The Night Manager, part 2

The Night Manager (episodes 4-6)

Episode 4:

We begin with Roper rambling about Andrew Birch being a straw man with no history of much of anything and no clear ties to him. He can get him financial backing for "agricultural hardware" and quick money from a company called Tradepass. Jonathan innocently asks if they actually just hand money over like that. Roper shrugs and says he will register the company in Cyprus and put the money in a bank in Geneva with "no questions asked" and "no accounts to be filed". Nobody knows what they are actually selling and they don't want to "because if they did they wouldn't sleep at night."

Jed sticks her head in and Roper chastises her for interrupting a "business meeting". She wonders what sort of "business meeting" Thomas is involved in. Roper says his name is Andrew now. Jed asks what SHE should call him now.

Chrissy: Daddy?
Diandra: Time and place. This is neither.

He doesn't answer, so she just returns to her original reason for coming in which is that Danny is supposed to be headed to the airport if Roper wants to actually take him there. Roper seems to have forgotten about this. The kid comes in the room to give dad a going away present: a painting he did of some flowers in a vase. They all agree that it's very good and Roper checks his watch and says he'd better get moving. Danny asks if he's coming. Roper says he's busy with work, gives him a hug and says Jed will take him to the airport and his mother will meet him on the other side. He says goodbye to "Thomas" and Jed corrects him that his name is Andrew now. Roper starts to warn her off of whatever she's doing here, but she continues that she and his dad haven't changed names though. She tosses a pointed look back at him as she herds Danny out of the room.

Madrid. Apo's "guardian angel" is waiting for him in a restaurant. He is less than thrilled, but sits at the table at her direction. She says his girlfriend said they're going to Istanbul. He ignores whatever that implies and snaps that he did what they asked and "still bad." She shrugs "one good deed at a time" and hands him a "consolidated" expense report from a Tradepass account. He demands to know where and how she got it. From someone "on the inside", yes? She warns him against making trouble for her and says she has all this information and just needs someone to connect the dots and explain what it means. He asks if she'll leave him alone then. She promises she will.

Back at the villa, Jonathan is trying to sleep...clothed this time despite not doing that before...when a noise outside startles him. He creeps to the door, grabbing a knife from the kitchen as a weapon and backs away from it around a corner as it swings open so he can surprise grab whoever comes through it. Who turns out to be Jed, of course. "What is wrong with you," she demands after he drops the knife from her throat and closes the door. He asks what the hell she's doing. She says no one saw her if that's what he's afraid of. He corrects that she didn't SEE anyone see her, which doesn't mean she wasn't spotted. He asks where Roper is. He left for Geneva last night. For a meeting without his new right hand man? Shows a lot of confidence.

She sits at the table and he starts making tea because hi, British. She says she just wants to know what he was doing in Roper's private office. He claims he was doing the same thing she was - finding out more about his employer. She points out that Roper doesn't EMPLOY her. She's actually in love with him. He clearly doesn't really believe that. He pulls up the picture of the kid from her bedside drawer and asks if it's her son. She verifies, but is perturbed that he has that picture now. He asks where the kid is. She says her sister is taking care of him. At further prodding, she elaborates that she was 17 when she had him and not ready to be a mother. And her sister already had a kid and a husband who wasn't a meth addict, so really it was best for the kid.

Chrissy: And since this story was probably written before abortion was legalized...
Diandra: Or the pill, probably. The past Republicans are so fucking determined to get back to.

Jonathan asks if Roper knows about the kid. Jed says he wasn't SUPPOSED to, but yeah. Jonathan asks why he wasn't supposed to find out and she snaps that it didn't fit with what he "bought". IE a young, beautiful woman who hasn't yet had her pelvic floor destroyed by pushing a baby through it.

Chrissy: That's...one way to put it, I guess.
Diandra: Sorry, I can't stop thinking about the video of a comedian assuming all women in their 30s understand her sneezing dilemma because they have had children.

Jonathan asks what she's doing here now. Jed is like 'you know what? I don't even remember' and starts to leave. Then she hesitates and asks "what do you want from us?" He non answers that he won't be her "way out of this". She says she wasn't asking him to be. He starts brushing past her to open the door for her to leave, but gets a little too close and suddenly they are kissing. He pulls away immediately, shakes himself, and instructs her to tell anyone who asks that she went for a walk along the beach because she couldn't sleep and make sure she is seen doing that. He pushes her out the door and she stands touching her lips, dazed, while he adds that she should focus on keeping Roper happy. She asks why she should listen to him. He doesn't answer so she just walks away.

Meanwhile, back in London, a couple guys in white vans intimidate Rex as he's biking to work.

Elsewhere, Angela hands Rob (remember him?) some papers with a list of Tradepass investors. She explains that they have no idea what they're actually investing in, but they get 20% profit after a year which is 360 million. She points to the line that shows Roper making a profit of 240 million though. She flips to the page showing the consultation fees for Halo and Felix, but they aren't sure who those are yet. Rex calls to yell about the fact that he's being threatened and we snap to Angela meeting with him. She points out that they were probably just trying to scare him, which...isn't reassuring. He says he's responding by tripling her budget because if they're going to mess with the bull, they're GETTING THE HORNS. And don't ask where that money is coming from, by the way. "Best you don't know." He asks how many more people she needs on this and she can go ahead and pick whoever she wants. And definitely call that American. She's like 'great, but can I show you the tradepass paperwork I already showed Rob?' As he's frowning at it, she asks who Halo and Felix are.

Back at the villa, Corky meets the returning Roper, who grumbles about two days straight of meetings with Swiss bankers. "Andrew" rounds the corner and Roper makes a beeline for him to discuss the "homework" he's been doing since Roper left. He slaps Jonathan on the back and adds that he will be "testing" him.

Chrissy: [opens mouth]
Diandra: Don't. Please, just...don't make this some sort of sex thing.
Chrissy: Well, considering Corky that might actually come with the job, but I was just going to ask if this is how you got the name Andrew in your fic.
Diandra: Andrew the abusive ex husband? No. I was just trying to give one of Doyle's bad guys a more modern first name without copying "Elementary".
Emilio: Was that really what you were going to ask?
Chrissy: [muttering from the corner of her mouth] Yes, shut up.
Diandra: I can see you making that "dilate the ring" gesture from "Loki" again. Do I need to get the spray bottle?

Roper asks where Jed is...speaking of tests. Jonathan says he hasn't seen all that much of her. She arrives just then in an off the shoulder dress and he tries not to drop his teeth. She apologizes to Roper, kisses him and offers to take him somewhere and "show you how much I missed you." Roper calls back to Andrew that they will meet on the upper floor in one hour, which is...highly optimistic.

Chrissy: Not only will I be nicely warmed up, the pills will have fully kicked in by then...
Diandra: [gets up and leaves the room]
Emilio: She's getting the bottle, isn't she?
Chrissy: Probably. But I switched it with a bottle that's full of vodka, so joke's on her.
Emilio: So you were actually trying to elicit that response then.
Chrissy: Yeah, I've been doing this with her for too long to not be able to predict exactly what she's going to do and how she thIIIIIIIIIEEEEEFUCK. [leaps from chair and shakes shirt until the ice cube dropped down her back falls out]
Diandra: Yeah, I thought so. [sprays bottle in mouth pointedly] [returns to keyboard]

Corky follows Jonathan, ranting about how he's "joining up" then. "Send the kid back to mummy and then it's off to work we go." He keeps rambling about "clever footwork" from "queens unfriendly to the cause", thanks to which "you're going in my place." Jonathan finally says he has no idea what he's talking about.

Chrissy: Yeah, nobody does. We just play along in the hopes that he'll go away eventually.

Corky barely stops talking, rambling about how Roper is a romantic and Jonathan saved his kid so he doesn't see how dangerous this alignment is. Jonathan mutters that "one is becoming a tad deranged" and starts walking away. Corky blurts that he knows Jed visited him at night while Roper was away because he saw her. It was like a scene from a dumb romance novel. Jonathan turns and says she just came for advice. Corky asks if he knows what Roper would do to her if he knew. To HER? Why would...no, wait. Yeah, that tracks. He would mess up her face so bad their plastic surgeon might find fixing it challenging. So if Jonathan cares, he will never go near her again.

It turns out Roper wanted to see him so his tailor could get a fitting. As the guy is wrapping measuring tape around Jonathan's waist and calling out numbers, Roper jokes about the "tree" filling out a little while he was away. "Have you been raiding the fridge?"

Emilio: Filling my mouth with food distracts me from thinking about what I'd rather be eating.
Diandra: [stares]
Emilio: Sorry.
Chrissy: No, you're not.
Emilio: No, not really, but I know that look in her eyes and I'd rather not have an ice cube on my back.
Diandra: [keeps making eye contact while slowly spraying vodka into her mouth like some sort of mob hit woman]

Roper lists all the suits he wants made for Jonathan and asks if they can have that ready by Wednesday for the "very important trip" he will be taking. Jed wanders in and Roper invites her to come take a look at their "boy" and "doesn't he look grown up?"

Chrissy: Be very careful how you answer that.

She looks him up and down and agrees he looks nice. The tailor offers to charge everything to Roper's account, but Roper is like 'no, this isn't "Pretty Woman". He's using his own account. Which is still my money since I'm paying him, but y'know. Principle.' Sandy throws a wallet at Jonathan containing credit cards in Andrew's name.

Palma de Mallorca. Back at some sort of restaurant (likely not the same one), Roper gives a toast to his wife, who is going back to the villa with Corky after this night of "wine, song and assorted pleasures of the flesh" while the rest of them continue on with Andrew here.

Chrissy: Let's revisit that reference I made a couple episodes ago to your prostitution fic...
Diandra: Let's not.

The group disbands a little and Jed sidles up to Jonathan to ask where he's going tomorrow. Like everything else, he's not actually been told anything.

They sit at a table and Roper orders a "whole mess of seafood" for everyone and makes the waiters take away the flower centerpiece. Before he leaves, Jed orders a lobster salad. The waiter apologies that they are out of lobster. Corky goes full Karen, ranting in a bad accent approximating the waiters that they are RIGHT next to the sea and the seafood restaurant sitting on the coast is out of lobsters? Really? "There are many lobsters living out here, very happy. Laughing at your three Michelin stars." Jed says it's fine, she'll have the fish, which prompts Corky to continue about whether they have FISH at this seafood restaurant. Roper tells him to knock it off and the waiter retreats. Jonathan looks uncomfortable, but smiles a little at Jed when she meets his eyes. Unfortunately, Corky is sitting between them and stares pointedly at Jonathan before announcing that he wants to make a toast "to the lovers...let no man tear them asunder." Everyone pretends to understand what he's talking about, which is par for the course for him apparently, and he stares pointedly at Jonathan while he drinks.

And then a waiter starts walking past the table with a lobster salad for another customer (already ordered before they arrived) and all hell breaks loose. Corky punches him and Jonathan has to wrestle him away. Now. There's a weird little moment here that was not in the script and possibly suggestive that Tom Hollander had reason to worry about the whole Me Too thing. When Hiddleston has him in a basically full bear hug, he reaches around and grabs his ass with both hands. Then when Hiddleston wrestles him to the ground, one of those hands goes around to the front. At one point, Hugh seems to look at the camera like 'are you going to say cut, Suzanne? No? We're going to see if we can power through this?' But proving that he is a professional used to performing on a stage where you have to roll with whatever goes sideways, Hiddleston just calmly slaps his hands away, turns and continues without any indication that this wasn't part of the plan.

Chrissy: Was there some sort of competition going to see who could get him to break character and he just proved it's actually impossible?
Diandra: That's kind of what it looks like, yeah.

[crickets]

Jonathan apologizes to the old guy at the next table the waiter was headed for and shakes his hand. He offers to pay for their food or order the whole thing fresh along with another bottle of champagne and promises there will be no further problems from his "friend" back there. Corky applauds him noisily and notes that he's a "charmer" and "so smooth".

Chrissy: That's actually a physical observapffffffttttt. [pause] Back to the spray bottle, are we?
Diandra: [sprays mouth]
Emilio: This is going to be like doing shots for you, isn't it?
Diandra: Hey, Chris, how much do you know about operant conditioning?
Chrissy: Operating what?
Diandra: Good. [sprays mouth again]

He acknowledges the "victor", then crouches next to Roper and hisses "and to the blind man who cannot see the human bloody hand grenade in front of his bloody eyes." He pushes his chair in loudly and stomps off.

MI6. A guy is handed a piece of paper confirming his annual health check with Dr. J. Boatman. He looks puzzled. He meets Angela on a park bench and she greets him as "Harry" in the way of spies who aren't looking at each other in case anyone is watching. He asks why she is contacting him like THAT. She says she was in a hurry and sets a folded paper between them. He picks it up and opens it to find the Tradepass papers tucked inside. She asks who Halo and Felix are and assures him she's alone when he looks around nervously. She summarizes that someone on the inside is getting paid five million dollars to assist Roper's arms deals with British and American companies. Harry starts to get up and she snaps at him to sit down and listen. She says she's always liked him and he's a good man, but he's "too easily led." She asks who Halo is again. Harry reluctantly identifies that as BlackJack Charlie.

Chrissy: Oh, so you DO know what his actual character's name is and you're just...you have IMDb open on your phone, don't you?
Diandra: [distracted] What?
Chrissy: Never mind.

Angela notes that the money is "covering River House expenses" then and asks who Felix is. "Langley in London" Harry says. AKA Barbara, which...not sure which one Anderson was representing now, but let's just assume they're all corrupt except Rex. Harry says Charlie has been falsifying certificates. Angela asks if Harry is helping him. He doesn't answer, but she can see it on his face and reminds him that this is corruption and fraud he's dealing with. A gross abuse of government power that will get him a long sentence "and a humiliating end to a decent career." "Unless..." she offers as an olive branch. He tells her to meet him at the King's College library tomorrow.

Back in Mallorca. Roper asks if Jonathan is looking forward to "it" as they leave the restaurant. Jonathan says yes, even though he still doesn't know what "it" is. Roper says that's half the fun. "All the fun, come to think of it."

Chrissy: Hmm, yes. I've had clients like this.

Roper peels away to answer his phone and Sandy compliments Jonathan on the way he handled Corky back there, noting that he probably had a lot of experience dealing with drunk and disorderly guests in hotels. Roper hangs up the phone, looking frustrated. Jonathan asks if everything is okay. Roper blusters that it's fine, he just needs to talk to Sandy for a while and would Jonathan keep Jed entertained while they're doing that?

Emilio: [spluttering]
Chrissy: Oh yes, this is a GREAT idea.

He turns to Jed and tells her the old farts need to talk, so Andrew is going to buy her a drink at the bar and she should go with him before any of those other pretty girls standing off to one side swoop in.

Chrissy: So you're basically sending them on a date. Okay. Where this inevitably leads is on you, bud.

Once Jonathan and Jed are in the general bar area she asks who he is, exactly. "You come into our lives...disrupt our balance. Everyone's attracted to you."

Chrissy: [snort]
Emilio: Well...maybe not EVERYONE.
Diandra: One third of present company excepted.

She lists all three of his names so far and again asks who he really is.

Chrissy: Names don't matter!
Diandra: Are you back to quoting me?
Chrissy: Quoting the fic that was clearly VERY HEAVILY inspired by this, yes.

He says he can't tell her.

Emilio: Or he'd have to kill her.
Diandra: I mean...someone probably would.

She switches gears and asks how long they have and where his room is.

So they go back to his hotel room and just...start banging right against the wall inside the door.

Chrissy: Can you pause it for a second? [disappears into the bathroom]
Emilio: Did you see if she brought her purse with her?
Diandra: Oh, THANK YOU for reminding me of that conversation.
Emilio: I notice you stopped typing.
Diandra: Yeah, it's not much different than describing a fight scene. Unless it's punctuated with dialogue, I can boil it down to one sentence. "And then they fight." "And then they fuck." Whatever. Next.
Emilio: Which is weird because you write pages and pages of people having sex.
Diandra: Yeah, fiction is different somehow. I can't explain it. I notice you aren't much more affected than I am, by the way.
Emilio: Meh. I'm affected, but since he's mostly covering her...
Diandra: Right, that's a thing I mentioned in the recap for "Crimson Peak", but it's actually more relevant to this. Apparently Tom decided that too many sex scenes are about female nudity while the male can remain fully clothed. He said if someone was going to show skin here it should be him to counterbalance or whatever.
Chrissy: [returning suddenly] And I'm sure he got no pushback from the female director on that.
Diandra: Oh, that was quick. [under breath] Thank god.
Chrissy: Yeah, I just had to splash water on my face. A couple times. I see the asexual is still unaffected even though I seem to remember you struggling in previous recaps. I assume you were faking that?
Diandra: I never fake any...[snort] sorry. No, as I recall, every time my brain got overheated by the sight of a pretty guy it didn't involve sex. I can only think of two times where he wasn't mostly clothed: Brad Pitt in "Troy" and Chris Hemsworth in "Thor".
Chrissy: [skeptical look] [turns to Emilio] Memory keeper?
Emilio: [shrugs] I don't know. Probably. I just remember both of you being really distracted at one point during "Skull Island" and he never took anything off that whole movie.
Diandra: More importantly, I am only now really understanding what sort of asexual I am, or that what I am can be considered asexual because I still find certain men attractive, but I don't have any desire to see them naked and I DEFINITELY wouldn't want to fuck them.
Chrissy: But the thought of watching them fuck each other...
Diandra: Is like lesbian porn to straight men. The difference is, I am content to just imagine pretty guys in a sexual or romantic scenario without being involved myself in any way. So, coming back around to your original point: it doesn't matter how much I hyperventilated over an attractive man in previous recaps because I still do that. And I probably will at some point recapping this show, but it's not going to be at the sight of Tom's naked butt gyrating between Elizabeth's legs.
Emilio: What if you replaced her with Sherlock?
Diandra: Not helping. But I'm pretty sure I've read that fic.
Emilio: You probably wrote that fic.
Diandra: Not the one I'm thinking of, but I think I do have an unfinished fic somewhere that briefly mentions Loki fucking Doctor Strange against a wall as Tony's go-to wank material.
Chrissy: .....EXCUSE ME?!
Diandra: I said briefly.
Chrissy: I don't care. We will be discussing this later. At length.

And we are dropped into the next conversation with no immediate context. Sandy is saying he doesn't think "they can have a damn thing." Roper says "it doesn't matter what he has, it matters what he THINKS he has." Sandy asks who "he" is. Roper says his name is Mayhew and he's just some foreign office "creep trying to make a name for himself."

Chrissy: Memory test: do you know who that is?
Diandra: ..............Rex?
Chrissy: Okay, so you're not totally hopeless.

Roper says the "River boys" are afraid he has something, but they don't know what exactly. Sandy asks what Roper wants to do about it. Roper says call the "Haven". There's a pause before Roper asks what Sandy thinks of the new guy. Sandy likes him. He doesn't have the same "elan" as Corky, but at least he drinks less.

Sandy steps away to make a call as Jonathan and Jed return, all put together again like nothing happened. Jed says she had a headache and her "gallant" had to get her a Neurofen.

Chrissy: coughcough uh yeah. While that IS one of the natural treatments for headaches, I don't think I've ever heard that euphemism before.

Roper says that was very "decent" of Jonathan...

Chrissy: [snort] oh, trust me. It wasn't.

She starts to sit, but Roper gets up and says he's going to bed and so is she because they're not going to see each other for a while and he wants to make the most of tonight.

Chrissy: Lucky for both of you he isn't as observant as that other guy he played for the better part of a decade.

Ominous music plays us back to the library for that drop Angela arranged. Joel pretends to be looking for a book and finds a folder that he slides under his jacket. Cut to him laying out all the paperwork for the team, identifying "seven arms deals in the last six months" and fake certificates from River House claiming the "end users" to be from Italy and Bulgaria, but they can actually ship wherever they want once they have the export paperwork. Rob (remember him?) asks Angela where she got this stuff. She says a "boatman". Joel and Rob exposit that the job now is to track where the shipments are going, which they are doing by tracing the fake company doing the shipping of "farming equipment". They found three, which are off course somewhere in the Atlantic. Rob thinks two are fake to deflect attention from the real one. Proving that they've kind of lost track of their assets, one woman notes that the ships left from a place Roper just left on a private jet registered to a company whose director is listed as Andrew Birch and Angela asks who the hell that is.

Emilio: His face will ring a bell.
Chrissy: [muttering] Certainly rang at least one last night.
Diandra: [sprays Chrissy] [sprays own mouth]
Emilio: I think one of you isn't doing this right, but I'm not sure which.

The lady says they've run searches on Birch, but they haven't found anything. Angela obviously has suspicions. She asks who all is on the plane with Roper and where it's going. Andrew and Sandy. Istanbul. She tells Joel that's the same place Juan "Apo" is going. She orders Rob to take a team there. Rob asks what he's looking for to establish Angela's suspicions: "a familiar face."

And we cut to Jonathan on the plane, nursing a glass as the attendant comes out to tell Roper that they will be landing in Istanbul soon. Roper asks Jonathan if he's "ready to shine" and Jonathan responds in a way that would become a meme for smiling and pretending you aren't screaming internally.

Meanwhile, the secretary enters Rex's office. He finally acknowledges her actual name: Pamela. She wants to ask questions about how well he knows Angela and what exactly she's doing right now. All he knows is that she's working on project Limpet because he doesn't micromanage. Pamela thinks she's been pissing too many people off and they should consider appointing a new head of IEA. She hands Rex a list of possible candidates for the job. He splutters that she can't be serious because Angela is closer to catching Roper than anyone has ever gotten before. Pamela isn't sure that's true. Rex swears he is absolutely positive she can do this. Pamela's face falls and she asks what he's not telling her. Rex slowly offers to show her, but she can tell absolutely no one because it is a life or death operation. He hands her a list of investors with code names all some variety of large cat, real names written next to them. Beneath is the same summary we keep seeing with Felix and Halo consult fees. Rex says they know who those two are now. Pamela swallows and agrees that they can keep Angela on the mission. Then she goes back to her office and calls BlackJack Charlie.

Chrissy: Again with the checking IMDb on your phone.
Diandra: I'm good with faces. Not names.

Meanwhile, in Istanbul. Roper's entourage arrives at a hotel and "Andrew" checks in and hands them their key cards.

BlackJack Charlie calls Harry into his office with Anderson to demand an explanation for Angela getting information about them. "We suspect a Spanish involvement" he says and screams that this means they have a PROBLEM.

So Harry calls another meeting at the park to warn Angela that Charlie knows she's on to him, but thinks Apo is helping her. She pulls out her phone right there to call Joel and tell him to get Apo to "re-divert" to London immediately. Harry mutters that he can't do this anymore as she's hanging up and she snaps at him to shut up and asks how the hell this happened. Harry says it looked like the papers came directly to Charlie "from above."

So Angela goes to Rex to tell him what Pamela did because "who else could it have been?" She reprimands him for showing the papers to someone else like she TOLD him not to and he defensively says he did it to stop her transferring the op to someone else. Angela says she's pulling Apo out as fast as possible and pinning everything to him to deflect any suspicion from Jonathan before putting him in witness protection. Joel calls her just then to tell her that Apo booked a flight to Istanbul and disappeared. Nobody knows where he is. He's going to Madrid himself to try to figure out what happened. She slumps into a chair and she and Rex both look defeated.

Istanbul. Jonathan is woken by the phone at Dark O Clock...

Chrissy: [low groaning noise]

...and he's either naked or mostly naked beneath an artfully draped sheet, yes. After a very long silence, Jed says his actual name on the other end of the line and he wakes up fully. "I just need to know that you're there," she mumbles. He says they have to get off the line and hangs up.

Day. Jonathan asks where Apostol is because he was supposed to be meeting them, wasn't he? Roper says he's "crocked" and "most likely screwing his tart somewhere." They got a guy from Turkey to replace him, but they don't need anyone else, do they? He slaps Jonathan on the back ominously.

Meeting room. The new lawyer - Ertun - says he hasn't had time to review the documents they're supposed to be signing. The sale process is complicated and the machinery origin is "unclear". "I�m not even sure when the transfer of goods is going to take place."

Emilio: So you didn't vet the new guy.
Diandra: Apparently not.

He asks Sandy if he can have Mr. Apostol call him at least to explain the nature of this deal. Sandy says he's "indisposed." Ertun says he can't just sign it without looking at it. One of the bodyguards pointedly exposes his sidearm. Jonathan rushes to deescalate, telling Ertun that he hasn't read them either, but if they don't do the deal right now they won't do it at all. They're not just going to come back next week. So "all you need to know is that Tradepass is buying farm machinery from Farrago Holdings." The other bodyguard hands him a briefcase full of money, which he shows Ertun while concluding that they just need to trust each other here. Ertun looks between him, the suitcase and the guard with the gun out. Jonathan says they were told he was the man for the job, but maybe whoever told them that made a mistake. He closes the case and Ertun splutters that no, they're good. They can sign the papers.

A representative of this bank announces that they need to do a biometric verification on Andrew before they sign the documents and holds up his phone to scan Jonathan's eye. He explains that Jonathan will be able to use this on his smartphone or computer or whatever any time now like this is obviously going to be important later. Jonathan asks if he can look at a current bank statement. The banker shows him a balance of 300 million.

Night. Thunder and lightning rolls in the distance as the cars meet a ship on the dock.

Chrissy: Oh, good, my brother is here.
Diandra: Really miss the Loki roleplay already, huh?
Chrissy: [nods] [sniffles]

The bodyguard instructs everyone to approach slowly in single file with jackets unbuttoned to show they aren't armed.

Chrissy: Yeah, maybe you should also try to make yourselves look physically smaller and less intimidating and speak in low voices. Y'know, like you would approach a dangerous animal. Like...oh, just to pick one at random...a bear.
Diandra: I love how our recaps always end up referencing shit that came much later than whatever we are recapping. But let's not go into the discussion that flushed out, like, ALL the misogynists or we'll be here all night.

They approach the thugs and the lead one greets Sandy with a hug and asks which of them is Mr. Birch. Jonathan steps forward to shake his hand and Suzanne is doing some really artsy shots with the lighting and focusing here. The thug jokes about him being an agricultural enthusiast so we can really hear his Eastern European accent before Roper asks if they can just get on with it now. They all follow him aboard the ship through a maze of shipping containers. Jonathan points to one and asks if they can open it. Roper tells the bodyguards to go pick another random couple containers to check.

Jonathan pulls a rifle out of one of the boxes in the container and goes through what is probably a routine military weapon check. The bodyguards return and after Roper verifies that they're all happy with the merchandise, Sandy makes a call to "sign the paperwork" and hands the phone to Jonathan so it can scan his eyeball again. This takes an uncomfortably long time and then Sandy hands the phone to the lead thug (Jan) to verify that the purchase went through. He laughs and produces a bottle of "the best Vodka" from his hometown in Latvia for Jonathan and whispers that it is "contraband" so SHHHHHHH, you didn't get it from me.

Chrissy: Real comedian, aren't you?

Roper announces that they should get everything loaded onto the trucks then as explanation for why we cut to a bunch of military type trucks driving away from the dock.

Roper and Jonathan open the vodka off to one side and Roper asks how he feels knowing he just bought enough weapons to start an actual war. Jonathan lies that he feels great and powerful or whatever and asks for our benefit where the weapons are going. Roper says they're headed to the Haven, where they will be joining them to meet the buyer tomorrow. Then he starts rambling about suspicions being normal in his business and "Corky's jealousy is very infectious", so he had doubts. Although, now that he's thinking about it, it isn't so much jealousy as "lust" because "what he'd give for a night with you."

Chrissy: Get in line.
Diandra: You would.

Roper says actually he knows the exact price tag is $100 because Corky claims it on expense reports. "Uncorking, he calls it."

Chrissy: Although in this case he would probably call it tree climbfffffffpppptttt. [wipes vodka from face]
Diandra: [turns bottle and sprays own mouth]
Emilio: This probably illustrates nicely how your asexuality works, doesn't it? Because I'm guessing that image does more for you than that scene earlier.
Diandra: Maybe a little. Honestly, my brain is still stuck on that reminder of the Loki/Strange story and how I could maybe restart it.
Chrissy: HA! Victory is mine!

Roper asks what Jonathan's speed is because he can "get you anything". Men? Women? Younger? Older?

Emilio: Your wife?
Diandra: Shhh.

Jonathan says he's fine, but thanks. Roper cocks his head at him and says he doesn't drink (he's the only one drinking the vodka) and he doesn't fuck. "Not sure I can trust a man with no appetites." But he chooses to anyway.

Diandra: At the risk of this being a whole thing again, THIS is kind of a better illustration of asexuality. People don't understand a lack of sexual "appetite" because the presence of one is so common that it is considered the normal default.
Emilio: And that's why the more enlightened of us in the gay community recognize you as one of us because we've dealt with the same confusion from straights over how we can be attracted to the same sex.
Diandra: Yeah, but I remember having a conversation with you at one point where I joked "that's what vibrators are for" and I was genuinely confused when you said those don't work. Like...I thought at the time that it was about dicks, but I'm realizing now that it wasn't.
Chrissy: Oh, honey. If you think vibrators are only for people who need a dick to get off...
Diandra: No, I'm not totally na�ve, Chris. I mean, it was the only thing I could think of because I didn't understand that some people NEED another person present and can't just take care of that biological impulse on their own.
Chrissy: Wow. I think that finally made clear both why those personality tests kept telling you you are Sherlock AND why some people read Sherlock as asexual.
Emilio: So when you wrote that really long Sherlock fic with all the porn in first person...
Diandra: I took enough acting classes to know how to embody a character while still separating them from me.
Chrissy: I don't know if you have made a will yet, but you really need to donate your brain to science.

Back in London, the other lady working with Angela notes that it's after midnight and she should really go home. Doesn't her husband "mind" that she spends all this time every day at work? Angela says her husband knows why she does this job. She tells a little story about how she was in Baghdad this one time for a UN thing and there were reports about an incident along the Iranian border and her husband was furious when he found out that she volunteered for the mission. But it turned out someone dropped some bombs on a "sports day" event with mustard and sarin gas. She describes the horrific damage that combination did to the children there, the punchline being this was the first time she saw Roper. The lady concludes that he supplied those weapons. Angela wipes her eyes and says no, he had nothing to do with it actually, it's just that it prompted him to start selling sarin himself. Because he saw 50 dead adults and 100 dead children all killed horrifically and just thought 'cha-ching' apparently. She wipes her eyes some more and concludes that because she told her husband some version of that, he understands that while they are happily married and she is having his child, "I have to be here."

Chrissy: Olivia won a Golden Globe for this, didn't she?
Diandra: I think everyone won a Golden Globe for this, but yes, this was her first of three that were almost back-to-back. It's also interesting to really contemplate how much different the context of this whole conversation would have been had they not changed Angela's character from a man to a woman.
Chrissy: Really highlights how the best written characters for women often get that way because they were written for men.
Diandra: Sadly.

The phone rings and "Grace" (did they mention her name before now?) picks up. She tells Angela someone is reporting a problem in Istanbul.

In Istanbul, Jonathan startles awake like he just had a nightmare. The phone is ringing. We don't see who it is this time, we just cut to him marching down to another room in the hotel. Rob answers the door with a snippy "what the hell do you think you're playing at?" A man sitting at a table plays a recording of his brief conversation with Jed earlier on a laptop. Rob demands to know if he's "conducting a relationship" with that woman.

Chrissy: Well, Angela said wanted me "in deep", so...
Diandra: So it would have been less dangerous if you had just fucked the one who REALLY wanted to fuck you.

Jonathan defensively says it's none of their business. Rob snorts and calls Angela, grumbling that it's exactly what they suspected. He hands the phone to Jonathan and she orders him to go back to his room, get the money and passport and they're going to put him on a plane back home right the fuck now because "you've blown it." He doesn't see how she's coming to that conclusion. She summarizes that Roper's girlfriend just called from his house in the middle of the night, which hardly sounds safe. He argues that they will have nothing if he quits now because he's the only reason they've gotten this far. By the way, he has the name of the boat they just got a load of arms from and they're being driven to somewhere called The Haven as they speak. He can take them to it and they can catch Roper and his buyer red handed. If they pull him, they won't have anything and they won't be able to stop the deal that will happen whether he's there or not. She clenches her teeth, but still orders him to leave.

Madrid. Joel stands at the gate of the Apostol house for a minute before just jumping the fence.

This is cut with Jonathan marching down to Roper's room, dragging him out of bed to tell him that there are some Brits here that he suspects are law enforcement and they are WATCHING them. Roper sends one of the bodyguards to verify, then orders their whole entourage to evacuate the hotel in ten minutes. Which is five minutes after they're expecting Jonathan to comply with the extraction.

Joel wanders around the abandoned looking house and flinches at the smell before he rounds the corner to the bedroom where the bodies are. Apostol and his girlfriend (breasts carefully covered). Throats slashed. Blood everywhere.

Roper's entire team frantically load into cars. One of the MI-6 guys wanders close and Jonathan gut punches him before jumping into a car. They peel away as Rob runs up. He calls Angela to tell her that Jonathan is "gone" and she stews angrily into the credits.

Emilio: Well, aside from the no drinking thing, he really IS a lot like James Bond, so going rogue and having an affair with a beautiful woman can't really be too much of a surprise.
Diandra: Yeah, this is kinda like the more realistic and less misogynist version of Bond.

So let's just keep the momentum going and go right into...

Episode 5:

Jonathan waits until the plane is in the air again before asking Roper what The Haven is, exactly. Roper responds with his own question: "you were in the army, weren't you?" Jonathan growls that he was in Iraq and Roper says he should feel "at home" here then. He hands Jonathan a tablet showing a "coded account summary of the entire operation." Jonathan swipes to the part where the real names are written above the code names while Roper says it has everything including names of all parties involved including consultants. And this is the document that somehow found its way to British enforcement c/o someone named Angela Burr. Jonathan blinks rapidly but otherwise doesn't react. Roper says he and Sandy are the only two people who ever had the list, so he can't figure out how Angela could possibly have gotten hold of it. Jonathan says Sandy would never betray him, which is an interesting strategy. Roper thinks anyone could betray anyone because EVERYBODY LIES. Ahem. Sorry.

Chrissy: Also, it's never Lupus.

Jonathan, still playing dumb, asks who the handwriting belongs to. Roper says Apostol, which is why he is no longer with them. Jonathan says they should call off the sale. Roper snorts that he's not giving up that easy. "We just have to plug the leak."

Chrissy: Speaking of plugging things...[opens mouth and successfully catches vodka spray] HA! Gotcha!
Diandra: [shrugs] [sprays own mouth]
Emilio: Aren't you getting drunk yet?
Diandra: A little. I figure if it's not going to stop her at least it can make me stop caring.
Emilio: Isn't that going to make following a British espionage plot harder?
Diandra: Probably.

So far he has the possibilities for the leak narrowed to Sandy, Corky, Jed or...well...Jonathan. Jonathan stares him down and says it's definitely not him. Roper shrugs that whoever it is is "living on borrowed time".

They land in Turkey, meeting a guy named Jasper, introducing him to "Andrew" and hoping into a truck. As they are driving along deserted roads, they come up on a refugee camp. Roper mutters that the world isn't fair. Jonathan agrees and Jasper exposits for the viewer that they are 200 miles from Syria and surrounded by these camps. Roper rambles about these people who have nothing left and are miles from home and "we do our bit, don't we Jasper?" This is apparently the safe haven he was talking about at the beginning of the series. And these are not the same trucks that left Istanbul. Roper gets out and a photographer takes pictures of him handing boxes marked "international aid" to people. Because he's keeping up the illusion that he's actually a humanitarian. And when they pile back in the jeep and drive away, Roper explains that that justifies them being here and heads off any questions people might have about anything else that might happen in the area. Y'know, just in case you thought he had some redeeming qualities.

They arrive at a different compound possibly not far away and Roper orders the guards to take everyone's phone and get Jonathan "suitable gear". He explains to Jonathan while they're clearing people from the area that there is going to be a "firework display" and he should take this opportunity to learn what, exactly, he's selling. Sandy hands him some papers and welcomes him to "The Haven".

In London, Secretary Pamela calls Rex into her office. She says this is all very confidential so far, but the royal family have made it known to her that they are looking for a private secretary and she's clearly recommending him for the job. Because he can do less damage there, presumably.

Rex goes to find Angela, who is just being told that they lost sight of the plane after it left Istanbul. Angela yells that she needs to know where her "boy" is, then goes over to hand Rex some papers about a ship that docked in Istanbul a couple days ago despite the fact that it was supposed to be delivering crop sprayers to the Azores. Instead it delivered British and American arms which Roper is taking to someone in the middle east at some place called The Haven. She raises her voice as she rants that she needs money and agents and someone to FIND HER DAMN SPY. Rex just pulls her aside to tell her that the secretary is taking him off enforcement agencies. Angela is like 'oh, the one who leaked my intel to BlackJack Charlie is reassigning you to another department? Yeah, that isn't suspicious at all.' Rex says her job is to "preserve the status quo. Whatever it takes." Angela scowls at his back as he leaves.

Back at the Haven, Roper is rambling about all the times the white colonizers used a region's chaos to their advantage. They can do all sorts of training in guerilla warfare and desert fighting tactics and even arrange assassinations, terrorist threats or coups for a price. He goes to talk to a guy named Aiden while Jonathan hangs back to talk to Sandy. "He's got his own country," he marvels. Sandy corrects that it is a KINGDOM.

Roper goes into a tent full of mercenaries, aka subjects, and introduces them to Mr. Birch, who will be in charge of the little "show" they're putting on for their "guests" tonight. He tells them Jonathan/Andrew is ex military, so they don't need to "talk pretty" to him.

Chrissy: But what if we REALLY want to?
Diandra: [sigh]

The first guy who steps up to talk to him talks about doing three tours including fighting in the same regiment Jonathan did and Jonathan visibly swallows disgust at the fact that this guy with a very similar background took a very different post-service path.

Emilio: Yeah, I find the people most eager to blindly worship anyone who wears a uniform are the ones who have never worn one themselves.
Diandra: Yeah, a fellow soldier can usually point out the ones they would absolutely not trust any further than they could throw a brick shithouse.

Roper overhears and butts in to remind Andrew that "every soldier fights for money" if he's smart. He goes on to remind Andrew that he was paid when he was in Iraq and these guys are "the real United Nations" because there are representatives from several countries here. The mercenaries cheer on every shitty point he makes, which he clearly enjoys. Sandy offers to pour them all drinks and Roper sneers that they're about to operate "very heavy machinery" and "don't be a tit." He wanders off to schmooze some more and Jonathan wanders over to Sandy, who notes that something is off. "He's treating me like I just shot his mother."

Emilio: Uh...considering who we're talking about...he might actually buy you a drink if you did that.

Jonathan hesitates for a second before saying that Roper suspects a mole. Sandy laughs that off as "ridiculous".

Night. Jonathan is reading the manual on the stuff they're selling in a tent, including a biohazard sheet about the effects of sarin gas. Sometime later, he meets the convoy carrying Mr. Bargatti, the buyer they are doing the demonstration for. Everyone puts on ear protection and Jonathan gives the all ready to the mercenaries with the code name Guy Fawkes because of course he does. He hands a flare pistol signal to Bargatti and directs him to shoot it in the air. As it is still arcing through the air, a jeep appears on the road. Jonathan directs Bargatti's attention to it and then one of the mercenaries blows it up with a missile. Bargatti asks who was driving that for the benefit of the audience, probably, and one of the mercenaries points to the guy next to him because of course they didn't just blow up a MANNED vehicle. Hahahaha. That would be crazy. Roper jokes that the guy doesn't even have a driver's license.

Diandra: He had the highest score on this one video game. See, we're trying this thing where we get children to fight battles that they don't know are real...
Chrissy: Oof. Dating yourself with that one.

The mercenaries go through a fake battle, shooting and creeping behind tanks. And then a plane flies overhead and one of them shoots it down. It explodes on impact. They blow up a few more vehicles and nobody questions whether they were also being remotely operated. Roper creeps over to Jonathan and both of them have taken off their ear protection for some reason so Roper can ask if he doesn't secretly miss this. Jonathan says he absolutely doesn't and is perfectly comfortable up here in safety. Roper purrs about war being a spectator sport. "We are emperors of Rome, Andrew." And then he turns to Bargatti and everyone is wearing protection again like 'sorry, the continuity guy went on break.' He says they are assuming Bargatti doesn't give a fat rip that the UN has a "dim view" of such weaponry. The explosions and gunfire get closer but Roper doesn't react while Bargatti flinches. Roper says they cleared an entire village so they could do this next bit and jets fly over, dropping a whole line of bombs.

Chrissy: I call it Jericho...
Diandra: No. Stop.

Roper smokes a cigar while the light of the fireballs illuminates everybody's faces like 'was it good for you, darling?' and notes that napalm is really pretty at night. Napalm, of course, is hard to purchase these days unless you are an evil underground dealer like him, so. Bargatti starts a round of applause and Jonathan smiles like he's masking a scowl.

Sometime in the early morning, Jonathan sees Bargatti off and asks where he's heading. Bargatti says they don't ask questions like that or where the weaponry came from originally. From Jonathan's perspective, we pause on each of the jeeps in the convoy like he's memorizing the license plates. Bargatti ends by saying he went to the school of economics in London, where he learned everything he knows and Jonathan smiles and, as Roper arrives to take over the send off, sneaks between a couple of the jeeps to write the numbers on a piece of paper.

Sometime later, he adds the detail that the jeeps have UN logos on the side of them.

Back home, Rob tells Angela they've left a small team in Istanbul "just in case" their "boy" decides to contact them that way. Angela says Joel thinks Roper has turned him and they should burn that bridge. And she's started to wonder if he's right since she doesn't know why he attacked their agents and she can't get anything on the accounts listed in the Tradepass papers. Also, she thinks someone is following her now. Rob asks if she really saw someone or just imagined it because she's been really tired... Angela snaps that yes, she really saw it. Joel slams his phone down at his desk and announces that they've closed down project Limpet and withdrawn all funding. He's being told to go back home today to chase down Mexican gun runners in Arizona again. Angela splutters about who could possibly have the authority and whether he can fight it. He pulls her into the hall and apologizes that there are too many people trying to stop them from doing this and she should just go home and get some sleep. He goes to tuck her hair behind her ear and she gives him a 'what the fuck do you think you're doing?' look and goes back into the war room.

Haven. A jeep arrives carrying Corky and Jed and one of the security guys mutters about Roper mixing business with pleasure now. Roper goes to hug Jed and she stares at Jonathan over his shoulder.

Sometime later, Roper, Jed, Corky and Sandy are having champagne in the bar tent and Roper calls "Andrew" over. He says they're celebrating the fact that the deal has gone through and the trucks are almost at the Syrian border already. Then he blows up at everyone for acting all sullen and they obligingly toast the company. Roper notices Corky drinking coffee or something instead of alcohol because he's apparently taking a stab at sobriety. And then Roper and Sandy wander away and Jed and Andrew make awkward small talk while Corky stares at them like 'who do you think you're fooling?' He interjects that this place isn't as "romantic" as the villa and that little cottage of his and pointedly asks if he hit a nerve or something when they act shifty. Jed takes a slug of champagne and stalks off. Jonathan tries to make excuses to leave, but Corky won't let him. He asks if he knows why Roper brought Jed here. "I'm just an outside observer. You've made sure of that. But from where I'm sitting, it doesn't look very good," he stage whispers.

London, night. Angela gets home and completely fails to lock the door behind her (unless they all do that automatically in England?). She looks at the half finished pink nursery with painting supplies seemingly abandoned wherever they were last used and then peeks in the bedroom where her husband has fallen asleep with a book half covering his face. Specifically, the book is Fatherland, AKA the slower but more realistic and less sci fi Man in the High Castle.

Chrissy: And why am I not surprised you know that?
Emilio: Didn't she mention that before? Probably during "What If" because it's alt history?
Diandra: Yeah, it's similar enough to time travel to be the other genre I am drawn to.
Chrissy: And that's what that fic you keep saying you don't want to write would fall under, right?
Diandra: Oh, don't start with that now.

She's going over paperwork in the living room when BlackJack Charlie calls and says he wants to talk. She says she's sleeping now. He says it doesn't look like she's even trying from where he's sitting. Because yeah, he's sitting in a car outside. He swears he's alone, but he's sitting in the back seat.

Chrissy: Yeah, that's not suspicious at ALL.
Diandra: This makes me think of that "X-Files" video game I tried to play years ago where your character is confronted by a couple "agents" at a house and if you choose to cooperate and go with them your body is found floating in the river the next day.
Chrissy: ......game?
Diandra: Yeah, I failed so many times to get past that point that I started hating Mulder, who sent me out there in the first place, and started trying to find ways to kill him.
Chrissy: oooooookaaaaaaaaaayyyyy. Let's just...unpack that some other time. Maybe.

Except here he gets out of the car and comes to the front door. She opens it, but refuses to let him in because "we can talk just fine here." He bullshits that he always liked her and regrets "losing" her at River House. She's like 'yeah, yeah, get to the point.' He wants to know where she got those papers that got Apostol killed by some random Arab. She's like 'oh, is that the story you're going with?' He says they're in business with Roper and they "don't appreciate a lawyer they can't trust." She asks if he's doing business with Roper too. He sneers that he's "looking after the strategic interests" of his country. She says sure, you keep telling yourself that and insists she has no idea what papers he's talking about. He says she's been lying about the Limpet thing all along and has a guy on the inside and he NEEDS to know who it is. He rambles about this status quo they have going that needs to be kept up and they - and America - NEEDS Roper. So she should back off before something bad happens to her too. She slams the door in his face. From upstairs, her husband asks who that was. She tells him to go back to sleep and it was "nothing".

Meanwhile at the Haven, a generator seems to fail and all the lights in the compound go out. Jonathan closes the control panel and runs away before anybody spots him. Roper assures Jed that this sort of thing happens all the time and they'll fix it and get the lights up and running again soon. She hisses at him that she can't exactly be calm here because it's an ARMY BASE and she's the only woman here and can he even comprehend what that's like? He can't because he grumbles that she should enjoy all the attention she's getting.

Chrissy: This is why bears.
Diandra: No, this is why there were actually three kinds of guys in every comment section about the bear discourse. The ones who got it, the ones who were the REASON we were choosing the bear, and the clueless idiots who didn't understand any of it and thought it was just women hating men.

She grumbles about him playing dumb and asks why the hell she's here because he never lets her anywhere near his business operations. He plays dumb a little longer, saying she WANTED to be here. But whatever, she's here now and maybe she can help him flush out the traitor. Assuming it isn't her. She scoffs and he slaps her, then grabs her by the face and demands she tell him who she showed the list to. She splutters that she doesn't know anything about a list.

Security sticks his head in to say there's a problem with the generator. Roper yells at him to just fix it. He says it looks deliberate and they need to show him. He grabs a lantern and storms out. Once he's far enough away, Jonathan sneaks in. She demands he tell her exactly who he is now. Which provides a convenient answer to the question Roper was asking because OF COURSE HE'S THE MOLE. I mean really, is Corky the ONLY one considering the new guy who only showed up a little before the leak started is the plant? How have these people not been caught sooner?

Chrissy: Ha! [holds out hand to Emilio]
Emilio: [fishes out wallet]
Diandra: What's going on here?
Emilio: We had a bet about how long it would take you to go full Sherlock and call everyone an idiot for not figuring it out already.
Chrissy: If it makes you feel better, I am impressed it took you this long.
Emilio: Yeah, we talked about it in the break between halves. I thought you were allowing for plot contrivance or something and she thought you were just holding back a rant that would explode out of you at any moment.
Chrissy: If it makes YOU feel better, this is probably less of a victory than it is a sad statement on just how long I've been doing these recaps with her that I can predict what she's going to do.
Diandra: .......
Chrissy: Uh...D?
Diandra: [dazed] What?
Emilio: Were you just distracted staring at Tom on screen because you paused the video on his face?
Diandra: ...maybe?
Emilio: Ha! [snatches back money]
Chrissy: Dude, really? That shot doesn't look any different than literally any other this whole series, but THAT somehow flips your switch?
Diandra: I'm sorry, can we talk about the fact that you two are apparently placing bets on EVERYTHING you think I'm going to do in a recap?
Emilio: Not everything. Just those two things. This time.

I DON'T MAKE THE RULES

Anyway. Jonathan says yes, he's helping British Intelligence trap Roper. The whole thing with Danny was a set up. She protests that he nearly DIED in that "set up". He claims that was part of the plan.

Chrissy: So what part of the plan was saying the name of your dead girlfriend in your sleep?

She asks what the list Roper was talking about is. Jonathan says it's the names of everyone who has participated in Roper's illegal dealings. Which is why he was in his office that day, by the way. She just blinks and asks what he needs her to do like 'okay, I'm in.' Jonathan says she needs to let Corky take the fall. And also, he needs money. She raids her purse and he swears he will get her out, kisses her and sneaks back out before Roper gets back.

When Roper returns, she is calmly sitting on the cot. She says she took a picture of the list with her phone because "I wanted to know what the man I'm sleeping with does for a living" and he always lies to her so she figured she could try asking someone, but she couldn't find anyone so she deleted it a week later. Roper believes her. She swears she didn't show it to anyone, but Corky is always telling her she shouldn't be leaving her phone lying around all the time... Roper seizes on that and she says yeah, Corky gave her phone back to her after he found it laying around and it was all so STUPID and she's sorry. Hugh Laurie has a sort of House moment and assures her that it's fine and they can fix it, but she has to promise NEVER to do something like that again. He hugs her and they both give ominous stares over each other's shoulders.

Jonathan cuts a hole in the chain link fence around the compound and runs right into some people from the "village". An actual child points a gun in his face. They show him the dead woman they are transporting, who was too old to escape the attack from British soldiers. The man wants to rub their noses in what they've done now and Jonathan tries to discourage him because really, what does he think that's going to accomplish? It doesn't work. Jonathan gets in a taxi waiting nearby and tells the driver to drive all the way to Istanbul, find a particular hotel and give the woman in room 314 a note. He gives him $200 and promises she will give him another $200.

Back at the camp, Jed hears the villager and his kid screaming in the distance, followed by gunshots. Because of course that's how that was going to go.

Jonathan is climbing back through the cut fence when Corky catches him. Not wasting any time, Jonathan leaps right to pointing out "it's your word against mine." Corky says he knows and shoves a gun in his chest. They grapple and Jonathan gets the gun from him and throws it before getting kneed in the groin and shoved against the fence. Corky decides to do the bad guy thing where he pauses to gloat about how he's going to kill Jonathan, giving him time to recover and regain the upper hand.

Chrissy: Notice how he pauses before he says the word "kill", like 'this looks so much like my fantasies that the sight of you on your knees made me forget what I should be doing to you.'
Diandra: [heavy sigh] [sprays mouth]
Emilio: Giving up?
Diandra: [shrug] I mean, that analysis isn't that much of a stretch.

He kicks Jonathan down the hill outside the fence. They fight for a while until Jonathan gets the upper hand and that's when they are spotted by guards. Jonathan yells at them to get "the chief" because he just caught Corky going through the fence. He does a CPR move on Corky's chest until his ribs crack and then punches several times until he seizes and stops moving. Roper arrives and Jonathan repeats that he found Corky outside the fence and he doesn't know who he was meeting. Roper checks Corky's pulse and, not finding one, tells the guards to bury him quick because "nobody can know he was here."

Chrissy: So I know you hate how I keep bringing this up, but...this IS the inspiration for Henry, the military assassin, right?
Diandra: He wasn't military. I think for his background I was more drawing from Sydney Bristow getting recruited in college directly into spy work.
Emilio: I forgot that's how that show started.
Diandra: Yeah, they abandoned that quickly.

Istanbul. The cabbie arrives at the hotel and has the manager call down the woman in room 314. It is not Angela and she is surprised to find this stranger, but takes the note and agrees to give him the other $200. We cut right to Angela and Rob reading the image she uploads to their server and getting excited that this plan is still working. Angela tries to get hold of Rex, but River House is saying he is no longer available. So she marches down to his office herself, past an angry secretary and waves the data on the 28 trucks carrying arms currently headed for Syria. "This is what we need to take them down. All of them." Rex clenches his jaw and mutters that he still can't do anything because "we have no allies." Angela insists they don't NEED them, she just needs official confirmation from the foreign office that they are carrying arms and Joel can send in American troops to intercept. She just needs his signature and this is probably the only chance they're going to get.

Joel is doing paperwork at his desk when Angela calls to tell him she's faxing something over and he should bypass the CIA and take it right to the military. His fax machine spits out a letter signed by Rex and he frowns at it and gets on the phone with the commander of whatever branch this would fall under the jurisdiction of.

Morning. Roper goes into a tent where his men have a sort of mobile command center set up. They tell him the trucks will be at the border in an hour and pull up the tracking data on the screen. Jonathan enters the tent behind him and Roper gives him what might be a suspicious look.

Joel calls Angela to confirm that the US military will be meeting the trucks at 1800 hours.

Chrissy: Six...PM? Whose local time are you using?
Diandra: Look, keeping track of all these locations and time zones is HARD, okay? No, but seriously...I don't envy the editors their jobs here. This story is bouncing all over the place.

Joel sends her the visual on the satellite images the military is using to track the convoy and we go back and forth between Roper and Angela both watching screens.

Roper asks the guard to fetch Jed and shoots Jonathan another LOOK. Jed stumbles in several back and forth cuts later and Jonathan makes a point of greeting her, which sort of puts her at ease. Roper kisses her and says she wanted to know what he does for a living, so...voila. He goes back to watching the screen and she looks back and forth between the screen and Jonathan. The trucks reach the border and a phone rings. The guard says American troops are demanding they open the trucks. Everyone in the tent looks worried as the soldiers drag a driver out and force him to open the back. Somehow, the trucks are all full of grains and farming equipment. Angela and Jonathan both watch in confusion as the soldiers wave the drivers through. Roper grumbles about them wasting everyone's time delaying a truck carrying "much needed agricultural equipment." Sandy high fives him with a smirk and Roper leans in to explain to Jonathan that "they didn't watch the cups." He plasters a phony smile as everyone celebrates the authorities falling for it.

Roper kisses Jed and calls her a good luck charm who should join him at work more often. She just asks where Corky is. He's like 'who? Oh, he flew home.' Jed seems to have an inkling that she's never going to see him again, but...um...Roper isn't the one who murdered him, so...

Chrissy: I mean, technically it was self defense.
Diandra: Eh...in a sense that soldiers get a pass for killing anyone on the enemy side in a war region.

Roper turns back to Jonathan who doesn't make eye contact with anyone.

Joel calls Angela to yell at her for siccing the military on UN trucks transporting farm equipment. Her intelligence was bad and he REALLY thinks Jonathan is double crossing her now. She dejectedly asks what if this means Roper knows he's the mole. Joel is like 'well, he's fucked then, isn't he?' because "there's nothing we can do." She goes back to her desk and sits with her head in her hands.

She goes back home at night to find the place tossed and her husband just waking up on the kitchen floor where he assures her he was just knocked unconscious despite the smear of blood. She calls emergency for an ambulance and cops and keeps him still.

Morning in The Haven, Jonathan finds security getting ready to leave, having taken care of a "local issue" so they don't leave any traces. AKA, the man and his kid probably. He is handed a rifle and glares into the middle distance until Roper calls to him that they're leaving. In the jeep, Roper asks if he figured out the trick with the convoy. Jonathan says the weapons were never here. Roper confirms that they just had enough for the demonstration, the rest is still back in Istanbul. Jonathan concludes that he knows British law enforcement is following him, so he changed his usual procedures. Roper gloats that now the Americans are washing their hands of this and Project Limpet is completely dead. And the traitor is dead because he is absolutely buying into Corky as the mole now. He calls Freddie Hamid to tell him that they are on the way and Jonathan plays dumb, asking who that is now. Roper just calls him a friend from Cairo.

Snap right to Cairo, where the car takes them all to "one of Freddie's places", which naturally is the same hotel Jonathan was working at. Jonathan sort of lingers in the lobby and probably debates just how fast this could go south. They all see Roper and Jed to their room, which we linger on the door of to really get the significance of it being that same suite Sophie died in. In case you've forgotten that by now, we do a quick little flashback that is sepia toned and makes Tom's eyes a disturbing reddish brown color.

Emilio: Well, now you know what he would look like as a vampire.
Chrissy: We already know what he looks...oh, you weren't in that recap, were you?
Emilio: Oh, right. Was that the one she did because of a poll?
Diandra: Yes. Although I'm pretty sure Chrissy is still going to use this as...
Chrissy: I have an idea for a fic.
Diandra: [groan] [sprays vodka in mouth]

Episode 6

Diandra: You know, I do remember struggling to understand the plot the first time around thanks to the lack of previouslies, so this really is helping because there was NO WAY I was going to remember ANYTHING by the time season two comes out.
Chrissy: You really think the lack of previouslies was the problem? Oh, honey.
Diandra: [glares] Remind me why I'm friends with you again?
Chrissy: Oh, whatever. You know you love me.

We begin the final episode back in London, with the permanent secretary grumbling about the whole embarrassing wolf crying incident in the last episode where the Americans were called in to search for weapons that turned out to be farm equipment. She says it has set their intelligence gathering in the region back five years and she wants to know why they did it despite obviously having poor intel. She patronizingly adds that they want to insure this sort of thing never happens again as we focus on Angela across the table. Angela dully explains that she had fake end user certificates from seven arms manufacturers. BlackJack Charlie produces copies and says they're actually real just for different countries than she thought and totally legit. Angela snorts that that's a lie and they are clearly covering it all up now. The secretary pipes up that according to Rex, Angela got someone at River House to leak information, known only as "the boatman". The camera focuses on the leak sitting right next to her before Angela snorts that that's a ridiculous name she's never heard before.

They all try to press a little more for a name before moving on because obviously they're not going to get one. The secretary reiterates that Rex authorized a full US military sweep of the convoy on her word that her intelligence was good. So what was her source? She snorts that they're trying to get ANOTHER name and just says she has a source close to Tradepass and Roper and she can't get any more specific without putting someone's life in danger. The secretary says this is a closed door hearing and names will be redacted, so why can't she say it? Angela glances at BlackJack and Anderson and says through gritted teeth that they all know full well why she can't say anything.

She goes to the office they were using where Rob is sitting on the one desk that was left after the whole place was cleaned out. He says the ministry officially pulled everything from them this morning. And they're completely closing the office the two of them were working at the beginning of all of this in two weeks. "International Enforcement Agency is officially mothballed." He says she should go home and just resign herself to becoming a teacher's wife and mother. [snort] Oh, wait. Right. I forgot this is not America where it would be impossible to support a family on one teacher's salary. Never mind. She asks what would happen to Jonathan in that plan. Rob reminds her that he's the one who gave her false intel and they talked about how that probably meant he was turned or dead already. Angela doesn't believe that and says SHE brought him into this so she is responsible for him and isn't just going to throw him to the lions.

The other lady (Grace?) wanders in as Jonathan conveniently picks this moment to call Angela's cell. He asks if Sophie is there. Angela is confused and telling him there isn't, but he interrupts "when she comes, could you tell her we're all here at the same hotel." She hangs up, smiles at Rob like 'I fucking told you' and says their boy is in Cairo.

We go to Jonathan as he hangs up the phone. He is in the lobby again, which is convenient as he can hear the manager call Roper to tell him his "courier" has arrived. We follow the military looking guy with the briefcase to Roper's room where he just silently hands him some papers at the door. Jed watches him put them directly in the room safe from where she is sprawled on the bed.

Sometime later, at a table in the hotel restaurant, Roper asks if Jonathan has ever been to Cairo before. Jonathan apparently bets that the hotel has had a complete turnover of staff and nobody will recognize him as he lies that he's only been to Morocco and Tunisia, but never Egypt. Roper suggests he do some sight seeing. Jed asks if he isn't joining them on their cruise of the Nile. Roper says definitely not because "you and I are going to be VERY busy."

Chrissy: Once the pills kick [splutters] I see your level of inebriation isn't yet affecting your reflexes, Dee.
Diandra: [sprays mouth]

Sandy and Caroline arrive just then and when Jed splutters at the sight of Caroline, Roper innocently says he thought she might want female company.

Chrissy: Because we don't want you getting desperate and settling for some male company.

He encourages the two women to go entertain themselves somewhere so he can have a minute with the "young prince", pointing at Jonathan. Jed kisses him and Sandy apparently disappears with them because the next shot has Jonathan and Roper alone at the table suddenly. Roper pours Jonathan some coffee and rambles about how this makes him think of Churchill and T.E. Lawrence "dividing up the middle east" on the back of a napkin over champagne and cigars in a hotel like this. Jonathan guesses that Roper sees himself as Churchill in this little roleplay.

Chrissy: Well, Lawrence was prettier if the casting of Peter O'Tool is anything to go by.
Emilio: And Churchill had serious cigar smoking skills if you want a demonstration.
Diandra: OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL FANFIC ARE YOU TWO WRITING NOW?! [spluttering] [opens spray bottle and chugs vodka]
Emilio: I know we're at your house so we don't have to worry about you driving home, but you might want to take it easy there.

Roper turns abruptly to the subject of Corky, bemoaning that he might have been able to "talk him round" if he'd known sooner. "Could have explained that even traitors can be forgiven" he says pointedly. In fact, he adds, they can be useful because it allows one to "keep tabs on" the enemy and send them after red herrings. "But they have to commit, that's the thing. Have to make a decision." Jonathan just stares and he laughs that he's saying this to him because "you already made your decision, haven't you?" Jonathan agrees that he did that a long time ago.

And then Freddie Hamid shows up and Jonathan nearly swallows his tongue. He rallies while Roper greets him and plasters a smile on his face before turning to shake Freddie's hand. There's a moment where Freddie seems like maybe he's gonna recognize Jonathan, but it passes and Freddie just welcomes him to Cairo.

They go by caravan to meet a guy Roper identifies as Mr. Kouyami. Apparently this is the buyer and Barghati is his representative as they all meet in another room in another hotel to discuss the whereabouts of the merchandise and how the payments will be handled. Sandy starts the process of transferring money, but Kouyami is nervous thanks to this Syrian border incident he heard about. Roper assures him that was just a minor internal "issue" that they've already addressed. The camera gets really on top of Tom's eyeball and Hugh's mouth. After a beat, Kouyami nods, pacified. Jonathan does the iris scan on Sandy's laptop again to unlock the Tradepass account and they transfer the payment.

That night...probably...Jonathan finds Jed and Caroline at the hotel bar and offers to buy them another drink. He smiles like an idiot, but Jed doesn't even meet his eyes. He looks at Roper and Sandy at the other end of the bar and hisses at her to smile and laugh. She does, weakly, but mutters that she can't keep doing this. She can't keep sleeping next to Roper knowing what he is now and she just wants to run away with Jonathan. Jonathan, through the same fake smile he's using to deflect suspicion, says they can't because it isn't just about them. He grabs her fingers under the bar where the men can't see and instructs her to laugh again before asking about the courier that brought papers last night. She says they're in the safe and she can get him the combination. He brushes her back and tells her to be careful. She slips away.

And we have another gratuitous scene of Tom's mostly naked body covered by a sheet. Because did we mention the director is a woman?

Emilio: Are you...complaining?
Diandra: Not really. Just an observation.
Chrissy: [glassy eyed] What? Did somebody say something?

Elsewhere, Joel has joined Angela again and fallen asleep on the couch in a hotel suite with the Roper file open in his lap. Angela is wide awake on the bed, stewing.

Jonathan finds Caroline alone in the restaurant at breakfast. She notes that he's "quite the Roper acolyte". He agrees that things have apparently changed and she says she's just "the prodigal wife brought to heel". At least that's what everyone believes. He asks what brought her around. She says Roper made her an "offer". She doesn't say what, exactly, but probably that he wouldn't kill her if she agreed to play along again and forget everything that happened. Jonathan suggests he just wanted someone who could spy on his girlfriend just as Jed arrives. He tells her to be careful and leaves her to Jed's accusing stare. Jed asks if that's true. Caroline sets her jaw and says the agreement was she did that or he would make it so she never saw her children again. Jed, who is basically in a similar situation, growls that she HATES him.

Joel, wearing some sort of name tag, brushes past Jonathan on his way back inside and mutters "message from London."

It turns out that hotel room was in the same hotel and Jonathan follows Joel to it while pretending he just happens to be going the same direction. Angela hugs him warmly and he says he wasn't expecting her to actually COME HERE. Joel says that was his doing, actually. Jonathan asks who the hell this guy is and Angela introduces them.

Chrissy: Really highlights the amount of trust involved with the spy business because he just followed a guy he didn't know into what could easily have been a trap at the word "London".
Diandra: Well, he did just murder the last guy who tried to trap him, so I guess he's justified in his confidence.

Jonathan shakes Joel's hand and Joel blurts that he thinks Jonathan is playing both sides because there was a leak. Jonathan says that was on THEIR end and he had to kill a guy to try to "patch it". Angela is like 'is that what happened to Corkoran? Huh.' She offers to pull him out of the operation right now if he wants to. He argues that neither of them wants that when they're so close to catching Roper. She says she doesn�t have the resources or authority to run it anymore though. Joel summarizes that his "army" going forward is "a cowboy and a pregnant woman."

Chrissy: Not sure how many black cowboys there were...
Diandra: A lot, actually. Turns out it was a great way for former slaves to make money.
Chrissy: ............was this part of your research for that "Power of the Dog" fanfic?
Diandra: Weirdly, no. Random trivia that came AFTER I had already written that and completely validated it.

Angela says it's now or never because if things go wrong she can't promise she can rescue him. He reminds her that he had nothing to lose when she recruited him. She looks to Joel, who nods, and asks what Jonathan needs from them.

The cook he was friends with still works at the hotel and he frowns at Jonathan in puzzlement as he goes to the kitchen. Jonathan shakes his head at him and loudly says he's looking for a Youssuf. Youssuf is like 'okay, I can pretend I don't know you. Sure.' Jonathan says he heard he has a good recipe for tourli and he wants to ask him about it. Youssuf is like '......the fuck?' but walks with him to a staircase. Once they are sure nobody is around, they hug and babble about how much they've advanced in the world since they last saw each other. (Youssuf is now the head chef and Jonathan is wearing a REALLY expensive looking watch.) Youssuf asks what the hell happened because Jonathan just disappeared overnight. Jonathan dodges the question and asks if Youssuf's brother is still "active" because he needs to talk to him.

Elsewhere, Roper asks Jed if she got him some of those curly slippers when she was out shopping. Which might be mildly racist, but I'm not sure. She says Egyptian men all have tiny feet apparently, so no.

Chrissy: Ahem.
Diandra: Yes, we all know the expression. But as an American who has failed for years to find shoes in her size in France I can verify that this is a very common problem that isn't confined to the middle east OR the male sex.
Emilio: I never had that problem.
Diandra: That's because puberty barely touched you before deciding 'nah, that's good enough.'
Emilio: Interesting way of saying I'm small.
Chrissy: I think the PC term is "fun sized".
Diandra: It is definitely not.
Chrissy: Oh, right. That's just how I refer to a particular part of the male anatomy. Never mind.

Jed notes that she's happy to have Caroline back and asks if she and Sandy can come to Luxor with them. He says no. She just shrugs and asks if he can put the new earrings she bought in the safe. He teases her for thinking all Arabs are thieves. She starts to get defensive and he says no, actually, they ARE, in fact, all thieves. She hovers close enough to see the code he enters as he's locking the safe.

They meet up with Sandy, Caroline and Jonathan sometime later and Roper asks if "Andrew" is feeling lucky before saying they're going to "roll some dice." Joel and one of the bodyguards watch from afar. Sandy asks his wife if he saw Jed talking to anyone and Caroline mutters about Roper being suspicious of her. "She's just a silly girl." Sandy wonders if that's just what she wants them to think. Caroline hisses that she doesn't think like that because that's not her "world". He smarms that his world "pays for your world" and kisses her pursed lips.

They all go to the Luxor casino where Freddie decides to chat with Jonathan at the bar. He asks if Andrew is married or needs him to "sort out a girl" for him. Jonathan splutters that he's fine, thanks. That's...nice? Yeah, let's go with that. Freddie finally plays the 'have we met before' card. Jonathan sort of fumbles a 'nope. Doubt it.' but unless he goes and stands behind the lobby desk at the hotel he's probably safe because people are generally bad at recognizing The Help in the wrong contexts.

And then there's some gambling scenes and I am reminded of why I mentally checked out at some point during "Casino Royale". Apparently Jed uses chips on the roulette table to signal the safe code to Jonathan because he quickly offers to go get Freddie a drink so he can slip away to text it to Angela. Joel offers to go do that part of the mission. Angela argues that a pregnant woman is the perfect cover. He's like 'yeah, it would be if you weren't ACTUALLY a pregnant woman.' She just glares at him and he caves, but insists she at least take his gun. "Bloody hell," she splutters in the direction of his proffered weapon. "Don't be silly, Joel. I'm English."

Chrissy: What is it with you Americans and your gun fetishes anyway?
Diandra: Yeah. Part of me wants to note that they are dealing with ARMS DEALERS and James Bond would definitely bring a weapon, but that is still a very American trait.
Emilio: We all have small feet if you know what I mean.
Diandra: Ahem. Yeah, that might be better connected with the ridiculous trucks on risers with nuts hanging from the back and a gun rack on the roof.
Chrissy: Yeah, whenever one of those passes me I always say "sorry about your penis!"

Joel insists he won't let her leave without it, so she takes it awkwardly and repeats that she will CALL HIM if she has a problem.

Jonathan cracks a pill into Freddie's drink before handing it to him. Which is not a thing guys usually have to worry about, so he probably won't question it even if it does taste funny. Freddie gulps the whole drink down in one swallow.

Angela passes Youssuf outside the door of the suite and he hands her the key. She digs through the safe, removes the document she needs and almost gets out before the security guard enters the room. She hides in the bathroom. He turns on the TV for a couple seconds, turns it off again, grabs some fruit from a bowl and heads for the bathroom. Luckily, this is enough time for Angela to text Joel, so the room phone rings before he can get all the way in the room. He goes to answer and a voice says they have an international package for Roper and they need a signature. The voice doesn't sound at all like Joel's, but we cut to their room to show him on the other end as he hangs up. The guard leaves the room and Angela slinks out shortly after, panting and clutching her abdomen like the stress of that almost induced labor.

Back at the tables, Jonathan tries to coax Freddie to quit while he's not ahead. Freddie is slugging another drink and doing drugs and insists he's FINE. Roper jokes about losing in his own father's casino being "a metaphor for something". Then he turns to Sandy and asks what Caroline said because something is definitely up with Jed. "She's trying too hard." Meanwhile, Jed, over at the bar, mutters to Caroline that he's watching her. Caroline whispers to her to just keep calm. Jonathan grabs a couple champagnes from the bartender and looks at her pointedly. Freddie nearly spills the drinks by hugging him enthusiastically and Jonathan tries to get him to call it a night. Freddie drunkenly chortles that he doesn't want to stop and Roper gets in his face and orders him to go to bed. He backs down and Jonathan drags him off, making apologetic excuses about him having a few too many. Jed watches them leave in alarm and asks Roper if maybe Sandy should be taking him instead. Roper just ignores her, but is still obviously trying to figure out what the deal is with her.

Jonathan drives Freddie back to the hotel and sits him in a chair by the pool. He asks where Freddie's family is. Freddie says this "house" is not for family. It's for "business and pleasure." "No maid," Jonathan asks. Freddie says they only come around during the day.

Chrissy: Yeah, this line of dialogue isn't weird at all.
Diandra: Luckily, he's too drunk AND high to notice.

Jonathan pours him another drink and empties another pill into it while Freddie does more of the drugs from a packet in his coat. While he's drinking, Jonathan, coat now removed, rolls up his sleeves and says he wants to ask Freddie something. He used to have a girlfriend named Sophie Alekan, right? Freddie stares at him vacantly through floating eyeballs and asks how he knows about her. Jonathan is like 'good, you remember her.' "Did you kill her?" Freddie finally places Jonathan's face and identifies him as the night manager. Jonathan is like 'that's not what I asked.' Freddie grumbles that Sophie was a whore so who cares? Jonathan puts him in a chokehold and repeats the question. Freddie yelps that he was there, but he didn't kill her. One of Roper's men did because Roper said they couldn't trust her. Jonathan asks if Roper was there. Freddie non answers that he wanted her to tell them who helped her, but obviously she didn't or this whole thing would have been over several episodes ago. Jonathan keeps choking him until he passes out, then drags him into the pool and holds him under water so it will look like an accident.

Once he dries out or changes or whatever, he returns to the lobby of their hotel and retrieves an envelope from the desk of the new night manager. The manager says yes, it's from the lady in room 2104 and he opens it to show the camera another registration certificate right there. He orders a car.

Later that night, he picks up Youssuf, his brother Achmer and another guy in a van. None of them appear visible when he arrives at a security gate and tells the guard he wants to check on a shipment, showing him Andrew's passport and the certificate. They wave a flashlight around the back of the van to verify that nobody else is in there and let him through.

Chrissy: Not the only one who can do magic tricks.

Inside, he verifies that nobody else is around and lets them out of the trunk.

Meanwhile, Roper hangs back with security while Jed goes to unlock their room. Security says there was no package when he went to check the front desk. Roper orders him to get the names of everybody in the hotel.

Angela stews in her room.

And now that enough time has passed, the van returns and Achmer asks if Jonathan is clear on the plan then. He hands him a number to memorize. Youssuf hangs back while the other guys get out and asks if this is all because of Ms. Alekan. Jonathan is like 'yeah, that's part of it, but.'

Morning. Jed is wide awake when the room service Jonathan had sent to them arrives. She pulls a manila envelope out of the included newspaper and runs to the safe. Except the code no longer works. Roper appears behind her and smarmily asks if she's tried her birthday yet. She starts to explain that she just FOUND this envelope somewhere and he cuts her off with her actual full name that I don't think anyone has used yet: Jemima. Which LeCarre apparently believed to be a very common American name back when he wrote this book and that character as American. He says obviously she let someone break in here and steal from him, but he's still not sure WHO. She just stares, lips trembling. He calls security to come in to the room.

Jonathan uses the bank app to transfer 300 million dollars while the camera zooms in so close that you can probably count his eyelashes.

Roper calmly drinks his morning tea while the security guard repeatedly plunges Jed's head into a full bathtub. Like a psycho. She already has bruises on one arm from him holding her down. He pauses so Roper can bad guy soliloquy that she must care a lot about the person she's protecting. She glares at him. He muses that he's already seen the way she looks at "him" and how close they are.

Chrissy: So you already know who it is and you're just doing this for funsies?
Emilio: I mean, that IS the easiest way to establish that he's evil.
Diandra: Yeah, if you got all the way to episode six and still thought he was secretly the good guy or something then you might be one of those idiots still arguing that Homelander is the protagonist of "The Boys".
Chrissy: We're not even doing superhero shit. How are you managing to bring that up?
Diandra: Sorry.

Back at the home office, Rob calls BlackJack Charlie to discuss the copy of that certificate he sent him. He says when they open those crates tomorrow, they aren't finding farm machinery, are they? Charlie looks stunned and asks what he wants. Rob tells him to stay away from the whole thing in Egypt. Don't answer any calls from Roper. Charlie asks what he gets in exchange like he only works for bribes ever. Rob snorts "you get to survive."

"Andrew" meets Roper and Sandy in the lobby. Sandy is fretting over the fact that they're supposed to be meeting Freddie too, but he can't get him on the phone. Roper asks if Andrew "put him to bed" and Jonathan confirms that he left him "sleeping like a baby."

Emilio: Technically correct, just omitting the part where he was under water at the time.

The car arrives at the same gate and a guard greets Roper and assures him that everything is loaded and ready. After they pull up to the crates, Sandy tells Roper that he just finished going through all the names in the hotel registry and they all check out except two in room 2104. Roper tells him to have security take care of it. Sandy calls the guy still standing guard over a bruised and bloodied (but still alive) Jed and tells him to deliver "room service" to that room. The guard orders Jed to get up so they can clean her up a little because she has to go with him.

Meanwhile, Roper shows "Andrew" the "hospitality area", which is just an abandoned little building that is probably just far enough away that nobody can hear screams coming from it. He takes his phone, which Jonathan just hands over like he has no idea what this is all about. Roper pauses for a moment, then punches him in the gut. The other guard manhandles him into a chair and searches him for weapons and wires, for some reason putting his clothes back in order after he's finished. Roper rambles that he doesn't often trust people, but he made a special exception for Jonathan.

Chrissy: Which says more for your intelligence, honestly.
Diandra: Oh, so now YOU can point out that he's an idiot for not catching on sooner?

Jonathan still tries to play stupid, claiming to not know what this is about. Roper deduces that Corky caught on and Jonathan killed him to "save your own skin" right? He rambles about Corky being a good, loyal man and Jonathan is going to die much more gruesomely for killing him. But first he needs to know who Jonathan is working with. Realizing he is still relatively clueless, Jonathan still claims innocence. Roper says he knows he's at least working with Jed on this betrayal thing and shows him a picture of her bloodied face. Jonathan lunges at him and the guard has to tackle him back into the chair. He goes to punch him, but Roper stops him because they "need that pretty face for the buyers."

Chrissy: So I know you didn't like me comparing this to your prostitution fic, but...
Diandra: [sprays Chrissy]

Roper promises nothing else will happen to Jed if he cooperates. Then he pauses and asks if he killed Freddie then. Jonathan says nothing, but looks around very shiftily. Cars drive by outside and Roper leans in and smarms that he doesn't particularly care what happens to Jed anymore, so whether or not she makes it out of this is entirely dependent on what Jonathan does now.

Jed is being marched out of the room by the security guard, which is faintly ridiculous looking because she's at least a head taller than him.

Angela calls Joel, who is sitting at the edge of the loading docks watching through a telephoto lens as Jonathan and the other guard emerge. He sees the guard holding a gun on Jonathan and yelps for Angela to get out because their cover has been blown. Angela doesn't move and just asks if Jonathan is okay. Joel screams at her to GET THE HELL OUT. The guard holding Jed hostage arrives at her door just then though. She grabs her gun. The guard kicks the door in and shoves through with a whimpering Jed as human shield. Jed spots Angela around a corner in the opposite direction the guard is checking and Angela mouths at her to move. She does - as far as she can - and Angela jumps into the hall and shoots him in the leg. As he's screaming on the ground, she kicks the gun away and yells at Jed to run, following shortly behind.

Chrissy: I suppose it's worth noting that she did, in fact, need the gun.
Diandra: Yeah, like I said: James Bond definitely has one, so this is not an unreasonable American thing.
Emilio: In this case.

Roper et al arrive back at the shipping containers where Kouyami is waiting. They have a little small talk and Kouyami smarms that this is the "beginning of a new trade route." Mr. Bargati steps beside him and greets "Andrew". "Jasper" (remember him?) opens the back of one of the trucks to show the boxes of weaponry that Roper says are ready to go wherever Kouyami directs. Bargati asks where Freddie is. Roper bluffs that he was a "bad boy" last night and he's "paying the price this morning."

Chrissy: Wow. I have used that exact phrase on more than one occasion.
Emilio: How's your boyfriend by the way?
Chrissy: Sore this morning. Might have trouble sitting for a while. Maybe you should ease up over there.
Diandra: [pauses spraying own mouth repeatedly] Nope.

Roper says they can process the second half of the payment now. Kouyami agrees and Bargati goes to log in to the bank account on the open laptop. Jonathan just stares murderously at Roper. Sandy calls for the Tradepass authorization and they hand the phone to Jonathan, who very slowly does the eye scan, then opens the phone app and types in the code Achmer gave him. The trucks stop moving in the distance and Roper asks Jasper what's going on. He doesn't know anything. The drivers all simultaneously get out of the trucks and run for the hills. Jonathan presses the button to connect the call while Roper is figuring out he's doing something and snatches the phone from his hand. The trucks all explode. Once the ear ringing sound effect clears from the soundtrack, Kouyami demands his money back. Roper doesn't respond as he's too busy glowering at the back of Jonathan's head, so Kouyami orders Sandy to reverse the transfer. Sandy opens the account to find a big goose egg and asks "Dicky" what happened to the FIRST payment. "Oh, you beauty," Roper mutters in Jonathan's direction.

Chrissy: Well, that's something we can agree on at least.

Roper goes to try his luck with the laptop while Bargatti tries to pull Kouyami away from the scene that SOME authority is gonna come check out soon. Kouyami says if he doesn't get his payment there will be CONSEQUENCES and Roper snaps at him for threatening him and screams that this was the work of Arab militia. "Little brown rats, like the rest of you!" Kouyami calmly stares him down like 'yes, this is the moment you signed your own death warrant, imperialist scum.' Sandy herds everyone away and says they can meet at the hotel in an hour and they will handle this problem because it wouldn't be the first time. Roper grabs the first gun he can get his hands on and aims it at Jonathan's head. Jonathan says he'll get the money back the minute he lets Jed go. Roper sneers that he'd really "buy that girl" for 300 million. Jonathan just stares him down. Again. Some more. Roper backs off and orders them all to get back to the hotel.

At the hotel, Roper follows Jonathan to the room, outside of which he reminds him of the terms. Jonathan transfers the money and he lets Jed go. In that order. Except of course Angela is sitting waiting in the living room. She calmly introduces herself to Roper, who asks where the hell Jed is. Angela tells Jonathan over his shoulder that she is downstairs. Jonathan snots a parting "Dicky" at Roper before leaving. Roper dials a number and asks who Angela is in the "grand scheme of things" here while he's waiting for it to connect. Angela smart asses that she lives in Bermondsey if that's what he means. "This is London," a voice on the other end of the line says. Roper orders to speak to Halo.

We see Blackjack Charlie sitting at his desk staring into space while the speaker on the other side tells Roper that there is nobody by that name here and hangs up.

Angela mocks the fact that all his contacts are failing him now. "Do you feel quite discombobulated?" Roper asks how long she practiced that in front of a mirror. "Since the sports day in Kurdistan." She vowed to one day get kids like that more "protection" and with Jonathan's help she finally did it. He snorts that he's never killed anybody. In fact he hasn't committed any crimes of any kind, he just works for a company that is owned and operated by her little minion. He smarms that he'll probably just get a fifty pound fine. She sneers and says he is right about government lawyers being useless. She would know, seeing as she used to be one. Joel comes in the room at that moment, flanked by local police, who he announces are here to arrest Roper for "contravention of Egyptian import rules and conspiracy to murder." Roper blusters about how Mr. Hamid senior would be very interested in knowing who these men are, exactly, seeing as he's a good friend of his. They ignore him and slap handcuffs on while he tells Angela that by this time tomorrow he will probably be back in Mallorca drinking Scotch on his yacht. She agrees that that's possible, but hopefully unlikely. "Good luck with the baby," he says threateningly before he's pushed out the door.

Other officers are arresting Sandy and the bodyguards. Jonathan meets Roper near the van they're all being shoved into. Roper asks why he did it. Jonathan non answers a repeat of the "commit" and "make a decision" lines from earlier in this episode. Roper winks, says he'll see him in a few days and gets in the van.

Chaos erupts as Kouyami and Bargati arrive, yelling. A couple officers jump to attention. Angela and Joel have no idea what's going on, but Jonathan just stares knowingly as a couple thugs are shoved into the van. Joel realizes something is off and starts moving in that direction, but Angela grabs his arm. The door slams shut on Roper yelping protests and the van takes off. Angela smiles at Jonathan and tells Joel Roper deserves whatever is coming to him now.

In the van, Roper realizes Kouyami and Bargati have climbed into the front seat and screams.

And then we get a brief scene of Jonathan and Jed naked in bed together just for shits and giggles, followed by them sitting on a settee discussing the flight she's apparently about to get on. She says they'll "all be there" to greet her and wonders if "he" will even recognize her now. Jonathan assures her a son always knows his mother and promises to visit her "soon".

He walks her to the car and tells her to "be good".

Chrissy: [snort] Where's the fun in that?

They kiss and watch each other through the open window as the car drives her away. The current night manager steps up and asks if there's anything he can get Jonathan. "Nothing at all," Jonathan says as the camera backs away and we go to credits.

Emilio: How are we doing over there? You okay to drive?
Diandra: [somewhat glassy eyed] Where? This is my house.
Emilio: Good, she's not TOO drunk.
Diandra: ...pretty sure...it IS my house, right? Oh, is the episode over already?
Chrissy: You were saying?
Emilio: Oh boy.

So. A couple things happened between the time we sat down to record this recapping session and the time I finished typing it up. The first is that we switched horses in the presidential race mid-stream and I started getting flashbacks of 2016, which caused me to put everything on hold because I just couldn't function for about a week while I mourned what looked like the inevitable death of democracy as the left embraced a delusional fantasy wherein the last eight years never happened. I'm not sure I'm fully recovered yet, but I'm pining all my hopes on the chance that maybe the majority of voters now hate Trump more than they hate women. It isn't much, but it's all that's keeping me from fleeing the country NOW before it all goes to shit.

The second, less depressing thing, was the one-two punch of "Deadpool 3" coming out (along with immediate spoilers because fans no longer give a shit apparently) and Marvel announcing the new direction of the next couple Avengers movies that were originally going to have Kang as the Big Bad and now reads like they fed all the fan predictions into an AI.

Fans who don't like the "woke" nature of all post-"Endgame" movies: "They should bring back Iron Man!"
Fans who are clearly joking: "Hey, if they want to recast Kang and/or Black Panther...[picture of Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder"
Fans who probably know the actual comics: "They should scrap the Kang thing altogether and switch to Doctor Doom!"
AI output: switch to Doctor Doom, played by Robert Downey Jr.

My initial impression was that this was some sort of fanwank deepfake nonsense until I saw the actual video from Comic Con. A couple days later, Chrissy, Emilio and I had the following conversation.

Chrissy: So I assume we all saw the announcement?
Diandra: Yeah, I checked in, like, three places to make sure it wasn't just an AI fake from a fan or, like, a REALLY late April Fool's joke.
Emilio: I think they should have waited to reveal it in the post credits of the next movie or something.
Diandra: The second RDJ was spotted on a Marvel set they would have started rumors about Iron Man coming back and been pissed when they found out what was really happening.
Emilio: Yeah, probably. So back to Marvel for the next recap? Chrissy: What are we on? Did we ever do Secret Invasion? [five minutes later] D? You there?
Diandra: Yeah, I'm just...questioning all my life choices. You know, considering I just got into an argument with a particularly stupid MCU fan who insists Doom is actually Tony's secret older brother who somehow looks exactly like him because he misread a moment in Endgame and is completely lacking in critical thinking skills...I think I might need to take a break from fandom.
Chrissy: Or you could take a break from recaps and work on one of those stories you keep talking about. [five minutes later] D?