S03.E01: Strange Games/S03.E02: Hard Lessons

[aghst]

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A romantic relationship in Istanbul takes a turn for the worse; Lamb faces a crisis when one of his Slow Horses fails to report for duty.

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River has to steal something out of the Park to save a life. Lamb realize a stranger game is afoot.

So a long setup to introduce the new villain for the season?  Sean Donovan gets too close to his target/lover in Istanbul, fails at his objective and sees the target killed.

Out of that failure he shows up in London a year later surveilling Standish, turning up in her AA meeting, befriending her and then abducting her.

The team takes a bit of time to figure out that Standish has been abducted and River receives a picture of Standish with a gun pointed to her head, sending him on a goose chase through the Park

Lamb meanwhile sees that he's been under surveillance so he tries to ascertain the organizations which have the wherewithal and willingness to take operations against the Park (MI5).

Louisa is still moping over Min's death, going around having "meaningless sex" as Lamb calls it, until one pickup almost eats the diamond which she has hidden in her ice cream after lifting it from the scene where the Russian villain (season 2) was killed.

Maybe the new case will snap her out of her torpor, so she can fend off Ho's sudden interest in her.

The new case is a break for River as well because he was caught in filing hell until that point.  He feels guilty because he called Standish a martyr just before she was abducted and now is more motivated to help rescue her.

Lamb announces that the "tiger team" has got Standish, which sets off a light bulb in River's head but not in the viewers'.

It looks like Marcus and Dander will be teaming up, for no reason other than Dander decks Ho, who was blackmailing Marcus about his gambling.

Meanwhile, Webb, who was shot at the end of season 2, is out of the service, since his little play to make contact with the Russians turned out to be a false Russian plot to steal diamonds, one of which is still missing.

[Rickster]

The Istanbul intro was not in the book, interested to see how it will be woven into the plot.

On a different note, as someone whose knowledge of British Intelligence is based on James Bond movies, we know (or will find out) that Lamb and some other characters have a history in  Berlin. We saw in the first episode an apparent MI-5 agent operating in Istanbul. Why are  Mi-5 agents operating overseas? Shouldn’t this be the responsibility of MI-6? I’m confused.

[Bluesky]

I love this show!   I wish they would do 2 shows per week. 
 

Is James Bond based in reality?  I’ve never seen it.  

[pasdetrois]

The short episodes leave me wanting more!

The actors have developed great acting chemistry at this point.

[ShannaB]

I can't even even contain my joy at having this show back on but devastated that I can't binge.  The weekly wait will kill me!  Love this series and I welcome back all these delicious oddball characters.  They make a great team and they either don't know that or they won't admit it.

I am so sorry that this series does not get any hype because it is so deserving.  Gary Oldman is in his (slovenly) prime and Jack Lowden is just so nice to look at and his acting chops are bad either.

Welcome back show.  Just read that there will be a S4 and it should be out as early as Spring '24.

 

[Xantar]

Man, River is a pretty good agent in the moment, but he really is an idiot isn’t he? Didn’t tell Lamb what he was doing, didn’t stop to consider how exactly he could guarantee the kidnappers would keep their end of the bargain, just ran in and bumbled around until the archivist set him straight. Isn’t he supposed to be a professional at this?

[abbyzenn]

I really enjoy this show so so glad it's back.  I agree the episodes are just too short.  It's one show that I really need to concentrate on when watching because it's so easy to miss something.

Season 4 has already been filmed - I think it was filmed right after season 3.

[Kel Varnsen]

On 12/3/2023 at 11:05 PM, Xantar said:

Man, River is a pretty good agent in the moment, but he really is an idiot isn’t he? Didn’t tell Lamb what he was doing, didn’t stop to consider how exactly he could guarantee the kidnappers would keep their end of the bargain, just ran in and bumbled around until the archivist set him straight. Isn’t he supposed to be a professional at this?

I always like the fact that River is really excellent at parts of his job, but really terrible at other parts of it.

[Gweilo]

I love this show. In lesser hands, all the characters would be saying how much of a fuckup River is, but we'd only be shown him always being the hero and swooping in to save the day. But there's just so many things we're shown he does that are utterly stupid and incompetent.

Doesn't taking the tube seem an awful waste of time when you've only got an hour to break into a secure facility? Steal a car and drive like Istanbul lady did!

I wonder if it occurred to him to check if Freddie(?)/Spider even had a sister and a niece or nephew? He could have made some calls while cooling his heels on the tube.

Lots of hiding stuff in food this episode, although c'mon, at least put the diamond in a ziplock bag before you bury it in the ice-cream? And maybe buy a tub of crappy home brand ice cream to hide it in, that looks really unappealing. Not the fancy stuff that people are going to want to eat as a post-coital snack.

 

I love this show.