Spooks series 8 (why… Sarah Caulfield?)

Lucas tells Sarah that she disgusts him. My gif from DVD

Several months ago, during a very serious fangirling crisis (I can say as an excuse that it was spring, and we say in Spain that “la primavera la sangre altera”) I made a very cheesy fanart of Mr. A. Nevertheless I still had a minimum of pride and shame that prevented me to publish it anywhere. In a second thought I wondered if maybe it was not as awful as I suspected, and I sent it by wasap to a couple of friends. My dear friend Tanja replied with a single word “why?”. I understood suddenly the message, it was indeed as awful as I suspected and it was better to make it disappear.

I have watched yesterday the last chapter of the eighth season of Spooks and I have thought also: “why?”, adding to the adverb a name: “why Sarah Caulfield?”.

You may have realised that I love proverbs; it is known that “squadra vincente non si tocca” (the winning team must remain unchanged). In my humble opinion, Lucas North and Elizabeta were a winning team. Richard Armitage and Paloma Baeza had chemistry in the screen, a lot. My heart shrank every time they met and felt sympathy with the cruel fate that separated Beta from Lucas who made the ultimate sacrifice; it was impossible for her sake and safety to be together. I have never seen a thumb caressing with such a tenderness a picture as Lucas did before tearing apart theirs.

Gif from Spooks Season 7. My edit

Summarising: Lucas and Beta were credible. As are were credible the best working pals ever: Lucas North and Ros Myers, another example of exploding chemistry in the screen. Maybe not the sexual type (although the bankers’ chapter was a clear hint that those two may have blown the screen); the lines and puns between Ros and Lucas were simply awesome as this sentence that tells Ros to Lucas on the phone about Sarah:

Ros Myers, saying out loud what I would have liked to do.

Unfortunately plans for season 8 were different and Elizabeta had to disappear for real, no second chances, re-thoughts or coming-backs. Someone thought, maybe after stuyding the fans reactions after season 7, that they could take advantage of Mr. A’s attractive as well as acting skills, conceding the viewer unwarranted exhibitions of his beautiful body, including also physical activity under the sheets not only to punch a pillow. Let’s be honest, I’m not an hypocrite and the fan-girl in me who makes cheesy fanarts has appreciated the view, but the scene in which he undresses before meeting his torturer is ridiculous as it lacks a subtle detail to make it reliable: he had to throw away his clothes if the Russian wanted to be sure that he was not wired.

Neverheless, the worst idea of the whole series 8 had a name and a surname: Sarah Caulfield. Why Sarah Caulfield? Lucas and Sarah together were, using Cole Porter’s lyrics “as cold as yesterday mashed potatoes” and my impression when they first kiss under Tower Bridge is that Lucas was seriously thinking about the idea of swimming in the Thames rather than sharing a hotel room with her. I don’t know which was the real problem behind that absolute lack of empathy and chemistry between Richard Armitage and Genevieve O’Reilly. Maybe she felt uncomfortable with her fake American accent (I’ve read that it was a complete disaster, something like someone speaking Spanish mixing catalonian and andalusian accent), maybe they two did not get along well… The fact is that Lucas and Sarah were not reliable as a couple, the only scenes together that worked are those in which Lucas clearly despises Sarah after knowing her treason.

It can be argued by an un-biased viewer that maybe RA is not such a very good actor as I claim he to be, if, after Sarah’s death, he is supposed to feel “distraught” (as Ruth tells Harry) and I just can see him “relieved”. I can only reply with the famous final line in “Some Like it Hot”, nobody’s perfect, and that includes Richard. In some moments, anyway, I’ve felt he had broken that barrier between him and Genevieve, as here, in which he gives her one of his famous iceberg melting love glances.

Nevertheless, albeit the above, the scenes together in which feelings different from disappointment or disgust had to be displayed were a total failure. Moreover, Sarah Caulfield’s character was a total failure, not reliable as lover but neither as a spy: cold, flat, irrelevant.

Another Spooks fanart

 

I cannot take my eyes out of the way he turns and takes his jacket. Indeed Mr. Armitage is a dancer.

Spooks season 7

(gifset of Lucas North) last scene in Chapter 8 – Season 7

My dear father always told me, when I was a teenager, that if I learned my lessons as I learned songs I would be the number one in school. Unfortunately I did not. I always have had a serious relational problem with my laziness, it always wins, or most of times. The anecdote about my father has come to my mind because if he could see the diligence with which I’m taking my RA studies he would make a joke about it. I would tell him that everything depends on how much do you like the object you’re studying and I will give him the example of my college studies: the mediocre student in economics who suddenly gets A+ and cum laudes in English and American literature. The reason was simple: I don’t like numbers but adore literature; the fact that I work in an office dealing mostly with numbers is one of the many jokes of life.

After the usual inward-looking intro, let’s write about the theme of the post: Spooks season 7. As usual my first comment will be a frivolous one: after my adored John Thornton, Lucas North is the second appropriately-dressed chaRActer. In the other series I have seen, seems that Richard, as in the famous 20 seconds Hobbit interview, asks constantly where his stylist is. I have seen him wearing absolutely horrible clothes (I’d like so much have a nice chat with the person who dressed him in “Moving On” or “The Vicar”) even if the part (John Stranding would have not been reliable at all dressed as Lucas) did not ask it.

As far as the series is concerned, is well written, the cast is awesome and the scripts work. I am not very fond of that camera effect imported from the USA series “Law & Order” in all their different versions, what I call “the trembling camera”. It makes me nervous and I’m always tempted to stand up and tie the tv screen. Regarding the character of Lucas North, it is almost impossible not to like him from his first appearence in screen. I am particularly fond of soul-tormented characters, and Lucas is. A man who loves so much as to renounce forever to his love for his love’s sake. The chemistry with Paloma Baeza, who plays Elizabeta, breaks the screen; the way he smiles, holds her neck and kisses her would turn the Milo’s Venus from marble to flesh.

But Lucas is not only made of renounce and suffering, but of witty sharp humour, as we can see in his lines with Ros. And adores William Blake, is kind with old ladies and salutes the russian colleague with the same majestic comradeship with which (I guess) Wellington saluted Napoleon after Waterloo. Wait a moment… I’m imagining now Richard playing prince Andew Bolkonskij of War and Peace. This post is interrupted until further notice, I must find my smelling-salts.

All I need in winter is a hot mug of tea and a John Standring

My favourite mug

As I was realising that I was risking a Lucas North overdose I decided this week to change subject of study in my PhD on RA and mix Lucas with one of the “Johns”. I don’t think that I will be very original with my post, as I assume that this character have been talked, debated and analised so much that what you will read in these lines can’t be considered a novelty (exception made of the autobiographical note at the end of the post on the story of my favourite mug).

Which would be the result of mixing a Lucas North with a John Standring? Maybe a Richard Armitage? I don’t know but, what I am sure is that John S. is another candidate for the podium of preferred chaRActers. I guess that this podium, when I finish my studies in the object of our admiRAtion, will be quite crowded if I go on like this. But… is it possible to resist to John Stranding? No way.

RA TV works watching list

John is completely different to any of Richard’s tv characters that I have seen so far (check the enclosed list); he is the common hero, the good everyday man, the quiet man. He can be considered an ordinary chap, the meek gutless guy, but he is the rough diamond of the story and the bravest of them all. In the triangle formed with Carol and Andrew, he is the only one that doesn’t move elsewhere, but stays, solid like the hills, patient as the landscape. His first heroic gesture is not to leave Carol’s father alone, although he has been fired and has a work elsewhere. The way Richard performs this role is absolutely outstanding; I have used an expression to define his countenance in the scene in which Carol refuses his Christmas’ present: “majestically unmajestical”.

the “majestically unmajestical pose”

John can be shy or clumsy, but the main trait of his character is his dignity. Richard transmits this, even when his head is almost buried in his shoulders, when he is not capable even to raise his eyes to talk with Carol, when he blushes and stammers. Richard has been able to summarise John Standring’s character with a single gesture, that awkward and clumsy way of holding Carol’s hands. I wonder if that gripping came in a natural way during shooting or if it was deliberately studied before; I will add it to the list “million-things-to-ask-RA-if-I-had-him-for-myself-a-whole-afternoon”.

The character of John, during the three chapters, experiences a transformation that goes beyond a simple haircut; nevertheless, we see during the very first apparition of John an advance of how the “new John” will be. When he is bandaging Carol’s burned hand he has for a moment the same fierce expression he will have almost at the end of the series, when Andrew’s father calls asking where his son is. His sixth sense alerts him that Andrew Lawton is a menace for Carol and the sight of her blistered hand awakes his instinct to protect her.

John Standring’s face when the Lawton’s alarm is on

Therefore, the thing to do if I want to warm my heart in cold winter nights is to switch my laptop on, fill my favourite mug with hot tea (Earl Grey, without sugar nor cream), put my flowerly blanket on my knees and sigh watching John Standring.

Ingredients necessary to warm your heart in a cold winter afternoon

 

The mug

The other protagonist of this post is my favourite mug. I bought it in London, in a tiny gift shop inside Covent Garden. It was 1998, the year Richard was graduating from LAMDA. I took this picture that afternoon, it was on Saturday and, as you may see, those were the days before low-cost flights. When I returned there last May there was such a crowd in Covent Garden that, seen from St. Paul’s Church portico, it seemed an ant hill.

Covent Garden – London – 1998

Sixteen years have passed since I took these pictures and, as usually happens when reflecting about my life (I forgot to add the tag “me, myself & I” to this post, I will do it right now), I often wonder if I have lived it well. Few things have changed in it since I was with my very best friend taking a drink in the Embankment; I work in the same place, I have married the man I started to date precisely two days before that trip, I’ve lost a father, I’ve moved twice. Definitively a more ordinary life than that of the young man that graduated from Arts School that year and who maybe was drinking a beer a glass of wine in Covent Garden while I was buying a mug.

Me in 1998. Note: I was 28 and this pic is photoshopped, any similarities with my actual me are merely accidental,

John and Lucas

Me: John, I have to tell you something

John: But we are late, my dear. The Slicktons receive today and he made me promise to call. Pray, tell me.

Me: John, there’s another man.

John: What???

Me: I have here his portrait, look. His name is Lucas.

John: What are these signs in his skin? Is he a sailor?

Me: No, he’s not. Those “signs” as you call them were made when he was kept prisioner. In Russia.

John: The Tsar would never detain against his will any subject of His Majesty.

Me: It was not the Tsar… Well, at least not the one you know.

John: Who cares about the Tsar anyway. Are you telling me that you prefer a sailor, a convict or whatever he is to the most prosperous manufacturer in Milton? You have always been rather eccentric, madam, but… Six months. Only six months have passed since we made our acquaintance… THIS is something I will not tolerate!

Me: But I’m not abandoning you for him. I mean, I always thought that you would be my favourite one, I can’t explain it to you, but…

John: But what?

Me: He is as special as you are. I know you won’t believe me but you… and he… are the same person.

John: Indeed, according to this weird moving portrait…

Me: a gif… it ‘s called a gif

John: Yes, I must confess that there is a certain similarity.

Me: And I promise you, nothing will change between us. Trust me.

John: Well, you would not expect me to remain indifferent to this most extraordinary piece of news.

Me: Believe me, I was surprised also. And I have seen just two chapters…

John: Enough! Save me the details. If you say that nothing will change between you and me…

Me: Promised. So… what was Slickton so anxious about?

John: He wants me to invest an absurd quantity of money in a new project, something about mixing chemicals with fabrics… “Synthetic fibers”, he calls them.

Me: You should accept that proposal.

John: Why?

Me: I can’t explain you that either. Just say yes.