Spooks: Difference between revisions
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''Spooks'' is a series by [[The BBC]] revolving around the work of Section D of MI-5, the UK's Security Service. The show was renamed ''MI-5'' in the USA due to racial connotations and possible confusion over the term "Spooks". The show is notable for its use of [[Split Screen]] as well as [[Not Quite Dead]]. It also does not have any credits at the beginning or end, to maintain a
It provoked some controversy over an episode where a woman was killed by having her head shoved into a deep fat fryer (the victim, played by Lisa Faulkner, was being set up as a major character, and this was in the show's second episode) and also for one featuring suicide bombers.
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{{tropelist}}
* [[And the Adventure Continues...]]: The show ends on a particularly bittersweet version of this.
* [[Anyone Can Die]], [[Killed Off for Real]]:
** A quick rundown of the dead: {{spoiler|Helen, Danny, Fiona, Colin, Zafar, Ben, Connie, Adam, Jo, Ros, Lucas, Tariq and Ruth
** It's
*** Of course, the previous season cliffhangers which put Harry in life-threatening danger had other characters in even more danger - as in, one character appeared to [[Driven to Suicide|drown himself in the ocean]], and another was left bleeding out on the street
* [[Back for the Finale]]: Tom Quinn makes a cameo appearance in the final episode of Series 10, hired by Harry as an outside contractor.
* [[Badass]]: Quite a few of the team, but Ros takes the cake.
* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: It's fair that almost every episode will/has end like this or at least have a touch of it as no matter what victory is achieved by the team there some price to pay.
* [[Blonde Republican Sex Kitten]]: Christine Dale.
* [[Bottle Episode]]:
* [[Break the Cutie]]: Oh, Jo. Poor, ''poor'' Jo.
* [[Broken Ace]]: Tom Quinn. As described by Harry, "one of the best and the brightest." Relied upon by everyone. The team leader. Until, of course
** Adam Carter, his replacement, went almost as spectacularly off the deep end after
** And finally, {{spoiler|Harry himself in the finale
* [[Bulletproof Human Shield]]: Subverted/shown correctly when Jo Portman manages to restrain a terrorist who is trying to blow himself and everyone else up. The only way to avert the explosion is for Ros to shoot the man, however (as both Jo and Ros
* [[Call Back]]: The following conversation, from the
{{quote|'''Lucas''': How'd Tom Quinn work out?
'''Harry''': Took early retirement.
* [[Clumsy Copyright Censorship]]: One episode was temporarily pulled because visible Apple logos on the back of the computers had to be digitally airbrushed out, advertising not being allowed on [[The BBC]].
* [[Combat Pragmatist]]:
** Ros also kills a Russian dude ''with a fork'' and threatens another one with a pen to the eyeball. In the same episode. [[Lady of War|Without significantly messing up her hair.]]
* [[Compromising Memoirs]]: The Rose Bed Memoirs.
* [[Crapsack World]]
* [[Cruel and Unusual Death]]: Several.
* [[Defrosting Ice Queen]]: Ros, to an extent in
* [[Did Not Do the Research]]:
** A common example is to use terminology that was accurate at one point but is now outdated, perhaps due to issues with classified information. For example, the Alternative Seat of Government base under the Cotswolds is known as "TURNSTILE" in the series, that code name being one used some time in the past (and in any case the base has been decommissioned since 2004).
*** To be fair, the episode in which "TURNSTILE" is referenced (''I Spy Apocalypse'') aired in 2003, when the base was still active.
* [[Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?]] / [[Mugging the Monster]]: far too many politicians [[Realpolitik|try to use]] [[Badass Israeli|Mossad]] [[Too Dumb to Live|for their own ends]], usually via manipulation and
* [[Dirty Coward]]: How Adam describes a rival agent
* [[Driven to Suicide]]:
** {{spoiler|Subverted with}} Tom in the
* [[Dropped a Bridge on Him]]: Adam's death. One of the country's best spies has to drive a bomb-rigged car away from any danger. [[Idiot Ball|He first puts his
** Also, to be fair, his goal was preventing civilian casualties; only after the car was stationary in middle of an empty square could he look to saving his own life. He didn't know exactly how long he had left, of if the trigger would be delayed for some reason. Had he jumped out of the side while it was moving, the car might have gone careering into the side of a building and caused civilian casualties.
* [[Dying Moment of Awesome]]:
** {{spoiler|Connie. Motherfucking. JAMES. "I'm not scared of bombs."}}
* [[Eagle Land]]:
* [[Evil Plan]]: Frequently, but Angela Wells's
* [[Face Heel Turn]]: {{spoiler|Juliet Shaw in
** {{spoiler|Lucas in
* [[Faking the Dead]]:
* [[False-Flag Operation]]: Several. {{spoiler|1=A group of Mossad agents take over an embassy while pretending to be Al Qaeda, and Harry's kidnappers in the first episode of
** In fact, the majority of the episodes of the fifth series involved these.
* [[Fictional Political Party]]: The British Way Party, a [[Fictional Counterpart]] to the
* [[Groin Attack]]: Ros takes the phrase "put the squeeze on him" VERY literally.
* [[The Hero Dies]]: At least two season finales. One of them twists it by having the character survive the end-of-season cliffhanger, carry on a few episodes into the new season, and ''then'' have nervous breakdown and leave the series.
* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]:
* [[Heroic BSOD]]:
* [[Hide Your Pregnancy]]: Done with three different actresses in three consecutive seasons:
** Olga Sosnovska (Fiona) in
** Nicola Walker (Ruth) in
** Hermione Norris (Ros) in
** In each case, the actress' pregnancy [[Real Life Writes the Plot|forced her into maternity leave]] before the end of the respective season - although only one ultimately chose to PERMANENTLY exit the show.
* [[High Heel Face Turn]]: Guess which one of the people in [http://littlespooksthings.tumblr.com/post/8652276316/yalta-is-delicious this] ([[Did Not Do the Research|incorrectly labeled]]) shot ends up joining the good guys. Go on, guess.
* [[Idiot Ball]]:
* [[Improbable Aiming Skills]]: Perhaps not literally, but the sniper in Series 9 Episode 5 must come pretty close.
* [[Interservice Rivalry]]: With [[MI 6]], who the more serious-minded [[MI 5]] officers view as dilettante [[James Bond]] wannabes.
* [[Kill the Cutie]]:
** What makes it even more awful is that
* [[Lady Drunk]]: Connie has elements of the type. Turns poignantly hilarious in her last episode when she demands a bottle of gin
* [[Lady of War]]: Ros. This [[Your Mileage May Vary|can]] manifest in [[Hidden Depths]] as when you're first introduced to her, she looks and acts [[Sophisticated As Hell|too refined and upper class]] to have any of the [[Badass]] fighting skills that the rest of [[MI 5]] are trained in. A couple of [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|beaten-up Mossad agents later]] and you're immediately dissuaded from that idea.
* [[Left Hanging]]: Series 7 ended with
* [[Location Doubling]]:
* [[Locked in a Freezer]]: Whole episodes have taken place in a locked-down grid, most notably "I Spy Apocalypse" and "Diana".
* [[The Lost Lenore]]:
* [[Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter|Mad Dictator's Beautiful Daughter]]: Ros's introduction more or less fits the trope, although her [[Heel Face Turn]] has less to do with falling for the hero (it takes her several episodes even to ''like'' any of her new colleagues) and more to do with realizing that her father and his cronies are selfish, murderous, and being bankrolled by the Russian mob, and she's far more badass in her own right than the category would tend to suggest.
* [[Make the Bear Angry Again]]:
* [[The Mole]] {{spoiler|Various [[Acceptable Targets|Americans and MI6 agents]] throughout the series, plus Connie in
* [[Moment Killer]]
* [[Moral Dissonance]]: Lampshaded by Danny when he has to assassinate a scientist planning to sell weaponized plague to terrorists, who references a line spoken by Tom in the very first episode that stated killing in the name of life is still wrong.
* [[More Expendable Than You]]: An interesting variant is
* [[Mr. Fanservice]]: Adam Carter and Lucas North.
* [[Murder.Com]]: In
* [[Never Mess with Granny]]: And never, ''ever'' {{spoiler|be alone in a locked room with Connie
* [[Our Hero Is Dead]]:
* [[Overt Rendezvous]]: In
* [[Power Walk]]
* [[Psycho Psychologist]]: Miranda from
* [[Put on a Bus]]: {{spoiler|Tessa, Tom, Zoe, Sam, Ruth (though she returned in the first episode of
** The only one this really applies to is {{spoiler|Sam}}, as at the end of
** At the start of
* [[Reasonable Authority Figure]]: Harry and the Home Secretary (most of the time).
* [[Redemption Equals Death]]: {{spoiler|Connie, who redeems herself with a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to stop London being destroyed
** However, this is then [[Averted]] at the end of
* [[Refuge in Audacity]]:
* [[Revolving Door Casting]]
* [[Running Gag]]: "KGB
* [[Sacrificial Lamb]]: Lisa.
** And Helen, of course.
* [[Sacrificial Lion]]:
* [[Shell-Shocked Veteran]]: Lucas North, who spent many years being tortured in Russia.
** Even though he'd been captured and tortured gruesomely by a number of rival intelligence agencies, Adam Carter was able to remain
* [[Shoe Phone]]. Subverted in "Nest of Angels". An Algerian agent listens politely when he's shown a number of disguised communication/bugging devices for his mission to infiltrate a radical Islamic group. The next scene shows him dumping this highly compromising equipment into a canal.
* [[Shout-Out]]:
* [[Spiritual Successor]]:
* [[Split Screen]]
* [[Spy Satellites]]
* [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute]]: Many. Generally, after a character leaves they get one of these.
* [[That Man Is Dead]]:
* [[There Are No Girls on the Internet]]: {{spoiler|Subverted in
* [[Training Accident]]
* [[The Troubles]]: Harry was active in Northern Ireland during these, and rogue IRA agents appear frequently in the early seasons.
* [[Unresolved Sexual Tension]]:
* {{spoiler|[[Villain Protagonist]]}}: Lucas.
* [[The War on Terror]]:
* [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Well Intentioned Extremists]]: In addition to several
* [[Western Terrorists]]: This trope is fully [[Justified Trope|justified]], as [[MI 5]] is (or at least, it ''was'' when the show started) concerned with domestic security akin to the American FBI, and not exclusively terrorism. The first series was written prior to 9/11 (although some cursory references were inserted after the fact) when Irish splinter groups, xenophobic race-baiting, and economic rioting were the prime sources of potential turmoil.
** And to be fair, some of these would be justified post-9/11 as well, given a quick glance at [[Real Life]].
* [[Will They or Won't They?]]:
* [[Would Hit a Girl]]: Jo, in particular, seems to get roughed up a ''lot''.
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