The Rook 1.5: The Home Secretary

The Home Secretary came into focus in The Rook 1.5 last night.  No figure head, she, but a crucial player, who's been having an affair with Conrad, and wants to be Prime Minister.  And she's well played by Gina McKee, whom I first noticed in The Borgias.

But the big news is Farrier, who's not only fired by the Home Secretary, but displays some powerful super powers of her own.  Unless I haven't been paying attention, this is the first time we've seen them.   As this series progresses, it's apparent that there are more EVAs than first met the eye.

I've said the show reminds me of Heroes.  It also has threads of Sense8.  The Gestalts, indeed, are closely related Sense8 clusters - born on the same day, in powerful telepathic connection, the only difference being the Sense8 cluster members are not physical twins.  But the cluster members come from all around the world, and the back story of Nazim brings home the global distribution of EVAs.

The resonances of The Rook with other series - in reviewing it in the past weeks, I've mentioned Heroes, Counterpart, and Sense8 - is actually its great strength.   Because although it bears resemblances to these and other shows, there's something about The Rook that's all its own.  Something in the pacing, or the characters, or both.  Take the Home Secretary, for instance.

She's having an affair with Conrad, and the rules say they either now must break it off or go public with it.   Jennifer (that's her name) breaks it off, because she thinks the Prime Minister is vulnerable and thus open to Jennifer becoming the PM.  So, I'm wondering - is she also an EVA of some sort, and if she becomes PM, wouldn't that be a provocative development?  (Hey, the current Prime Minister in our real world is ... well, let's not go there.)

See also:  The Rook 1.1: Dickian Pastiche ... The Rook 1.2: Live Details ... The Rook 1.3: Gestalts ... The Rook 1.4: The Bristol Stomp


They're coming out into the open, for the first time in centuries ....

Knightfall 1.7: Landry's Mother

Lots of good twists and surprises in Knightfall 1.7 - my favorite was meeting Landry's mother, played by Gina McKee, who made such a good appearance in The Borgias.   I hope she survives at least for a while in Knightfall - her character not only gives Landry crucial knowledge, but provides a balance and grounding in his life that he sorely needs.

Among the important pieces of advice she gives her son is not to trust the cripple - i.e., Gawain - so important in this hour (and beyond) that "And Certainly Not the Cripple" (among the people Landry shouldn't put his faith in) is the title of this episode.  Gawain, like all the Templars Landry both loves and has sharp differences with, is a complex and appealing character.  I hope he survives, too.  So far, these powerful brothers, with opinions both coinciding with and diverging from Landry's, haven't done too well.  First Godrey, then Tancrede, has fallen.  There's not much left in the higher part of the Templar hierarchy.

And the lower part is dealt a death blow tonight, too.  I didn't what happened to Parsifal coming.  He was an excellent character, and I'm surprised he didn't have a much longer arc.  But his death does make the point, in case we didn't already know it, that traitors are manifest.

Speaking of which, De Nogarey, having escaped hanging last week, now has some information that can destroy Landry - he's figured out that the Queen is carrying Landry's baby.   History tells us, and Knightfall is inexorably building up to, the King of France becoming a mortal enemy of the Templars.

With what happened tonight, that's now not much more than a word from De Nogarey away.

See also: Knightfall 1.1: Possibilities ... Knightfall 1.2: Grail and Tinder ... Knightfall 1.3: Baby ... Knightfall 1.4: Parentage ... Knightfall 1.5: Shrewd De Nogaret ... Knightfall 1.6: Turn of Fortunes