TV episode review: Spooks (2009), season 8 episode 2
A gas processing plant explodes, leaving Britain with a gas shortage. Time to start negotiating with eastern Europe. The Russians? No, they’ll ask too much. Better their smaller neighbours, in the shape of the made up country of Tazbekstan, who have plans of their own …
Roll on Lucas (Richard Armitage) frequenting a strip joint – he goes there twice, that counts as frequenting, surely! – Ros (Hermione Norris) being an ice queen as usual, Harry (Peter Firth) making questionable decisions, Jo (Miranda Raison) being doe-eyed over a pretty girl one of the Tazbeks wants dead, and there’s a new guy on the block: Malcolm’s young, computer-savvy replacement Tariq (Shazad Latif).
I’m sure I heard Lucas whisper “Spasiba” to one of the girls at the strip club. RA speaking Russian … squeee! 😀
There’s not much else to report, really. Oh. No, I forgot. Maybe because it just wasn’t exceedingly memorable. Sarah Caulfield (Genevieve O’Reilly), the US Embassy liaison. She gets down to some serious liaising with Lucas by the end of the episode. Or, at least, they kiss and they talk about going to a hotel and liaise some more. The actress behind Cauldron (she’s vile and unpredictable, like brewing a nasty potion) is Irish. Maybe I’d warm up to her if she had her natural accent rather than a fake American one. As a character, I have difficulties understanding what Lucas sees in her, frankly. Then again, I think that can go for a few of RA’s on-screen love interests (Marian, Margaret and Carol, specifically, but Marian in particular), so she might as well just join the crew. Well, at least she gets to spend a night with Lucas North in a hotel room. I can see the appeal.
Other than that, it’s a so-so episode, really. Not terribly interesting or attention-grabbing, and Jo was grating a bit with the whole Bibi obsession. Still good telly.
Oh, so she’s actually Irish is she? I don’t think her accent is so bad — she sounds somewhat Texan, but I really thought she didn’t LOOK like an american. (Whatever THAT should look like~!) But I did think she looked British! (So I was RIGHT!)
@phylly3: Yup, you were right! 🙂 According to IMDb, Genevieve O’Reilly is from Dublin. I don’t think her accent is bad, but it just seems… wrong. Maybe because, like you say, she doesn’t LOOK American, which I can’t describe either. I thought her lines sounded a bit forced in this episode (or the next?), like she was struggling to get all the words out or something, and really had to focus to say her line correctly, which I don’t think she would’ve had an issue with if the accent was her own.