Girl made a lucrative deal and did reduced time. You only get a second chance once.

Out of sight of the hackers, Beth checks the names on a mugshot player which Tariq had uploaded before. Sees that Russian and Chinese hackers are working together. The system is shut down, so the Spooks gain two minutes time. But Lucas has to be contacted.

Lucas has to check something at a safe house and leaves the worried cryptographer in the car. She sneaks out and overhears the talk between Malcolm and Lucas/John. L/J thinks Harry was involved in a 1979 East German operation. Malcolm asks who was framing Harry, but L/J won´t answer that question. What can I do to help?, asks Malcolm. He digs a box out of the garden and gives it´s content to  L/J. Back to the car, L/J finds the cryptographer gone, but through her necklace he finds her not far away and brings her to the car. L/J is called by Harry that he can´t go back to the Grid. Genius Girl gets scared and doesn´t want to be brought to the new rendezvous. L/J calls Harry who gives a kill order, but L/J doesn´t quite trust this and asks for more codes, however he throws Genius Girl in the boot of the car. L/J drives to a desolate construction site where they´re shot at and she is still in the boot! L/J calls Harry again to test him. L/J drags her out while she has a neckwound! Let´s say she didn´t make it to hospital alive.

The Spooks find a way to get out of the Grid and fetch the hackers.

L/J returns to Maya´s home and gets a call from Vaughn that the Albany file is a fake. Vaughn threats John to tell Maya who John really is.

Ruth has put a bug on Lucas´s keyboard and tells Harry she thinks Lucas cannot be trusted.

At night, L/J gets back to Malcolm´s house and kicks the door in. All furniture has been removed!


CIA Beecher: You have an officer stand-by to escort it?
Harry: My best.

American security guy: Your British Security Grid escort is here!
Daniella Ortiz: Hey James Bond!

Question of the week.
What´s your favorite opera?
~~~~~~~

Genius Girl can joke about his enigmatic looks, but her swansong opens Bluebeard´s eighth chamber.

There IS an opera by Béla Bartók, called Bluebeard's Castle.

Too bad L/J goes off music, he just stopped hearing it.
~~~~~~~~~~

Tease: desperate Lucas/John
Nice: Genius Girl is funny by her appearance and upfront language; good to see Malcolm again!
Good: Lucas/John didn´t want to follow a kill order from ´Harry´
Bad: Lucas/John is lacking to take care of the cryptographer
Scary: Lucas/John is a bit too violent for my taste
Replay: who´s James Bond, Malcolm? John!
Remarkable: ´Hobbit country´ as in ´Dickens country´ in 8.4
Don´t get: all of Vaughn´s logic, Tariq´s geek speak
Lesson: don´t call him Lucas or don´t mention the Albany file or he treats you badly
Health: don´t get tossed around if you have a neckwound
Location: desolate building site reminds me of Greek tragedy with all these columns, and the facades of those building are held up by frail frames just as the last virtues of Lucas´s mask are done as such
Prop: cellphones
Gadget: trickery of voice responses
Hope: Lucas/John is too good or too paranoid
Verdict: spy paranoia


Screencaps: RAcentral

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