Series 5 Episode 2 (Spooks)

Infobox Spooks episode
episode_name = Series 5, Episode 2
writer = Ben Richards
director = Omar Madha
script_supervisor = Kirstie Edgar
producer =
executive_producer = Jane Featherstone
series = Five
episode = Two
length = approximately 58 mins
UK date = 18/9/06
US date =
preceding = Series 5, Episode 1
following = Series 5, Episode 3
imdb_id = 0865254

Continuing from Series 5 Episode 1 of the BBC series Spooks, Zaf gains access to an Air Traffic Control centre, where the team know that several of Myers' men are planning to crash two planes over London, causing mass civilian casualties and pushing the public to ask for special measures, thereby putting Myers in control of a puppet government.

Zaf fights with Robert Jensen, one of Myers' henchmen, before he is captured by security staff. Myers is told to kill him, upon which he dismisses the security and attacks Zaf again. Zaf knocks him behind a desk, but security staff burst in. Zaf convinces them to declare a 'Code 7', and move Air Traffic Control to another region. They discover the diversion, and with seconds to spare divert both flights, avoiding the mid-air collision.

Meanwhile, Juliet is recovering in hospital, with the likelihood she will never walk again, and Harry has been apprehended under a 'temporary detention order,' which allows Myers to put anyone he wishes in a detention centre run by the army.

In Whitehall, the Home Secretary recently recovered from his assassination attempt tries to see the PM but is stopped by Alan Taylor MP, the Cabinet Office Minister a fellow conspirator. The Home Secretary is forced to leave defeated.

One of Ruth's contacts at GCHQ passes an intercept to MI5, detailing how a journalist on one of Millington's papers has discovered a CD with the plane crash headline of his paper, and left it in a locker at a sports centre. Adam rushes there, only to be beaten to the locker by two of Myers' men. However, when the locker is opened, it is empty.

A meeting is being held between those colluding in the coup, in which Collingwood explains that the police have been briefed that the march is a cover for suicide bombers, and that they, the conspirators, will incite the march into a riot if necessary, to gain public support for the special measures. The team at the Grid use a photogenic operative to film footage of a protester being beaten, which is then transmitted on national television.

The protest march grows to unexpected proportions and police are deployed in massive numbers. The protest scenes intercut footage from actual recent London protests (including "Hands off Venezuela and Cuba" and "Don't Attack Iran" placards) with staged footage. Rowan, the prime minister's son, makes a broadcast on national television asking for his father, the PM, not to sign the special measures bill.

Ros is confronted by Adam, and is convinced that her father played a part in this coup. She talks to her father, convincing him that Millington planned the plane crash. He calls the PM, telling him that there are provocateurs on the march who plan to force the police to open fire. He advises him that these special measures may not be the best way to keep the country under control.

However, the police open fire on the crowd, shooting one protester in the neck. At the detention centre, Zaf turns on the sprinklers, saving Harry in the nick of time (after Collingwood had planned a "Valhalla" by letting the detention centre burn). Harry allows Collingwood to keep his belt, which he uses to commit suicide by asphyxiation.

Adam talks to Ros, offering her a position in the team. She accepts, convinced by Adam that her father won't become the 'fall guy'.

Millington is not prosecuted, as he is useful in the future for control of the press. Taylor, is sent to Northern Ireland, and Myers is to be prosecuted mercilessly, as asked for by Juliet Shaw who is now paralysed for life. He is served a 15 year jail sentence later in the series.

The final scenes are the funeral for Colin. The reading that Malcolm selects for Harry to read at Colin's memorial service is an excerpt from "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", from Walt Whitman's work Leaves of Grass, book XXII.

Interestingly, in many scenes, conspirator Alan Taylor is referred to as "Cabinet Secretary" - in real life a non-political, unelected official position aligned with the role of Head of the Home Civil Service. There is ambiguity over which office Taylor actually holds, however, in no circumstances would a civil servant, however senior, speak to a serving Home Secretary in the manner in which Taylor spoke to Blake, neither would he describe himself as "just a politician". It must therefore be assumed that Taylor is intended to hold the post of "Minister for the Cabinet Office" and to refer to him as Cabinet Secretary is an error.

Cast

* Harry Pearce - Peter Firth
* Adam Carter - Rupert Penry-Jones
* Ros Myers - Hermione Norris
* Ruth Evershed - Nicola Walker
* Zafar Younis - Raza Jaffrey
* Jo Portman - Miranda Raison
* Malcolm Wynn-Jones - Hugh Simon
* Juliet Shaw - Anna Chancellor
* Jenny - Gugu Mbatha-Raw
* Wes Carter - James Dicker
* Nicholas Blake MP, Home Secretary - Robert Glenister
* Michael Collingwood - Nicholas Jones
* Sir Jocelyn Myers - John Castle
* Paul Millington - Roger Allam
* Alan Taylor MP, Cabinet Office Minister - John Elmes
* Steve Jensen - Steve Nicholson
* Ruby MacKenzie - Shaheen Khan
* Rowan - Simon Woods

External links

* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/spooks/series5_ep2.shtml BBC Site episode guide]