Spooks 10.02
TARIQ!!!!!!! :(
I felt like an idiot, because I was not expecting that, except in the general ‘anyone could die in Spooks’ sense. And there I was with cartoon thought clouds featuring hearts for Tariq when he told Calum off, and there I was excited to see his home life and...no, not expecting it. WAAAH. There’s a lot of ‘if only...’ to it too: it only he hadn’t listened to Ruth, if only he had gone for a drink with Calum, if only they’d killed Calum off - because I suspect we’ll have more Calum angst than anyone else’s angst over this as part of his character growth. And there I was thinking that the only interesting thing they could do with him for me was have him be a double agent with a very different approach to keeping his cover. At least Tariq got to remind him that he’d been the one to lose the case to three hoodies. But as soon as Tariq bumped into that guy, you knew he was a goner.
I know why they did it, but I was really frustrated by their cutting to Sasha at that point. (It was irritating more than tension-inducing.) Sasha would have been second on my ‘characters you can kill other than Tariq’ list, mainly because he’s bearing the brunt of my feelings about how they're writing the FauxSB. I spent a third of this episode thinking 'they wouldn't be having this conversation in English.' And I WILL be remembering that if they bother to have anyone using any language but English in the rest of the series. Plus there was 'wouldn't the hotel be bugged?' Plus there's the hoary old 'and this is why they wouldn't have Gavrik's son on the detail'. Plus all of Harry's FEEEELINGS about his secret third child don't interest me. Not as much as Ruth drawing the line of being dependable if Harry tells her everything, which is too little too late and slightly motivated by jealousy, but feh.
The Erin-Martha stuff was really intense, and it's fitting to say that, in an episode that referenced Ros in passing (ROS!), Erin is really growing on me. I like the relationship that's developing between her and Harry, I saw no reason to take off my shipper glasses (the actor who's playing Dimitri is doing everything he can to make the editor give him screen time, WHICH I APPRECIATE).
I sort of assumed that the Americans were behind the leaking, but as it seems they're behind pretending to be Harry to spoil the silly partnership, I now suppose it's the secret conspirators from last week. Oh well, that's up in the air.
Anyway, Tariq's death was a real low. At least he was doing his job and was so cute and enthusiastic about doing his geeky work until he was sleep deprived.