A Spy Among Friends
I cannot really explain why I like the John Le Carre type of content so much. If I let myself indulge in armchair psychology, maybe what appeals to me is the heightened awareness of the facade of ourselves that spies must have. These fictional I have no idea how real spies function or if there is any resemblance between fictional and real. spies are forced to distrust every aspect of their interactions and relationships, have to build intricate webs of lies and dole out information and withhold information at crucial times. There’s always this cat and mouse game, who is hunting whom. Moles have to be discovered and turned. This all makes for great fiction. There’s also the witty dialog, the posh manners, the higher moral calling, the self doubt. John Le Carre was a master chef of all this spy brew, mixing it all together into an elegant story. I consumed all of it and haven’t found a worthy successor of him yet. Well, I’m here to say, if we’re allowed to change the medium from novel to TV series, “A spy among friends” comes really close. Combine the terrific writing with fantastic performances, a strong female lead, patience to let the story unfold in six one-hour episodes and trust in the viewer to follow along and you have a very satisfying spy show. I have only one, slight complaint: does everybody in the show really have to smoke so much ?
The English
I’m very reluctantly linking to the trailer because it is misleading and pretty bad. It gives you the wrong idea of what this show is about. Yes, there is the bang bang western action and it is well done, expertly choreographed. But that’s just the beginning and there’s so much more and it is so much better. The human connection that Lady Cornelia and Eli form while navigating this dog eats dog world feels so real, their chemistry is so authentic. All the supporting roles are well cast and their characters have their own journeys that are well motivated. The landscape photography in the show could have been straight out of a Terrence Malick movie. And the whole story really opens your eyes to the human tragedy that was the colonization of the Americas by Europeans. We’re in denial about the cruelty with which the Native American population was eliminated, subdued and disposessed and this show opens the curtain, at least a little bit. The uncurable disease some of the characters suffer from can be a metaphor of the unerasable shame of the colonizers for their actions (which makes the final scene back in England with White Moon such a touching act of forgiveness).