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Cambridge Spies re-watch, Episode 3
After the sobfest that was the last episode, you’ll be happy to know that this one’s a little more cheerful. There’s only a miscarriage, an assassination, the complete loss of all innocence, and lots and lots of dead Russians.
We open in Paris, on the eve of the Nazi invasion. Maclean—the least interesting of the bunch—is attached to the British consulate, which is being evacuated. While dropping some intel to the Soviets, he meets an American woman, Melinda, in a bar. They exchange witty banter and have sex and he’s madly in love. In fairness, the girl can rock a beret. She has no way out of France, so he marries her to get her safely to England.
This leaves Maclean crazy with love, Burgess crazy with grief and far too much booze, and Philby and Blunt deeply worried that the whole thing is going to fall apart. To make matters worse, MI5 wants to meet with Blunt—who immediately gets his paranoid on. Philby, in a brilliant streak of irony, has been promoted to head of counter-intelligence at MI6, but on the downside, he now has an irritating American operative, James Angleton, fanboying him all over the place. On the plus side, he’s now in charge of catching himself.
The last episode was really about how Philby and Burgess get broken; now it’s time for Blunt and Maclean to crack up. It’s less fascinating, I have to say, but also less heartbreaking. Philby and Burgess don't have all that much to do in this episode, though there's a random scene where Burgess makes balloons out of condoms for some reason. (Whatever, don't say you've never done that.)
Maclean loses it in the most obvious way. He’s freaked out that Melinda might be cheating on him with Philby. It turns out she’s pregnant. In a fit of despair, he confesses that he’s a Soviet agent to her, and she leaves for America.
Blunt is more subtle about falling apart. His interview with MI5 is weirdly short and mostly involves him insulting the painting hanging in the office. (Rightly so; it’s terrible.) He thinks no one remembers his birthday, but it turns out that the Queen of England at least remembers, and her present is a very girly handbag and a job offer at the Royal Palace. Burgess thinks the handbag is as hilarious as I do, but Jack, Burgess’s boyfriend/servant, thinks it’s bloody fantastic and starts sleeping with Blunt.
King George takes a liking to Blunt and decides that he wants him out of the spy game and into the curator-of-art-at-the-Royal-Palace game instead. I realize I don’t know very much about British royalty and I’m just taking it for granted that the show is being accurate about these things, but holy fuck King George’s accent is fucking hilarious. He sounds like the priest in the Princess Bride. There are Ws where no Ws should ever be. Every time they have a conversation, it looks like Blunt is trying not to lose his shit laughing over it.
That guy.
But seriously, Blunt wants out of the spy game. He tries to convince his new, not-as-great handler, Henry, that he’d be just as useful spying on the royals. Henry is not convinced, but says that if Blunt tracks down another spy, who has gone silent on Moscow, he’ll put in a good word.
Speaking of Russia, it’s about to be invaded. Oh shit! Oh wait. No, this is awesome news for the boys as it turns out, because it means that the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact is officially off, and instead of being super-duper traitors, they’re super-duper patriots. Everyone’s thrilled but Blunt, who as Jack points out, is too far gone to be happy about anything. Burgess, though, is so happy—or as happy as he’s able to get at this stage of his life—that he goes out and buys three ties, then wears all of them.
Blunt notices that he’s being followed, and flips out, begging Philby to tail him and see who it is. It’s the Soviets who are after him, though, not MI5. They believe that Blunt, and possibly the others, are double agents, and the only way to convince them otherwise is to give them something so huge that there will be no doubt. The unfortunate erstwhile spy in their path is holed up cracking the Enigma Code and refuses to give his intel to the Russians. So Blunt threatens him. It’s unclear as to whether this works or not.
Then Philby gets wind of some really bad news, which is that a Soviet dissident named Krivitsky has defected to the Americans and is claiming that there’s a mole in British intelligence. A tall blond Scot whose name might possibly start with “Mac” and end with “lean.” I wonder if Maclean’s American wife—who suddenly reappears, having had a miscarriage—and Philby’s American sidekick, who seems awfully friendly with her, might have something going on. At any rate, Krivitsky has to go before he names Maclean and exposes them all. So Philby, now knowing exactly what kind of people he’s dealing with, gives Krivitsky up to Henry. Meanwhile, Burgess gets drunk while passing on intel that will get a number of people killed. The only thing about it that’s in any way funny is that the condoms he was blowing up earlier were for sticking the documents in. It’s an ugly kind of funny, though.
Blunt gets to go on The Most Fun Mission Ever for the King. Seriously, after all of the other awful shit these guys end up doing, you’d think this one might convince him that spying might not be such a bad gig after all. He has to go to a German castle and retrieve letters that reveal that the Duke was a big fan of Hitler. And he wears a jaunty hat while doing it. This gets him the eternal gratitude of the Royal Family and the best blackmail material of all time, which will protect the entire spy ring should anyone ever accuse them. And with this, they are all safe and he can back out. Burgess, Maclean, and Jack do the dance of joy.
But Philby is all, What the Hell, Anti-Hero? because he’s the only one sober enough to realize that while he’s been getting a dude killed, Blunt has just gone monarchist on them.
So one more episode to go. I guess these entries should get tagged since I ended up recapping the whole series instead of just recommending that you see it.
We open in Paris, on the eve of the Nazi invasion. Maclean—the least interesting of the bunch—is attached to the British consulate, which is being evacuated. While dropping some intel to the Soviets, he meets an American woman, Melinda, in a bar. They exchange witty banter and have sex and he’s madly in love. In fairness, the girl can rock a beret. She has no way out of France, so he marries her to get her safely to England.
This leaves Maclean crazy with love, Burgess crazy with grief and far too much booze, and Philby and Blunt deeply worried that the whole thing is going to fall apart. To make matters worse, MI5 wants to meet with Blunt—who immediately gets his paranoid on. Philby, in a brilliant streak of irony, has been promoted to head of counter-intelligence at MI6, but on the downside, he now has an irritating American operative, James Angleton, fanboying him all over the place. On the plus side, he’s now in charge of catching himself.
The last episode was really about how Philby and Burgess get broken; now it’s time for Blunt and Maclean to crack up. It’s less fascinating, I have to say, but also less heartbreaking. Philby and Burgess don't have all that much to do in this episode, though there's a random scene where Burgess makes balloons out of condoms for some reason. (Whatever, don't say you've never done that.)
Maclean loses it in the most obvious way. He’s freaked out that Melinda might be cheating on him with Philby. It turns out she’s pregnant. In a fit of despair, he confesses that he’s a Soviet agent to her, and she leaves for America.
Blunt is more subtle about falling apart. His interview with MI5 is weirdly short and mostly involves him insulting the painting hanging in the office. (Rightly so; it’s terrible.) He thinks no one remembers his birthday, but it turns out that the Queen of England at least remembers, and her present is a very girly handbag and a job offer at the Royal Palace. Burgess thinks the handbag is as hilarious as I do, but Jack, Burgess’s boyfriend/servant, thinks it’s bloody fantastic and starts sleeping with Blunt.
King George takes a liking to Blunt and decides that he wants him out of the spy game and into the curator-of-art-at-the-Royal-Palace game instead. I realize I don’t know very much about British royalty and I’m just taking it for granted that the show is being accurate about these things, but holy fuck King George’s accent is fucking hilarious. He sounds like the priest in the Princess Bride. There are Ws where no Ws should ever be. Every time they have a conversation, it looks like Blunt is trying not to lose his shit laughing over it.
That guy.
But seriously, Blunt wants out of the spy game. He tries to convince his new, not-as-great handler, Henry, that he’d be just as useful spying on the royals. Henry is not convinced, but says that if Blunt tracks down another spy, who has gone silent on Moscow, he’ll put in a good word.
Speaking of Russia, it’s about to be invaded. Oh shit! Oh wait. No, this is awesome news for the boys as it turns out, because it means that the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact is officially off, and instead of being super-duper traitors, they’re super-duper patriots. Everyone’s thrilled but Blunt, who as Jack points out, is too far gone to be happy about anything. Burgess, though, is so happy—or as happy as he’s able to get at this stage of his life—that he goes out and buys three ties, then wears all of them.
Blunt notices that he’s being followed, and flips out, begging Philby to tail him and see who it is. It’s the Soviets who are after him, though, not MI5. They believe that Blunt, and possibly the others, are double agents, and the only way to convince them otherwise is to give them something so huge that there will be no doubt. The unfortunate erstwhile spy in their path is holed up cracking the Enigma Code and refuses to give his intel to the Russians. So Blunt threatens him. It’s unclear as to whether this works or not.
Then Philby gets wind of some really bad news, which is that a Soviet dissident named Krivitsky has defected to the Americans and is claiming that there’s a mole in British intelligence. A tall blond Scot whose name might possibly start with “Mac” and end with “lean.” I wonder if Maclean’s American wife—who suddenly reappears, having had a miscarriage—and Philby’s American sidekick, who seems awfully friendly with her, might have something going on. At any rate, Krivitsky has to go before he names Maclean and exposes them all. So Philby, now knowing exactly what kind of people he’s dealing with, gives Krivitsky up to Henry. Meanwhile, Burgess gets drunk while passing on intel that will get a number of people killed. The only thing about it that’s in any way funny is that the condoms he was blowing up earlier were for sticking the documents in. It’s an ugly kind of funny, though.
Blunt gets to go on The Most Fun Mission Ever for the King. Seriously, after all of the other awful shit these guys end up doing, you’d think this one might convince him that spying might not be such a bad gig after all. He has to go to a German castle and retrieve letters that reveal that the Duke was a big fan of Hitler. And he wears a jaunty hat while doing it. This gets him the eternal gratitude of the Royal Family and the best blackmail material of all time, which will protect the entire spy ring should anyone ever accuse them. And with this, they are all safe and he can back out. Burgess, Maclean, and Jack do the dance of joy.
But Philby is all, What the Hell, Anti-Hero? because he’s the only one sober enough to realize that while he’s been getting a dude killed, Blunt has just gone monarchist on them.
So one more episode to go. I guess these entries should get tagged since I ended up recapping the whole series instead of just recommending that you see it.