Well, some stuff finally happened this week in "6. The Art of War". To recap: Harry tells Rich he lost his flat gambling. Rich isn't too thrilled with the news, and ends up moving in with Suri. Near the end of the episode, Rich announces that he's moving in permanently with Suri.
Samuel decides to make it look like Harry's luck has returned. He abducts Rachel's daughter, Rachel being the woman who won the flat from Harry last episode. She stages a fake gambling showdown that Harry wins, getting Rich's flat back and convincing Harry his luck has returned before the bracelet burns out entirely.
Elsa goes to Samuel's superior, Owen. He defends Samuel, insisting Samuel is working undercover to become the head of the triad. Owen promises Samuel can't take him down even if Samuel thinks he can. Samuel is listening in on the entire conversation via a bug he had Dan plant in Elsa's purse.
After some guy we've never seen before--a police officer who's a few months away from retirement and apparently acts as Elsa's chauffeur--gets blown up starting Elsa's car, the team realizes Samuel planted the bomb. Harry takes Elsa to a safe house, but Samuel tracks her via the tracker. Apparently she doesn't check her purse very often, because the tracker is about the size of a deck of cards. Elsa knocks Samuel out and ties him up, but somehow he escapes. Harry takes Elsa to the houseboat he's been using, and they have sex. The only thing worse than watching Neve McIntosh look self-satisfied and smug after a round of sex is watching James Nesbitt look self-satisfied and smug after a round of sex.
They decide the best plan is to go public with the video they took of Samuel shooting at Suri and Steve last episode. Samuel steps out and surrenders, but it's a ploy to distract the officers from Eve, who has set up in a nearby tower and fires a sniper rifle at Elsa. Harry leaps in front of the bullet, which bounces off of the bracelet... and hits Suri in the chest. She dies in Harry's arms, and the bracelet goes solid black.
"The Art of War" is a fairly entertaining episode, mostly because writer Stephen Brady manages to capture some of the "fun" of the show. Brady previously wrote "The Zero Option" earlier in series 3, and he seems to have a thing for capturing the innate silliness of the show and the characters. I still like the banter between James Nesbitt and Stephen Hagan, and it helps ground Harry in a way they don't really accomplish by surrounding him with police officers.
There's an odd bit where Harry's daughter Daisy (Leilah De Meza) calls him. Presumably in response to his "I love you" message from last week. And it looks like she shows up in London next week, judging from the previews. We'll see if that pays off, since you can figure Rich will hold Harry and the bracelet responsible for Suri's death.
Whether Suri (Amara Karan) stays dead, we'll see. She certainly looks like a goner. I suppose they could bring her back if they really wanted: having a super-luck bracelet on hand to kick in sometime in the next four episodes could do it. Whether it will or not, and how believable it is, we'll see.
I keep liking Neve Mclntosh more and more, which I suppose is the idea. She started off as a rather unlikeable "Superior with a thing against the protagonist" and has slowly progressed. This episode we get a bit of her backstory about being a former undercover operative.
Darren Boyd, Amara Karen, and Rupert-Penry Jones are still good. Karan and Hagan have a nice chemistry with each other. Sierra Guillory... I'm still not getting much of a feel for Eve. She's gone from loyal Torch member and Harry supporter to a homicidal killer who seems to be at least as onboard with murder as Samuel is. There's still the odd reference to the rush she feels, so I'm not sure if she's (somehow) been surgically altered to turn against Harry, or what. Since presumably they'll deal with her by the end of series 3, it's hard to imagine Eve (and the creative team) having to deal with the repercussions of her actions.
I'm also getting a bit tired of Madame Cheung (Sarah Lam). She's gone from vague comic relief to a continuing ominous threat hanging over Harry's head. I've kind of lost track of whose side she's on. I suppose she isn't on anyone's side, which is probably the point. But this episode she's telling Harry to do his duty and bring Eve to her. She and Harry have a deal: he brings her Eve and Cheung removes the bracelet. But I wouldn't call that a "duty". "Duty" makes it sound like Harry's is obliged to the Torch in some manner. But they--through Eve--slapped the bracelet on him and he wants to get rid of it. So it's a bit high-handed of Cheung to demand Harry do his "duty". You stuck him with the bracelet, lady: you clean up the mess.
It looks like Samuel ends up in prison next week, going by the previews. So I don't know what his endgame is, either. There seem to be better ways to create a distraction than surrendering himself to the police. So presumably Samuel's surrender is part of some master plan. But to do what? The whole MI6 things seems to be a way to drag out the plot to ten episodes rather than something intrinsic to the story. Does making Samuel an undercover MI6 agent who is using his position to destroy Harry and get the bracelet add anything to the series? Yes, the position has given him some cover, but he could just as easily be working as the head of the anti-Torch from the start of it and it wouldn't require more than a couple of tweaks to the scripts.
Overall, I've liked Series 3. However, more for the character moments and the general concept. Less for the whole "Eve turns bad"/"Samuel is really bad"/"Harry loses his luck" storyline. Any two of those would be enough, but the creative team hasn't developed Eve enough to make her heel-turn convincing. And they can't seem to decide what Samuel can do (like with the injections to the gums) or why he's such a big threat. There still seem to be chunks of his backstory missing: how did the Triad adopt him? Why is Samuel so good at Triading? How'd he join MI6 and rise to such a high position? Until they explain it, he's more of a plot device than a character.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?
Written by Gislef on Aug 25, 2018
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