User Reviews

Spooks continues with its cynical take of the Blair era Labour government. Especially as this episode was shown as Tony Blair entered the final 12 months of his premiership.

There is a summit with a proposed trade deal with Africa. The African nations are all for it. The Americans are less so. They plan to torpedo the deal but make sure they are not seen the bad guys.

The British foreign secretary wants the deal signed. Harry Pearce sets up surveillance to monitor just what the Americans are planning and how they can leverage them to agree with the proposals.

MI5 find out that the Americans are making unsanctioned weapons deals with China's neighbours. They are using the Japanese to facilitate this. They also have requested that Japan walk out on the trade deal and disrupt the summit.

This is a layered episode with unscrupulous behaviour from all sides including the British foreign secretary.

The contemptuous attitude flows throughout as Adam has to deal with a potential assassin who has the dirt against one African leader.

This episode is by far the worst episode ever in this series. The writing is terrible, the plot line is preposterous, and it couldn't be more boring. This show has really gone downhill since the departure of Matthew Macfadyen and Keely Hawes. In this absurd episode the British Spy agency gets involved in trying to expedite agreement on a trade treaty which will lift poor African nations from the horrors of poverty and illness. The "big, bad self-serving" Americans stand in the way of this agreement--and it's obviously because the U.S. wants to profit from arms sales to friendly countries which border its enemies, i.e. China. Who comes up with this preposterous drivel? The script is horrible and the story impossible to follow. Let's hope that MI-5 has better things to do with its time and resources. A good example of Junk TV written for a moron audience that will watch anything as long as there is slick editing, fancy camera antics and lots of sound effects. BTW, early in the episode an MI-5 staffer talks about the American Trade Secretary coming to the meeting, and thereafter he is referred to as "Secretary of State".

Currently re-watching Spooks, I found this to be the most boring episode of the entire series.

It was slow, plodding, and lacking in tensoon. The problem was that there were no stakes for the characters. It seemed ridiculous that our collection of heroes who normally deal in counter terrorism etc, would mount a full scale operation to secure a trade agreement. It cam off a tad ridiculous, and I just didn't care what happened.

Quite a let down from what has started off as a very good season.

I must use .or characters in order to save this review, and... ...I've started so I'll finish. I also think the Ruth/Harry plot line is rather infantile.