A love story disguised as a spy show
The Show: London Spy, Season 1, Episode 4 The Moment: On Hampstead Heath
Danny (Ben Whishaw, beyond excellent), a reformed crackhead, and his mentor Scottie (Jim Broadbent, always excellent), walk and discuss Danny’s late lover, Alex (Edward Holcroft). When Alex died, Danny learned he was a spy — and that he’s dangerously entangled in Alex’s secrets.
“It was his funeral last week,” Danny says. “Do you know how I found out? Heard about it on the news.”
“I can’t count how many men I’ve comforted when their partners were dying and the family wouldn’t allow them into the hospital,” Scottie says, quietly furious. “I’m sick of it.”
“What am I doing all this for?” Danny asks. “Because Alex discovered some government secret? So what? They lied about a war? They spy on us? What’s it got to do with me?”
I can’t do justice to this series’ brilliance. You just have to watch it. As chilling as the spy stuff is, it’s merely the McGuffin that allows creator Tom Rob Smith to tell a stunningly written story about love.
Alex was inscrutable, but not because he was a spy. Because he lied. Because we lie. Because we’re unknowable. So what are we loving when we love? What a person does? What we project?
These questions are made meaningful by Danny and Scottie, two of the most thoroughly imagined and beautifully rendered characters I’ve seen. London Spy is available on Netflix. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on pop-culture moments. She appears Monday through Thursday.