Berlin Station 3.7, first impressions [spoilers!] #richardarmitage

Continued from here. These posts will contain spoilers. PLEASE do not read them if you are not watching concurrently with the U.S. broadcast but still want a fresh look at them when the show becomes legally available in your region.

Reminder: SPOILERS. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

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This has probably been the most suspenseful piece of season 3 so far — in that the episode has a clear center of tension with all the plot lines moving toward it and depending on each other. It was probably worth missing most of the fourth quarter of the AFC championship. It also revealed why the plotline around the Adeyemis is there. Nina reappeared. Nothing on Diver, though, or Valerie’s college friend. We get yet more backstory on Hector, which may or may not be meaningful. Lots of Article V and lots of weirdness at Vasily Krik’s dacha.

Meaningful for me: We were right about the content of the midweek tease being a spoiler (surprise, surprise). Though: I was thinking all week, please don’t let them show whatever horrible things they’re doing to Daniel. I suppose it could have been worse. But it again underlines for me how much better the writing worked in Spooks. It left plenty to our imagination that this show wants to shove in our faces. And right now I’m too tired for this kind of revelation. I know, personal problem, suck it up, Servetus. On the other hand if we hadn’t seen him in this episode I might have given up. I’m just not interested in the rest of the plot at all any more.

The episode title is Macbeth’s line in Act 4, Scene One, when he realizes he’s going to have to get rid of Malcolm but that he doesn’t want to admit to himself what he’ll have to do, even as he’s sure he will do it. (Here‘s a link to No Fear Shakespeare if you would like further [cough] illumination.) I’m not sure who this applies to. BB does a nasty thing but she stares it in the face. Robert seems to miss two glaring in your face plot points. Torres and Hector aren’t exactly reluctant. So who knows.

***

The episode opens with the midweek teaser, i.e., a guy running through the woods in a protective suit of some kind. This time we see more — he’s being chased by men in military gear with flamethrowers. He evades them for a while, then trips and they fire the flamethrowers. There is screaming.

This is the guy who unleashes the flame.

At this point I was thinking, there’s no way this show would put us out of our misery this easily by letting us see his face or something.

Time for titles.

So yeah, we knew we’d see him one way or the other.

After the titles, Robert physically bumps into Nina at their shared entrance and she invites him for dinner, in her apartment, that night. She’s very insistent. Very uncool, Nina! So if there was any doubt that she was a spy, our minds are put at rest. Robert volunteers to bring dinner: dim sum.

And then it’s back to the Krik dacha — Hector, Torres / di Santo and Platov arrive just as the boys who play with fire get back from their nasty game.

Mr. Ominous Headgear turns out to be Krik himself.

They have a not very enthusiastic meet-and-greet with Krik, before being invited into the house.

And though he’d been screaming before, Mr Protective Gear is still alive. So, okay, it was Daniel.

In Berlin, Robert and Cowboy Kolya meet in the Tiergarten and Kolya agrees to exchange Daniel for Basarov at midnight at the Pankow-Heinersdorf railyard, which isn’t really an obscure place, but okay. Kolya realizes that Robert was in Tallinn with Daniel.

And now we pick up the Article V plotline again, in Côte d’Azur.

which totally lives up to its name.

Valerie and April are there doing some spying before the intelligence meeting (remember from last week that it’s called “fourteen eyes,” but I don’t get why it isn’t called “twenty-eight eyes,” although maybe I’m too picky). Valerie talks to Robert in Berlin: Valerie points out that the trade occurring on the eve of the Article V vote robs them of their evidence, and they need to hang on to Basarov, but Robert says that absent a NATO agreement to invoke Article V, the Russians would kill Daniel. However, Robert is confident Torres will get independent confirmation of Krik’s involvement via his bank account. Valerie agrees that as soon as they have that, an exchange can occur.

Back at the dacha, Torres inspects a weird historicizing painting of Krik and his wife.

In St Petersburg, Torres has gotten a text from Valerie and he tells Hector they need the evidence by dawn. Hector doesn’t care; he’s there to find Daniel. From a window, Hector recognizes Krik’s first wife (her name will be Irina). Torres says “you know her well” and Hector says “how do you think she got the Tiger?” And then I hear a tiger growling — so I guess they have a tiger — did I miss seeing it before? I’ll just take it for granted rather than rewinding.

Next, we switch to Esther Krug.

Look, she’s in France, too!

Her man in St Petersburg tells her that there’s no sign of Daniel there. But there is a big cargo shipment on the rail line to Kaliningrad (interesting that a German agent doesn’t call it Königsberg ). A fun fact about this city is that it’s been Russian since 1945, and is completely surrounded by Poland and Lithuania, i.e., nowadays NATO members).

A map in case you’re fuzzy on the geography

Esther wants information on the shipment, and the guy agrees, but says after this we’re even. Dude, don’t you know not to say things like that? Practically a death sentence.

Esther arrives at her destination, where Valerie and BB and Leo (Stanley Weber) await her, so that they can remind us how SIGINT seniors Europe votes!

Look, they have one of those kindergarten map puzzles.

The general mood is that a lot of the votes will probably go against them as Russia has too many sympathizers already. April arrives to tell him that Russia isn’t the worry — the diplomats she was following are at a hotel paid for by a Chinese telecom company. Esther asks, not unreasonably, what China would get from a war in the Baltics. Valerie says they have to neutralize China or they’ll be eaten by Russia, but of course she uses metaphoric language for this because you know, that’s spy talk, all colorful blowhard stereotypes!

Back at the dacha, Torres is creeping through the house — we see the tiger briefly. These oligarchs are so zany! He glimpses Krik opening his safe with a thumbprint before the little girl from last time catches him spying. He tries to charm her — she’s playing a video game and she explains “papa won’t let me hunt anyone until I get older.” Okay. Even Torres is a bit taken aback. Papa is also teaching her how to earn, protect and spend money. Torres shows her a coin trick, which interests her, in exchange for her video game. This is one of the more implausible plot moments of the century — what digitized kid EVER gives up her phone voluntarily?

Brief cut to Esther’s spy, watching the train transport, before he’s apprehend by some Russian types with guns.

Back in Berlin, Robert’s buying coffee in a bakery (as you do in Berlin) before heading to work.

He’s conducting some really intense interrogation with a paper cup of black coffee. He gave the caramel latte to the guard.

He reiterates that they’ll help Basarov in exchange for information on who hired him to kill Sofia Vesik (this is a lie, if what he’s said to Valerie is true), including giving him a cozy retirement in the UK (om, that’s sarcastic, right? Skripal, Skripal). It’s a fairly long scene, but the gist is that Russians are unforgiving and by letting himself be captured, Basarov has sealed his fate already — and Daniel Miller is a dead man already, too.

Now a bunch of cuts back and forth between the ladies (Valerie, BB, April) in France, and the men (Hector, Torres) in Russia. Gender stereotyping the plot much?

France:  BB has tracked down the Chinese presence.

Anna Leong Brophy as Lucy Ximen, #62 on the Forbes list of female Chinese billionaires.

So I guess this explains the title from last week about the “four policemen.” BB points out that her presence there was unsubtle and signals the hold of the Chinese on the “opposition bloc.” Apparently, Chinese money financed the Estonian tech sector, but / and China is supporting Russia because “bribery and corruption are a common language,” but that “if they could learn to speak the same language, China would be all ears.” Hmmm. I wonder if they ever listen to these scripts? PEOPLE DO NOT TALK THIS WAY. Points to you if you figured out that BB was playing games at this point — this was the first clue and I missed it.

Russia: Roman Platov is outside barbecuing something when Hector arrives to chat. Hector says he’s upset about the Germans sniffing around in St Petersburg, looking for a missing CIA officer, with the excuse that it might lead the CIA back to him, and he asks if Krik’s involved.

I don’t know how he knows about Esther’s guy, though. Any chance Hector’s playing both sides against the middle? Again?

Platov tells him that Krik only hunts when the prey is weaker than him, which Hector points out isn’t an answer.

France: we find out what the Chinese wanted.

It turns out that the sciency sound thing was bought out from under a Chinese corporation.

And we see April’s picture of BB start to takes some hits — April points out it’s a weapon and they can’t give it to the Chinese. BB says they probably won’t have the other evidence in time to swing the NATO vote. This was the point at which I thought something was fishy.

Nothing against this — but I want to see Daniel like this.

Russia: Torres and Krik are in the sauna together — and Krik reveals that he doesn’t trust “Blake” (Hector), so Torres agrees to cut him out as middleman. Krik approves.

And then Yates is all “Yes, Mr. Secretary” on the phone, and “I’ll get it done,” and “it’s the only course of action.” Uh-huh. Second clue.

France: Yates and April head to the meeting on a powerboat. There isn’t time to wait for Valerie. Third clue. This is about half-time of the episode.

Russia: Krik and Torres are doing a lot of shots. Torres pushes Krik to transfer money, but Krik resists, so Torres does another shot and throws up (I admit I was relieved as it looked like he was well on his way to a bad case of alcohol poisoning). When Krik goes to call for a cleaner, Torres steals Krik’s shot glass.

Interruption from Berlin, where Robert is arriving at Nina’s with the xiaolongbao and some wine from “his friend’s” winery. It turns out that Nina is really starving for dumplings. This has to be the most awkward encounter ever and I really thought it was clear that Robert knew the score. She chides him for not complementing her appearance and he excuses himself with awaiting a message from work.

Pro tip: Robert, if you do that xiaolongbao all the juice drips out of it. Even a philistine like me knows you don’t stab the dumpling with the chopstick.

He asks her for aspirin, which she makes a show of looking for, while he gets up and looks at her bookshelf and her sunroom. She brings some wine glasses and the mood picks up.

Back to Russia  / France alternate shots.

Russia: Torres starts to stalk the halls. Hector is also in the hallway, observing Krik’s third wife dancing.

Because the dacha has its own proscenium.

Everything about the scene suggests that Hector has some history with the woman.

Between this look and the music, you could almost believe Hector had a soul. Although it’s not clear where the music is coming from.

Then, completely out of the blue, he says, “What do you want from me, Irina?” (Why would she want anything? Hector, you’re really not a divine gift to women by any means). Meanwhile, Torres does this wildly implausible thing where he puts shavings on the shot glass and picks them up with tape in order to re-create Krik’s fingerprint.

France: the “fourteen eyes” meeting is starting. Valerie walks in just in time and BB looks annoyed. 4th clue.

Russia: Torres uses his tape thingie to get into the safe, where he finds a lot of papers. He takes something out of his shoe (battery, maybe) and puts it in the little girl’s phone, and takes a bunch of pictures.

Talk about bad timing.

In Berlin, Nina’s got Robert laid out on on the couch, when he gets a message on his phone that Torres has sent the documents. He has to interrupt, and she doesn’t seem all that angry — she tells him to get out and leave the dumplings, and she’s grinning. Well, we know she has a purpose of some kind. It wasn’t obvious to me at the first watch, but I realized what must have happened as the plot unfolded — whatever bug is in her flat intercepted the message about / from Torres to Robert.

Russia: Irina is petting Hector. He says “I don’t shit where I eat” (explanation, for non-English speakers) and then they go into some back story which I will put down here in case it’s relevant. It usually is when they do one of these periodic info dumps while speaking as quickly as possible. “That’s not what you said in Sochi,” she tells him — but he points out that he could have gotten killed. She wants help getting access to some money they both have a claim on, and she points out that he helped Sasha get rid of “her” husband. (Confusing because in Russia, “Sasha” is a boy’s nickname, not a girl’s.) He says, “but Ilya Antonovich is not Vassily Krik.” Hector thinks it’s too dangerous. Irina notes that Vassily isn’t what he appears to be either; she claims to know all his secrets.

But neither of them notice that Rodion (the cute, bearded paramilitary from episode 1, and last week) is eavesdropping on their conversation. She confirms that she knows about Daniel but won’t say where he is. He offers to sell some of the artwork he has and skim a little off the top. Then Rodion makes his presence known.

Now that Robert’s got independent confirmation, he’s got permission to change his stance toward Basarov, so that’s where we find him next — back at interrogations. This is a gross (in the American sense) scene.

He’s apparently somehow kept this on his person. Or something.

Basarov describes his formation in perestroika-era Moscow, his hazing in the Russian Army, and rising through the ranks and the feeling of power it gave him to be a sniper. And yeah, while he’s talking to Robert he slices through his pants into an artery in his groin. Basarov taunts Robert for being a pawn in his game — and then bleeds out as Robert becomes increasingly distraught. Gruesomely. Basarov’s last words: “Do you regret leaving him behind?”

Definitely worth it to hear Stanley Weber say “France is in favor.” He also swears in French in this scene which is seriously sexy, too.

France: The fourteen eyes” are voting. They’ve heard the evidence including what Torres had to add and they all vote in favor — suggesting that BB somehow did get China in line, so she did agree to give the Adeyemis and the science thingie to them — except, it should be no surprise unless we didn’t see this coming ten minutes ago: BB votes against.

Worth it for the look on Valerie’s face.

To be honest, BB’s explanation doesn’t make any sense to me (given the only previous activation of Article V did not involve state actors, either), but she says that all they have is “rumors of a sanction-breaking oligarch arming rebels. This does not satisfy the criteria of Article V.” She also implies that the trouble was started by the Estonians. So it’s not a really convincing scene in terms of content — but one thing that’s plausible about it is that as soon as the US withdraws, the rest of the Europeans start to squabble. Stanley Weber states that Estonia is on their own and everyone leaves in a huff. BB and Valerie are left in the room.

In Berlin, Robert is looking at tapes of his conversation with Basarov, including the time stamp, and says, “Nina.” Yeah, Robert. There was a reason you were there. But don’t kid me, you can’t have honestly thought she wasn’t a spy or thought her apartment wasn’t bugged. Didn’t you look for those things specifically? If you weren’t suspicious, why did you send her off on a fake errands and look around? Or did you decide you didn’t care?

Russia: Krik bursts into the theater, sends Irina upstairs, accuses Hector of breaking his trust, and prepares to shoot him. Hector argues that Krik needs him to move his fortune, but Krik states that the introduction to di Santo (Torres) will take care of that. Torres then bursts in to try to lighten things up, but Krik notes that de Santo had already cut Hector out of his deal, and knows too much. So Torres proposes that Hector “deserves a sporting chance.” And Krik says, “and fetch the блять, to celebrate our good news by putting it out of its misery.”

Here, I was confused, because I thought блять meant “whore” and so we were going to see Irina again soon. As we’ll see in a second, there’s apparently another meaning.

The two women in the room duke it out. Not quite.

Valerie is angry and BB justifies her position by saying that if the vote had failed at NATO, it would have revealed the weakness of the alliance, and if NATO falls (slippery slope), Russia’s back on Germany’s doorstep. (Weird, because you’d think some of the other “14 eyes” nations would have mentioned this — and unrealistic, because I don’t think Denmark’s entire foreign policy is being steered by China, sorry, gifts of pandas notwithstanding.) BB states that she was sent because no one else would touch “this quagmire,” and that Jason Welsh expected her to drown in it, but she doesn’t intend to. Valerie’s response implies, yeah, we know you’re a careerist.

April is admiring the sunset over the beach when she gets a call from Dove Adeyemi. He and his father are in immigration detention. Everything in the lab has been seized, and they’ve been accused of plotting a terrorist attack. Dove reports that they will be put on a flight to Lagos tomorrow, and April promises to come back and fix it. This is turning into a surprisingly interesting plot line and I really wish they’d give more time to April’s inner life.

The episode begins to wind up. At the railyard, Robert meets Kolya and proffers Basarov’s corpse. Kolya denies arranging for Basarov to have the razor and knowing who Nina is (although he arranged for the bugging in that weird scene in 3.4). In exchange, Kolya gives them the body of Esther’s agent. And Robert starts to decompensate — Kolya isn’t giving back Daniel and informs Robert that NATO cancelled its emergency meeting. He says: “Only one assurance in this unpredictable world: chaos.” I thought Robert was way too emotional in this scene.

The episode closes back at the dacha. The guys are putting on their “hunting” equipment. Torres gives Hector instructions — run to the green dacha. Except there’s someone else there, presumably the блять? Anyway, it’s Daniel, although we can barely see him.

Another important plot point that we can’t see.

They stand up and get ready to run, and take off.

And the Russians give chase. Blech.

~ by Servetus on January 21, 2019.