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Notes -
How about some television talk.
I was looking for a show to watch on a second screen while I played the new Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter and came across Slow Horses - BBC spy show about MI5 and a group of remedial agents. My parents have been watching for years and always recommend it. I loathe most modern television but for whatever reason decided to give it a shot.
It’s very much as expected. The first half of season 1 is all about a “loathsome” right wing terrorist cell, the Sons of Albion. Get this - these right wing youths kidnap an innocent British British-Asian boy and plan to behead him live on the internet in an ISIS style video. But wait, it’s actually a rouge opp carried out by the evil girlboss intelligence minister. They then do a double fakeout where the Sons of Albion get wise to the setup and the scary right wing guy goes on a rampage and attempts to carry out the beheading.
This is a completely ludicrous plot line and it appears that Apple’s Slow Horses is going to be every bit as awful as I expected for a show developed after 2016. Does Hollywood imagine there are actually these sort of right wing terror cells just waiting to activate? Despite all evidence to the contrary and dozens if not hundreds of other instances of racial and political violence perpetrated against white people? Or is the goal to get boomers all worked up about dangerous right wing ideologies. Are they stupid or liars?
For anyone here who’s watched it, does Slow Horses get better? Is there anything of value here?
I’m separately on season 4 of Le Bureau des Legendes - a French foreign intelligence tv drama produced by Canal and very highly regarded by anyone in the Anglosphere that’s seen it. It’s the show that Paramount’s The Agency is based on. And I must say the The Bureau is truly excellent. Season 1 aired in 2015 so it’s only mildly annoying with politics. Very mild. It’s really great and worth a watch if you haven’t seen it. I have a lot of thoughts on it that I can share if anyone is interested. But it reminds me a lot of 24, with less action and more drama.
Every once in a while I check in with myself and try and make sure I'm not becoming overly sensitive on culture war matters. I think you doing that here.
For one thing, the show is just great.
For another, it's designed to make you think it's about certain themes when it isn't (for instance the question of if River is meant to be in Slough House). The villains are often part of that (and the over arching theme is usually more system-failure and banal corruption than any specific political bugbear).*
Lastly, while the UK obviously has some stupid and exaggerated fear of right wing extremism, it's not as stupid as it seems because they actually have had white people committing acts of terror is recent memory (the troubles).
*Many of the villains are women, and ethnic women, and one of those women is also a hero. It does not deal with morality in a childlike and unipolar way.
Yes he absolutely deserves to be there.
Putting aside the actual political incident the landed him in Slough House. The major reason he deserves to be there is that he is a bad spy. He's a great law enforcement agent, but a horrible spy. He really leaps before thinking, goes off half cocked, and routinely makes big messes or gets himself into really horrible spots because he doesn't think things through.
The incident with theglasshouse in the 2nd season
is a peak "Cartwright" moment. He's just too moral, too much of a goody two shoes, a righteous knight to be an effective spy. He idolizes his grandfather but from all accounts, David was a right bastard. Lamb's a bastard, Lady Di is a bastard, Teerny is a bastard, Every good spy/spymaster we see is, morally, a piece of shit, because thats what it takes to play in that world.
Right, I think more perceptive watchers will pick this up quickly but at first you are supposed to think he isn't at fault. Later on it becomes clear he nearly has everything he needs but is justttttt off, not sure what will happen in future seasons/books, he may eventually put it together.
And at the same time - you also start to realize that with like only 3-4 exceptions, everyone else is the same as him or worse (even at the mothership). Cough cough dogs cough.
I'm not sure Lamb is a bastard, and I think perhaps his off-puttingness is part of his coping mechanism for not being one.
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