Cambridge Spies re-watch, Episode 4
Dec. 31st, 2011 12:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyIt’s history, you guys. Everyone dies at the end.
When last we left our antiheroes, everyone was pretty broken, but at least Blunt’s relationship with the scum-sucking parasites had made them safe. All it would take was one hint of an accusation of less then complete loyalty, and Blunt could produce the photos demonstrating that the beloved Royal Family tree was harbouring some Nazis in its twisted and inbred branches.
But how safe are they? Obviously they didn’t completely get away with it, or you wouldn’t be watching/reading about this miniseries.
Blunt hatches a cunning plan to test how secure their position is. By which I mean he—*giggle* okay I kind of like Blunt now *giggle*—waltzes into MI5 and confesses to Col. Winter that the reason he quit intelligence work was that he had finished doing everything he had to do. Which was passing the names of every MI5 agent to Moscow. By which he means that he has been spying for the Soviets for years.
Winter dutifully reports it to Guy Liddell, who is a deputy-director of some such. Liddell immediately summons Burgess to inform him that he has identified a serious threat to the British Empire—a man so lacking in a sense of humour that he’s incapable of determining when he’s being trolled. They have a good laugh about it.
But everything is not fine, because now we’ve headed right into the Cold War. The Americans have the atom bomb; the Russians don’t. And Maclean, with his job at the Foreign Office and his American wife, is well placed to infiltrate the Manhattan Project. Philby, who never met a woman he couldn’t get into bed, is well placed to manipulate Melinda into taking the family wherever it needs to go.
Back in DC, Melinda, while she publicly keeps quiet about it, is less-than-thrilled with Maclean’s extracurricular activities. She’s pregnant again. Also, everyone at the British Embassy thinks that Maclean’s long absences are because of an affair—and in order to protect her husband, she has to let people believe it. Maclean drinks all the time because who wouldn’t? And Melinda wants to nail Philby, because who wouldn’t?
Philby, for his part, has gotten married for the gazillionth time, this time to the most properly British woman in existence. He’s obviously more into Melinda, but they’re both too repressed to act on it. Yet.
Melinda has the baby and Maclean takes a break from playing tennis at the embassy to visit his new son. Isn’t that nice of him? He promises to get out of the spy game, as if that was actually something possible to do. His handler is all, “REQUEST DENIED COMRADE” and takes the photo of Melinda that he carries around and rips it in half, then sends him off to meet with a nuclear physicist working on the Manhattan Project. Said scientist is a sad fellow, a German Jew who escaped the Nazis, only to get roped into building a weapon that could destroy humanity. He also carries around a torn-up photo of his wife, except that she’s now dead, having committed suicide rather than suffer through Nazi atrocities. Remember why we do this again, guys? Because the Nazis were awful.
Melinda makes a scene at the embassy—again, everyone things it’s because of Maclean’s philandering ways, but it arouses Angleton’s suspicions. Having emerged from Philby’s shadow, he’s now one of the founding officers of the newly-formed CIA.
Angleton meets with General Bedell-Smith to run through every American stereotype in existence (Bedell-Smith actually shouts, “GIVE ME THE DAMN BEEF!”) and oh, there’s a leak in the Manhattan Project and a mole at the British embassy. Named Homer.
Homer, a.k.a. Maclean, really shouldn’t drink so much because he manages to misplace his photo of Melinda. And he possibly misplaced it at the house of the nuclear physicist who has just been exposed as a Russian spy. But it turns out that it was in his pocket the whole time, so he gets even drunker and punches the bartender instead of paying. Christ, what an asshole.
Meanwhile, Angleton is trying desperately to uncover Homer’s identity, but he’s stymied by the British ambassador, who protects his own and insists that if there is a spy, it must be one of the filthy lower classes, as a true gentleman would never stoop to such levels.
Back home, Blunt (hi! Haven’t seen you in awhile!) has more tea with the Queen, and confesses to being a gay communist. But it’s okay because he’s totally working for the royals now. She’s slightly displeased that this means he won’t be marrying her daughter, then calls them “two queens in a pod.” Hah! If I didn’t despise the concept of a monarchy so intensely, I would almost kind of like her.
Second-most awkward dinner party of all time: Philby and his wife have Liddell, Blunt, and Burgess over for spotted dick. Burgess can’t resist a good dick joke. Also, he sets it on fire. The dessert, I mean, not his actual dick. Poor Mrs. Philby attempts to defuse the tension by rattling off the Wikipedia entry for all kinds of custard.
Most awkward dinner party of all time: Burgess has now moved in with Philby, because he is a complete loose cannon and someone needs to keep an eye on him. In an attempt to retain some sort of appearance of normalcy, the Philbys have the Macleans over for dinner and Burgess is not invited. He invites himself anyway after having been gay-bashed (what is the use of there being Soviet assassins all over DC if they can’t take brutal and bloody revenge for this?) and drunkenly explains the difference between washroom stall etiquette in America versus England. Then he offers to show the aforementioned spotted dick to Melinda. Oh fuck, it is so utterly brutal to watch this guy’s fall from grace. No matter how much of an asshole he is, I still want to reach through the screen and hug him. Fortunately, there’s Philby to do it for me, and apparently this show was written by fangirls because Philby actually tucks him in and recites poetry to him. Burgess drunkenly mutters that he still believes in the ideals that got them into all this trouble, and OWW MY HEART do I need to whip out the sad baby animals again?
Maybe just one:
RIGHT MOVING ON NOW. This is a series about spies so Philby does some spy stuff, which involves breaking into the British embassy and finding the list of possible suspects that Angleton has given to the ambassador, who has stuck them in the trash because LOL TOP SEKRIT. There are four suspects, one guy that is Maclean and three guys who are not Maclean. Angleton: Not so useless after all.
Philby’s Soviet handler tells him that he needs to cut Maclean loose. Philby and Blunt are still useful and relatively safe, but if Maclean is found out, everyone goes down. Philby is full of the guilty angst but obviously the handler is right, so he and Angleton play a game of narrow-down-the-suspects, with Philby winning by giving up Maclean to Bedell-Smith. Even when he’s forced to betray his friends, he totally pwns.
Oh, but Moscow doesn’t have any confidence in Maclean’s ability to defect, given that everyone is after him and he has a wife and son. So someone else needs to go with him. That would be Burgess—again, obviously, because while he’s not on the verge of getting caught, he is a complete clusterfuck and it’s only a matter of time. Burgess agrees—well, kind of; he thinks he’s helping Maclean flee to France rather than the two of them being exiled to Russia for the rest of their lives. To do this, he has to first get sent home. And to get sent home, he has to, as Philby puts it, “behave badly.”
So in an epic scene to end all epic scenes, Burgess goes out with a bang. He finds a suburban street full of actual literal white picket fences, and drives his car through all of them, then stands on top of the car and tells America exactly what he thinks of it.
Never change, Burgess.
The Russians are as pleased as I am that Burgess has “invented an un-American activity all of his own,” and oh yeah, let it slip to Blunt where it is that Maclean and Burgess are really going. Blunt feels entirely horrible about this, and buys Burgess a really warm coat and more hugs and wow, that went from hilarious to sad really quickly. On the plus side, due to staffing cutbacks, Burgess manages to elude British intelligence and makes it back to America to pick up Maclean. They have time for one last horribly awkward family dinner and pushing each other on the swingset that Maclean built for his son, and then escape on a boat to Moscow, catching their last ever glimpse of England from the deck.
Philby and Blunt are both above suspicion, despite Philby’s ominous score and the tobacco smoke swirling around him. Blunt closes out at Cambridge, running into an old professor who asks him whatever happened to his old mates. Blunt says, “they all went on to do great things,” and walks off to the same chorus of “Jerusalem” that opens the series.
And they all lived happily ever after. Seriously! Well, except Burgess, who drank himself to death about ten years later, because history is a cruel, cruel storyteller. Philby and Blunt weren’t so much caught as eventually confessed in what I can only imagine were some of the most hilarious Just Between You and Me speeches of all time.
Final verdict: Actually better than I remembered and you should all watch it. Now it's back to watching Babylon 5 and perhaps blogging about some things that aren't TV for a change.
When last we left our antiheroes, everyone was pretty broken, but at least Blunt’s relationship with the scum-sucking parasites had made them safe. All it would take was one hint of an accusation of less then complete loyalty, and Blunt could produce the photos demonstrating that the beloved Royal Family tree was harbouring some Nazis in its twisted and inbred branches.
But how safe are they? Obviously they didn’t completely get away with it, or you wouldn’t be watching/reading about this miniseries.
Blunt hatches a cunning plan to test how secure their position is. By which I mean he—*giggle* okay I kind of like Blunt now *giggle*—waltzes into MI5 and confesses to Col. Winter that the reason he quit intelligence work was that he had finished doing everything he had to do. Which was passing the names of every MI5 agent to Moscow. By which he means that he has been spying for the Soviets for years.
Winter dutifully reports it to Guy Liddell, who is a deputy-director of some such. Liddell immediately summons Burgess to inform him that he has identified a serious threat to the British Empire—a man so lacking in a sense of humour that he’s incapable of determining when he’s being trolled. They have a good laugh about it.
But everything is not fine, because now we’ve headed right into the Cold War. The Americans have the atom bomb; the Russians don’t. And Maclean, with his job at the Foreign Office and his American wife, is well placed to infiltrate the Manhattan Project. Philby, who never met a woman he couldn’t get into bed, is well placed to manipulate Melinda into taking the family wherever it needs to go.
Back in DC, Melinda, while she publicly keeps quiet about it, is less-than-thrilled with Maclean’s extracurricular activities. She’s pregnant again. Also, everyone at the British Embassy thinks that Maclean’s long absences are because of an affair—and in order to protect her husband, she has to let people believe it. Maclean drinks all the time because who wouldn’t? And Melinda wants to nail Philby, because who wouldn’t?
Philby, for his part, has gotten married for the gazillionth time, this time to the most properly British woman in existence. He’s obviously more into Melinda, but they’re both too repressed to act on it. Yet.
Melinda has the baby and Maclean takes a break from playing tennis at the embassy to visit his new son. Isn’t that nice of him? He promises to get out of the spy game, as if that was actually something possible to do. His handler is all, “REQUEST DENIED COMRADE” and takes the photo of Melinda that he carries around and rips it in half, then sends him off to meet with a nuclear physicist working on the Manhattan Project. Said scientist is a sad fellow, a German Jew who escaped the Nazis, only to get roped into building a weapon that could destroy humanity. He also carries around a torn-up photo of his wife, except that she’s now dead, having committed suicide rather than suffer through Nazi atrocities. Remember why we do this again, guys? Because the Nazis were awful.
Melinda makes a scene at the embassy—again, everyone things it’s because of Maclean’s philandering ways, but it arouses Angleton’s suspicions. Having emerged from Philby’s shadow, he’s now one of the founding officers of the newly-formed CIA.
Angleton meets with General Bedell-Smith to run through every American stereotype in existence (Bedell-Smith actually shouts, “GIVE ME THE DAMN BEEF!”) and oh, there’s a leak in the Manhattan Project and a mole at the British embassy. Named Homer.
Homer, a.k.a. Maclean, really shouldn’t drink so much because he manages to misplace his photo of Melinda. And he possibly misplaced it at the house of the nuclear physicist who has just been exposed as a Russian spy. But it turns out that it was in his pocket the whole time, so he gets even drunker and punches the bartender instead of paying. Christ, what an asshole.
Meanwhile, Angleton is trying desperately to uncover Homer’s identity, but he’s stymied by the British ambassador, who protects his own and insists that if there is a spy, it must be one of the filthy lower classes, as a true gentleman would never stoop to such levels.
Back home, Blunt (hi! Haven’t seen you in awhile!) has more tea with the Queen, and confesses to being a gay communist. But it’s okay because he’s totally working for the royals now. She’s slightly displeased that this means he won’t be marrying her daughter, then calls them “two queens in a pod.” Hah! If I didn’t despise the concept of a monarchy so intensely, I would almost kind of like her.
Second-most awkward dinner party of all time: Philby and his wife have Liddell, Blunt, and Burgess over for spotted dick. Burgess can’t resist a good dick joke. Also, he sets it on fire. The dessert, I mean, not his actual dick. Poor Mrs. Philby attempts to defuse the tension by rattling off the Wikipedia entry for all kinds of custard.
Most awkward dinner party of all time: Burgess has now moved in with Philby, because he is a complete loose cannon and someone needs to keep an eye on him. In an attempt to retain some sort of appearance of normalcy, the Philbys have the Macleans over for dinner and Burgess is not invited. He invites himself anyway after having been gay-bashed (what is the use of there being Soviet assassins all over DC if they can’t take brutal and bloody revenge for this?) and drunkenly explains the difference between washroom stall etiquette in America versus England. Then he offers to show the aforementioned spotted dick to Melinda. Oh fuck, it is so utterly brutal to watch this guy’s fall from grace. No matter how much of an asshole he is, I still want to reach through the screen and hug him. Fortunately, there’s Philby to do it for me, and apparently this show was written by fangirls because Philby actually tucks him in and recites poetry to him. Burgess drunkenly mutters that he still believes in the ideals that got them into all this trouble, and OWW MY HEART do I need to whip out the sad baby animals again?
Maybe just one:
RIGHT MOVING ON NOW. This is a series about spies so Philby does some spy stuff, which involves breaking into the British embassy and finding the list of possible suspects that Angleton has given to the ambassador, who has stuck them in the trash because LOL TOP SEKRIT. There are four suspects, one guy that is Maclean and three guys who are not Maclean. Angleton: Not so useless after all.
Philby’s Soviet handler tells him that he needs to cut Maclean loose. Philby and Blunt are still useful and relatively safe, but if Maclean is found out, everyone goes down. Philby is full of the guilty angst but obviously the handler is right, so he and Angleton play a game of narrow-down-the-suspects, with Philby winning by giving up Maclean to Bedell-Smith. Even when he’s forced to betray his friends, he totally pwns.
Oh, but Moscow doesn’t have any confidence in Maclean’s ability to defect, given that everyone is after him and he has a wife and son. So someone else needs to go with him. That would be Burgess—again, obviously, because while he’s not on the verge of getting caught, he is a complete clusterfuck and it’s only a matter of time. Burgess agrees—well, kind of; he thinks he’s helping Maclean flee to France rather than the two of them being exiled to Russia for the rest of their lives. To do this, he has to first get sent home. And to get sent home, he has to, as Philby puts it, “behave badly.”
So in an epic scene to end all epic scenes, Burgess goes out with a bang. He finds a suburban street full of actual literal white picket fences, and drives his car through all of them, then stands on top of the car and tells America exactly what he thinks of it.
Never change, Burgess.
The Russians are as pleased as I am that Burgess has “invented an un-American activity all of his own,” and oh yeah, let it slip to Blunt where it is that Maclean and Burgess are really going. Blunt feels entirely horrible about this, and buys Burgess a really warm coat and more hugs and wow, that went from hilarious to sad really quickly. On the plus side, due to staffing cutbacks, Burgess manages to elude British intelligence and makes it back to America to pick up Maclean. They have time for one last horribly awkward family dinner and pushing each other on the swingset that Maclean built for his son, and then escape on a boat to Moscow, catching their last ever glimpse of England from the deck.
Philby and Blunt are both above suspicion, despite Philby’s ominous score and the tobacco smoke swirling around him. Blunt closes out at Cambridge, running into an old professor who asks him whatever happened to his old mates. Blunt says, “they all went on to do great things,” and walks off to the same chorus of “Jerusalem” that opens the series.
And they all lived happily ever after. Seriously! Well, except Burgess, who drank himself to death about ten years later, because history is a cruel, cruel storyteller. Philby and Blunt weren’t so much caught as eventually confessed in what I can only imagine were some of the most hilarious Just Between You and Me speeches of all time.
Final verdict: Actually better than I remembered and you should all watch it. Now it's back to watching Babylon 5 and perhaps blogging about some things that aren't TV for a change.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-12-31 06:16 pm (UTC)WHITE PICKET FENCES
no subject
Date: 2011-12-31 06:17 pm (UTC)like, GUYS, CAN'T YOU TELL, HE'S FUCKING WITH YOU BECAUSE HE'S A DRUNK ENGLISH COMMUNIST
DUH
no subject
Date: 2011-12-31 06:24 pm (UTC)I genuinely hope that the writer of this show is not embellishing this incident in any way.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-31 06:39 pm (UTC)