The Bureau - consistency

Series 2, Episode 8,  around 19 minutes in.

A scene with Guillame's daughter and 'the mule',  the black woman that makes occasional appearances.

Classic.  Funny,  touching, real. 

Consistent with the high standard of the series..

The Bureau - inconsistency..

Much as I admire 'The Bureau'  it doesn't seem entirely consistent.

The boss visits his female spy to question her about having ever seen any Americans in Tehran when she was there. 

This because the  Irani they want to 'turn' is working for the CIA they now believe.

She says there are no Americans in Tehran.  Relationships so bad between the two countries I guess.

But why would top level spy agencies necessarily use their own countrymen for all their machinations?

That's ludicrous isn't it?  Unworkable.

zest

my zest has gone.

Once I did things 'full on' - head down,  straight at it,  no doubts, no uncertainties...   straight into the task knowing without even thinking about it that it was what I had to do, what I wanted to do.

And the lights were on.  The world was bright.

Now it is all dim.  No zest.  I make myself do things because I feel I should but even as I feel I should I feel a strong sense of pointlessness.  That in the long run it doesn't matter - as, of course, nothing does, quite logically.   And that erodes the feeling of 'should'. 

So there's no even a pointed dramatic sense to the feeling of 'should'.  It's a just a dull, vague knowledge.

Horrible.

The Bureau

Just found this French t.v. series - The Bureau. 

I like it.  I think it is the best such I've ever seen.

Spy drama.  The Bureau is the French Intelligence Agency.

They get around like no such I've seen - to Syria and Iran..

And they get around to those places and weave those people into their story in a way no such I've ever seen does.

And I fancy it is because France knows Algeria, Iran, Syria, Muslims, Islam, terrorism etc..  in a way that no other t.v. series producing country that I know of does.

And France is more 'grown up' anyway.  Isn't French the language of diplomacy?    They have, I think, a long history of concerning themselves with international diplomacy.

Big things about it please me - the acting, the actors,  the plots,  the scenes - but little things, too.

The head of the bureau just visited this suspect psychologist woman and planted a mic under her desk.  What pleases me is the thought that she'll certainly find it - she sweeps the room frequently, her and the hero when he used to visit and he's the total expert so I guess it'd be a good sweep, the last word in detection.

And the plot writers are not that dumb.  Unless this is the first time.

So the idea is that she'll find it but then what?  The boss is going to know immediately if she removes it.....  significant.  

And if she doesn't move it I guess there'll be a change in her behaviour because she is going to have to do business in a different way.  Significant.

And not only her but those she associates with - she's a spy for the CIA - they can no longer meet and talk in her office.  And they will necessarily have to consider the possibility that she's been compromised and suspicion is falling on themselves...

It deals always with this kind of subtlety and I like it.

There's constant discovery and measure and counter measure...  gaining of information and understandings, suspicions, conjectures arising from it...

Makes things like Longmire look crude.    Well they are crude.  Virtually everything except this is crude. 

That's it, that's what I like:  I think it sophisticated.  I like the sophistication.