Three episodes in, and It is definitely a hoot, as promised in the OP. As @Munch mentions, it is surprisingly very funny, but the humor totally works.
The plot shenanigans should really kick up a notch when she starts acting as the Russian sleeper agent she secretly is…
(That joke may have already been made, but I’m afraid to read the whole thread for fear of spoilers)
If you are right, season 2 will be a lot darker than season 1.
It would be a real pity if Ronnie died. They were adorable.
Finished! Fun ride, and now I get to read this whole spoiler-filled thread.
Yes, agree with What_Exit. The MP was killed because he knew of the kill order against Lenkov, or perhaps even had direct evidence that the Brit P.M. hired Lenkov to attack the carrier. The P.M. thinks that will cover his tracks, but is not yet aware that Ambassador Kate has figured this out as well.
One thing about the basic premise of the show I didn’t quite understand, but admittedly I don’t know a ton about the politics of interstate statecraft.
So, Keri Russel’s character is the Ambassador to Great Britain, and her husband is also an ambassador. They have both formerly served ambassador roles in hotspots like Afghanistan.
But, I thought ‘Ambassador to [Country]’ was largely a ceremonial role. IRL, newly elected presidents often award cushy ambassador positions to places like Britain or France to high-dollar campaign donors who have little or no political experience. And there was some of the ceremonial stuff. Keri’s character was often encouraged to dress the part better, to do image-enhancing photoshoots and do ‘meet and greets’ with minor functionaries. When the American Sec. of State landed in Great Britain and saw she was not there to meet him, he said “her only damn job is meeting me at the airport!”
But for the most part her character is performing very high-level negotiations with important people and appears to have a very high level security clearance. She’s able to call up the U.S. Dept. of Defense and get a list of potential Russian bombing targets to try to call the Brit P.M.'s bluff. A major plot point was that she was being considered for V.P. Her ambassador husband was also clearly a mover and shaker in govt. circles.
So, my question: are ambassadors really ever that deeply involved in high-level interstate politics, or was her character actually supposed to be something else, and ‘Ambassador’ was a cover? I may have missed something in the first episode.
So the in-story explanation is that the UK Ambassador is indeed usually a figure head post and reward. But she is a career state department person that has been the #2 in posts. The #2 is who really runs many of the Embassies apparently. She was suitable for running smaller posts where hands-on was important. That was the job she thought she was heading to.
She got the UK assignment as the President and his handler needed her in a high profile position to increase her feasibility for VP.
Before the Transatlantic Telegraph cable, Ambassador to England was a very important post that did negotiate directly. The importance lessen as communications improved. John Adams was considered an excellent Ambassador to both the London & Denmark though considered a failure in France.
This is her first time being an actual Ambassador. Her husband had previously been an Ambassador. The job that she thought she was getting would have been a non-Ambassador job in Afghanistan.
An Ambassador job in a place like Yemen or Afghanistan is a real job that goes to a career diplomat. To Belgium or the UK is typically a cushy ceremonial thing. Giving it to a career diplomat is a crazy anomaly and is the premise of the show.
Former Ambassadors get to retain the title in social situations which is why he is referred to that way.
Ah ok, thanks. this is pretty much what I figured from context, I just missed some exposition.
Still, it may increase one’s visibility, but it doesn’t seem like ‘UK Ambassador’ would be a good role to increase one’s credibility for the role of VP. But for the purposes of a TV show, I can buy it.
She’s not running for VP, just needs approval of both houses when the current VP steps down. So for Congress-people and Senators, the UK Ambassador is a big notch compared to career diplomat and #2 in various embassies.
They mention more than once, she wouldn’t be an asset in an election but this won’t be an election.
On the last episode, she made a big deal about Dennison’s work phone. Was that because she was afraid he could be spied on or located with it?
And yes, I also want Billie to be ok. And I want Stuart and Eidra to get back together!
Binged this over the weekend. It was good, but not great. For reasons I can’t really put my finger on, the whole thing seemed vaguely forced/artificial. I never forgot I was watching a TV show, in a way that really good dramas avoid.
A few questions about the plot:
-As others have mentioned, it’s not at all clear to me why it was such a Huge Big Deal that some British politician wanted to talk to Hal. I mean, that could certainly be the beginning of something scandalous, but… is it generally the case that anyone remotely associated with diplomacy who is not The Ambassador is just not allowed to talk to people at all? I can well believe that in fact something obviously improper was going on, but the show did a terrible job of explaining precisely what or why
-It also wasn’t super clear to me precisely what embassy-second-in-command-guy did that was so heinous that CIA-woman dumped him on the spot
And one big, seeming plot hole. So they have tracked down that the attack was carried out by the Lenkov group. They initially believe this to be on orders from someone in Russia. They decide to retaliate by attacking Lenkov group mercenaries doing Bad Things in Libya. Fair enough.
Then they get intel from the Russian ambassador (in a fun but generally needless scene… couldn’t he have just handed her a piece of paper with all the info about where Lenkov would be, rather than handing her a piece of paper telling her where to walk so someone else could give her the info?) about where Lenkov himself will be. OK, fair enough.
And now they are going to go capture Lenkov himself. Cool.
But… they are also then going to call off the operation in Libya? Why? The Lenkov group is still believed to be responsible for the attack. Just because they can cut off the head why are they suddenly not also still killing the body? Does that make sense to anyone?
Overall, I’d give the show something like a C+. But I’ll watch season 2 if there is one.
I thoroughly enjoyed this season and am looking forward to the second.
Did anyone else catch that the actor playing the PM also played the PM in the first episode of Black Mirror?
Never mind, I misunderstood who you were talking about.
The Lenkov group’s operations in Libya are officially (internally) sanctioned by Russia, but the operation against the British warship was not. They wanted to retaliate against the nation responsible, but it turned out Russia was not the ones responsible…so they gave up Lenkov the person instead of the group.
Was that spelled out in the show? Or is that just your speculation? Because “attack evil mercenaries who literally just killed our boys and are also international baddies” seems like a win/win/win.
Hal is a loose cannon, and manipulates situations to suit himself. Kate doesn’t trust him, and wants to keep him on a short leash. He promised her he would do what she wanted, but he can’t seem to help sticking his nose in.
Stuart is thinking about going back America and didn’t even mention it to Eidra. He has been acting like he wants to make their relationship more serious, but didn’t consult her about a major decision that would affect them both. Thus, she thinks he is full of shit.
America doesn’t really want to get further involved in Libya, especially not against people who are fighting ISIS, and why antagonise Russia when Russia hasn’t done anything.
No Americans were killed.
Yes, it was, but as usual the dialog in this show is FAST and you may not catch it on first watch. The operation in Libya was a way to hit Russia back without DIRECTLY hitting Russia back because – to the world – Russia insists that the Lenkov group is just a mercenary group, but everyone in the intelligence and diplomatic community knows it’s a well-used arm of Kremlin actions, and its actions in Libya are part of a Russian campaign.
When the Russian ambassador (via the “back stairs” route) revealed the location of Lenkov the person, there was a lot of discussion about what that meant. It could just be Russia fucking with them, trying to throw them off, but the CIA station chief mentioned that so far, everyone and anyone they had inside the Kremlin had no knowledge of who ordered the Lenkov group to attack the warship, which lends a lot of legitimacy to the idea that the Russians really weren’t behind the attack and it was the Lenkov group acting independently as mercenaries.
This in turn cemented their idea to capture Lenkov and question him about who really ordered the attack. Which gave way to the PM insisting that British Special Forces (or MI:5? can’t recall exactly) make the arrest in France, which lead to the revelation that they don’t plan to arrest him, the PM plans to covertly (and without proper approvals, it seems) assassinate him…which leads to the cliffhanger ending…who would be the only person who would benefit from a dead Lenkov? The person who hired him.
I watched the first season a few weeks ago. My general review would be:
Good writing when it comes to people talking about what you do and don’t want in an elected office holder. Otherwise, it’s all a bit telegraphed melodrama, with a touch of Mary Sue. It’s acted and shot subtly enough to make it seem more serious than it is but, by the end of season 1, you’re already to the “Which of the two hot guys should she go to the ball with?” set piece of most teen girl’s novels.
I don’t regret watching it and could easily see a lot of people going for it but I don’t think I’ll stick around for season 2, personally.
Sure. But what’s unclear to me is why “was going to have a conversation with someone” was such a massive betrayal. It’s been a month or so now since I watched it, but as someone who was paying attention at the time but doesn’t know much about diplomacy, it definitely seemed like “oh my god Hal is going to have a conversation with someone!!!” was treated as if it was instantly and immediately on the same level as “oh my god Hal is going to take or offer bribes” or “oh my god Hal is going to try to run US foreign policy all by himself”. And it didn’t feel like it was just “we specifically don’t trust Hal, and he pinky-swore never to talk to anyone (did he?), so we’re made because he’s breaking his pinky-promise”, it felt like “Hal is considering doing what is obvious to everyone in the show is a massive terrible horrible awful thing”, without explaining precisely what was so massive/terrible/horrible/awful about it.
Sure, but plenty of Brits were killed. By the Lenkov group. Why would Britain back down from the Libya operation just because they also have the chance to capture Lenkov himself? The answer as presented in the show just seems to be “well, that was an OK plan, but now we can get Lenkov himself, and interrogate him to find out who actually ordered the attack… and that’s WAY better than our previous only-OK plan, so we will obviously with no discussion needed abandon that plan”. Like “should we go after Lenkov? Well, doing so would betray the Libyans”. As in, it’s just self-evidently obvious that they can only do one or the other but not both.
About the only reason I can think of to NOT do the Libya operation is to not-piss-off-the-Russians, or because there was some implied quid-pro-quo… “we’ll tell you where Lenkov is if you agree to call off the Libya operation”. But I don’t remember any such discussion. The whole story just instantly swapped from “Libya operation is a go” to “Kidnapping is a go”.
I think the Hal stuff is specific to Hal. Earlier on, the people in the UK are much more relaxed about Hal getting involved, even though Kate is against it. Once they realise how deceptive he can be, they take their cue from her.
It’s not just some random conversation. It was an obviously important conversation with a member of another country’s government.
The only person who really wants to bomb stuff is the British PM. The Americans (and his own staff) spent all day trying to talk him out of it. But the PM wants American support. He doesn’t want to act unilaterally. (This especially makes sense if he is ultimately behind the attack on the boat himself.)
America doesn’t want to support an attack in Libya that targets Russians and helps ISIS. Killing Russian assets (along with possible civilian casualties) and helping ISIS is not a great diplomatic move for the US. It is mentioned a few times in the show that the US bombing stuff in the Middle East doesn’t always go great, and is probably better avoided. They might get away with it if Russia had attacked their ally, but Russia is letting them know that they didn’t.
Russia went out of their way to offer top secret intelligence on Lenkov’s movements. Yes, there is a quid-pro-quo there, even if it is not spelled out.
This, and Hal has no official authority. He should not be getting involved alone. Remember, this was a guy who got himself “kidnapped” and wasted a lot of time, money and endangered people, not to mention pissed off his wife. As has been said: exhausting loose cannon.