Well, we’re about done with this series of posts. Once again, keep the following in mind:
The point of listing these productions here is that they are all, in some respect or another, as noted in the annotations, “educational”, i.e., you can, if you pay attention, learn something from them.
So keep this in mind as you review the list: THIS IS NOT A MOVIE/TV REVIEW!
I want to remind everyone that all of these movies and TV shows except where otherwise noted are available for free download from the Movie Paradise Web site.
Note that the site uses the Rapidgator file sharing service to provide access to the movies. It is advisable to subscribe to Rapidshare – a monthly subscription is available for $17.99 – the price has gone up by $3 recently – if you want acceptable download speed, otherwise the free download will be very slow. It all depends on how impatient you are.
Some TV shows listed are not available there, but can be obtained via Amazon. Most of the movies previously mentioned in this series can be obtained there as well for the listed prices.
Now we turn from movies to television series of note…
First up is a classic cult hit:
The Prisoner (1967–1968) (Note: NOT the remake mini-series from 2009 which was, frankly, crap.)
The Prisoner is a 1967 British television series about an unnamed British intelligence agent who is abducted and imprisoned in a mysterious coastal village, where his captors designate him as Number Six and try to find out why he abruptly resigned from his job. Patrick McGoohan played the lead role as Number Six. The series was created by McGoohan with possible contributions from George Markstein. Episode plots have elements of science fiction, allegory, and psychological drama, as well as spy fiction…
A major theme of the series is individualism, as represented by Number Six, versus collectivism, as represented by Number Two and the others in the Village. McGoohan stated that the series aimed to demonstrate a balance between the two points.
There’s no need to go into great detail or analysis on this show; that’s been done a million times. Wikipedia has an entire page devoted to its impact on pop culture in comics, films, TV series, music, etc.
One might give a warning, however. Several of the later episodes in the series are quite allegorical and somewhat difficult to follow. One is set entirely outside the “Village” in what appears to be an American West setting with gun fighters. Nonetheless the earlier episodes and the final episode are important for the representation of the methods of social and state oppression and the relations between an independent individual, brilliantly portrayed by McGoohan who was an excellent actor, and the state.
Next up is a series which was mostly uninteresting – except for its pilot episode…
The Lone Gunmen (2001) - Pilot Episode
The Lone Gunmen is an American conspiracy fiction thriller drama television series created by Chris Carter, Vince Gilligan, John Shiban, and Frank Spotnitz. The program originally aired from March 4, 2001, to June 1, 2001, on Fox. It is a spin-off of Carter's science fiction television series The X-Files and as such is part of The X-Files franchise, starring several of the show's characters. Despite positive reviews, its ratings dropped, and the show was canceled after thirteen episodes. The last episode ended on a cliffhanger which was partially resolved in a ninth season episode of The X-Files entitled "Jump the Shark".
The series revolves around the titular trio The Lone Gunmen: Melvin Frohike, John Fitzgerald Byers, and Richard Langly, private investigators who run a conspiracy theory magazine. They had often helped FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files.
Series overview
Whereas The X-Files deals mainly with paranormal events and conspiracies to cover up extraterrestrial contact, The Lone Gunmen draws on secret activity of other kinds, such as government-sponsored terrorism, the development of a surveillance society, corporate crime, and escaped Nazis. The show has a light mood and elements of slapstick comedy. The trio are alternately aided and hindered by a mysterious thief named Yves Adele Harlow.
And here is the kicker – the pilot episode:
In the pilot episode, which aired March 4, 2001 (six months prior to the September 11 attacks), rogue members of the U.S. government remotely hijack an airliner departing Boston, planning to crash it into the World Trade Center, and let anti-American terrorist groups take credit, to gain support for a profitable new war following the Cold War. The heroes ultimately override the controls, foiling the plot.
HELLOOO!
And then we have Condaleeza Rice:
Transcript of Rice's 9/11 commission statement
Wednesday, May 19, 2004 Posted: 12:25 AM EDT (0425 GMT)
And I said, at one point, that this was a historical memo, that it was -- it was not based on new threat information. And I said, "No one could have imagined them taking a plane, slamming it into the Pentagon" -- I'm paraphrasing now -- "into the World Trade Center, using planes as a missile."
As I said to you in the private session, I probably should have said, "I could not have imagined," because within two days, people started to come to me and say, "Oh, but there were these reports in 1998 and 1999. The intelligence community did look at information about this."
To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Chairman, this kind of analysis about the use of airplanes as weapons actually was never briefed to us.
Well, Condaleeza, yes, someone not only imagined it – and the “conspiracy theories” to follow – but actually aired it on national TV six months before the actual attacks.
Fail.
As for the rest of the series, it was mostly mixed comedy-drama and most of the plots weren’t particularly good, which is why the show got canceled. Really the only interesting character on the show was the elusive hacker “Yves Adele Harlow” – actually an anagram for “Lee Harvey Oswald”, revealed in the pilot episode – played by Zuleikha Robinson. She was a mercenary operative and hacker who was shown wielding two Uzi submachine guns at a gun range in the pilot episode. My kind of girl…
Now we come to what I consider to be a seven-season primer in espionage tradecraft:
Burn Notice (2007–2013)
Burn Notice is an American espionage television series created by Matt Nix, which originally aired on the USA Network for a total of seven seasons from June 28, 2007, to September 12, 2013. The show stars Jeffrey Donovan, Gabrielle Anwar, Bruce Campbell, Sharon Gless, and (beginning in season four) Coby Bell.
The premise of the show focuses on Michael Westen (Donovan), a former spy who was fired and cut off from the legitimate world by the agency he used to work for. Trapped in Miami with few resources, Westen takes jobs as an unlicensed private investigator while unraveling the mystery of who burned him and why.
The series received generally positive reviews from critics for the show's pace, humor, dialogue, and combination of espionage and crime drama presented in an irreverent tone. In 2010, the series was the #2 cable scripted series by viewership with 6.7 million viewers, behind Royal Pains. In addition to the television episodes, the show has a prequel movie and tie-in novels.
The title of the series refers to the burn notices issued by intelligence agencies to discredit or announce the dismissal of agents or sources who are considered to have become unreliable. When spies are burned, their connection to an espionage organization is terminated, leaving them without access to cash or influence. According to the narration during the opening credits, the burned spy has no prior work history, no money, no support network – in essence, no identity. The television series uses second-person narrative and frequent voice-overs providing exposition from the viewpoint of covert operations agent Michael Westen, played by Donovan. The voice-over commentary is in the form of tips for fledgling agents as if for a training or orientation film.
That last sentence is what makes this show so valuable. The Westen character runs into all sorts of situations and threats and deals with them with a combination of training, skills, and improvised “expedient” solutions including weapons, explosives, bugging and breaching devices. The list of the latter is too long to cover. I don’t think there has ever been a spy movies or TV show which was as detailed in showing how a spy might deal with a situation. And almost all of it was not the “over-the-top” stuff of a James Bond or Mission Impossible film, but grounded in real-life, available-in-the-local-hardware-store resources. Of course, they never got so detailed as to fully explain how to make “home-made C4” explosives in your kitchen; they just showed doing it. But hey, you can download or buy books off the Internet to get the details:
Homemade Semtex. C4-s ugly sisters Palladin press, 1991 Lecker S 🔍
The Burn Notice Wiki at Fandom.com has a page on Westen:
His “Skills and Talents” paragraph is enlightening and could serve as a “curriculum” of sorts:
Michael is highly skilled and extremely clever, displaying his abilities by quickly thinking on his feet, improvising electronic devices from commonly available commercial equipment (e.g. radios, cell phones etc.) and using ordinary items (ranging from duct tape to cake frosting) in highly unorthodox ways in order to complete a job.
Michael also became an expert martial artist, with around 30 years of training and experience in karate. Westen has also demonstrated proficiency in the Russian martial art Sambo. He has received special operations training, has combat experience on 5 continents, and remarked that he holds "a rating with any weapon that shoots a bullet or holds an edge."
Michael speaks several different accents that help him act out different persona, including Southern accent, Boston accent, Irish accent, New Jersey, and etc. He has shown proficiency and fluency in Russian, Farsi, and Arabic. Throughout the series, Michael has, ironically, shown little to no knowledge of Spanish, but by the time he was sent to the Dominican Republic, he had learned to fluently speak Spanish.
Michael has profound knowledge in the art of war that helps him create strategies and tactics in various combat situations such as seizing, breaching, defending, high-speed chasing, and capturing enemies. Almost more than half of his preformed plans often have to be altered due to unknown factors such as intrusion of new enemy personnel, reduction of collateral damage, or entering unfavorable terrains. He has demonstrated incredible improvisation skills that often turned the tides of the battles.
Michael often uses psychological warfare as the key component of his missions. He often prioritizes finding out enemy weaknesses and focuses on intimidating the enemies into hiding or deceives them until they are forced to fight the local law enforcement, rival enemies, or each other. Thus he is not an unstoppable juggernaut who can take down an army on his own but more of a virus who will break his adversaries from within systematically with wit, knowledge, and unbreakable conviction to uphold justice. To orchestrate such plans, he is aware of the behaviors, structures, and rules of various types of criminals such as local drug lords and international arms dealers as well as the those of law enforcement agencies and other clandestine services such as the police, FBI, and NSA. He has also studied interrogation tactics that are effective without the use of brutal coercion.
Though not on par with a medical professional, Michael has sufficient knowledge of the human body to apply the emergency treatment on the field and gauge the physiological changes of operatives in calmer situations such as stake-outs to intense firefights.
In addition to his trade-craft, Michael has also studied civilian life and behaviors such as the inner workings of nightclubs. His knowledge of banking and finance has proven pivotal to his missions.
Perhaps his most important skill is his ability to blend in and lie by assuming different identities which have helped him infiltrate criminal organizations located in both foreign and domestic.
What was more important was the depiction of how to run a con, how to support a “legend” (an alternate identity) on the ground, and the like – the psychological and social issues of being a spy.
Highly recommended.
Leverage (2008–2012) and Leverage: Redemption (2021-2023)
Wikipedia Synopsis:
Leverage is an American action crime drama television series, which aired on TNT from December 7, 2008, to December 25, 2012. The series was produced by Electric Entertainment, a production company of executive producer and director Dean Devlin. Leverage follows a five-person team: a thief, a grifter, a hacker, and a retrieval specialist, led by former insurance investigator Nathan Ford, who use their skills to carry out heists to fight corporate and governmental injustices inflicted on ordinary citizens…
A 16-episode revival titled Leverage: Redemption began shooting in early August 2020 in New Orleans, Louisiana, with most cast members returning. It was released on IMDb TV in July 2021 with a second season airing in 2022–23.
This is one of those shows which mix comedy and drama effectively, with characters who are instantly engaging. Although most of the actors – with the exception of Timothy Hutton – were unknown to me at the time, they quickly became favorites and I’m always pleased when I see them in later roles.
The lead characters include:
Timothy Hutton as Nathan "Nate" Ford, called "The Mastermind" or, in the opening credits of later seasons, "The Brain": A former insurance fraud investigator for IYS Insurance, operated by Ian Blackpoole, and the team's mastermind.
Gina Bellman as Sophie Devereaux, "The Grifter": An accomplished British grifter with a taste for art theft and a desire to become a legitimate actress. Multi-lingual and particularly adept at the use of accents, Sophie is seen to portray many characters in various cons, usually making direct contact with marks to draw them into the con. Comically, her attempts to make a career as an actress lead to nothing but failure, as she proves woefully untalented and over-the-top onstage. Only during a con, when she can disappear effortlessly into a character, can she actually act well, ironically, if she is pretending to be an actress. (As Nate phrases it, "She can act...when it's an act.")
As an aside, Bellman is one the sultriest actresses around. Her slow low-pitched drawl is instantly arousing. But I digress…
Aldis Hodge as Alec Hardison, "The Hacker": The team's computer specialist, gadgeteer and hacker. He is a self-proclaimed geek and science fiction fan, with an easygoing manner and a dry, unusual wit. Hardison was raised by a foster parent, an older woman he refers to as "Nana", and his first large-scale crimes involved sticking the country of Iceland with Nana's medical bills. Hardison can hack into most forms of electronics, and he is rarely caught. Hardison designed and assembled the computer and video systems in the team's headquarters, and is responsible for the two-way earpieces ("earbuds") used by the team on each episode.
Christian Kane as Eliot Spencer, "The Hitter": The team's highly skilled martial artist, weapons expert, and self-described "retrieval specialist". A former black ops soldier, his role in cons is often to play supporting roles while protecting the team, often leading him into hand-to-hand combat that draws on his considerable fighting skills. Eliot was once a hitman for crime financier Damien Moreau, and he is well known as a legendary hired gun, assassin and bodyguard before he switched careers and went into business as a thief. Despite being a skilled marksman, Elliot has an intense dislike for firearms, and uses them only when no other options are available to him. While merely presumed as the muscleman, he demonstrates a subtle intelligence in conversation, often taking advantage of the underestimations of others and later in the series performing as a grifter along with Sophie.
Beth Riesgraf as Parker, "The Thief": An expert thief, cat-burglar, pickpocket and safe-cracker, memorably referred to (by Eliot) as "20 pounds of crazy in a five-pound bag". The product of an abusive childhood spent in several foster homes, Parker is awkward around other people and has a terrible understanding of social norms. Over the course of the series, she comes to regard the other members of the team as her family, and for the first time in her life, trusts someone other than herself. Sophie and other members of the team have attempted to improve gaps in her social skills on numerous occasions, usually with limited success.
A recurring character which I view as worthy of mention as well is:
Mark Sheppard as James Sterling, Nate's colleague and rival at IYS, and later an Interpol agent. Sterling learns of Nate's new life and begins to follow him, first thinking that Nate wants his job at IYS and later to bring the team to justice. Nate soon realizes Sterling is on his trail, but foils his efforts to dismantle the team's cons. In time, a theft leads Sterling to work with the team on a con, the outcome of which leads to his being offered a position with Interpol. The two remain friendly adversaries, though the team's other members all hate him passionately (mostly Eliot), and Sterling has, on several occasions, allowed Nate to continue to remain untouched in exchange for Nate and his group helping him catch bad guys—for which he takes full credit.
The con games run on this show are clearly over-the-top and rely on the usual tropes of ignoring the practical difficulties of obtaining all the props used by the con artists, the absurdity of many of the con concepts, and the like. Nonetheless, the show works in illustrating “thinking outside the box” and how cons work in principle. In that, it is much like the equivalent British show “Hustle”, which ran in the UK for eight seasons.
Hustle is a British television crime drama series starring Adrian Lester, Robert Glenister and Robert Vaughn. Created by Tony Jordan, it was produced by Kudos Film and Television, and broadcast on BBC One in the United Kingdom. The show premiered on 24 February 2004, and ran for eight series, with its final episode aired on 17 February 2012. The show's premise is on a group of con artists who specialise in "long cons" – extended forms of deceptive frauds that require greater commitment, but offer higher rewards than simple confidence tricks. The show's most notable qualities are plots that involve behind-the-scenes action that the viewers are unaware of until near the end of an episode, along with fantasy scenes and occasional breaches of the fourth wall by the main actors.
As with Hustle, Wikipedia describes Leverage’s usual episode setup:
Most episodes follow a set story structure: After meeting the client, the Leverage team researches the villains to find a weakness to exploit. Each con, either as originally planned or as complications develop, typically requires the specialized skills of all the members of the group. Towards the end of each episode, the villains seem to get the upper hand, only to be outwitted by the team. Because most of the narrative has seemed to follow the team's point of view, the audience is momentarily uninformed as to exactly how they have succeeded in their con. A flashback then reveals how a seeming complication was either anticipated by the Leverage team, or used in a clever improvisation. These flashbacks, which are featured in most episodes, sometimes reveal only in retrospect that an earlier scene was actually a clue to the Leverage team's plan. More often, the flashbacks reveal new information to which the viewer has not been privy. This formula is followed by every episode in seasons one, two, and three. With the exception of the final season, each season ends with a two-part finale which involves a two-part, multi-stage con designed to bring down a major adversary, such as an international crime financier in season three, with an ending that advances the team's story into the new season.
It is the behind-the-scenes action that most cleverly illustrates out-of-the-box and deceptive thinking. Both shows also demonstrate how to reinforce an alternate identity and deal with complications, also characteristic of the Burn Notice series.
You can learn a lot from such shows, if you can get past the obvious over-dramatizations and occasional absurd plot devices.
Next up, we’re back to spies…
Nikita (2010–2013)
Nikita is an American action thriller drama television series that aired on The CW from September 9, 2010, to December 27, 2013, in the United States. The series is an adaptation of Luc Besson's French film La Femme Nikita, the second such adaptation after the 1997 TV series La Femme Nikita.
The series focuses on Nikita (Maggie Q), a woman who escaped from a secret government-funded organization known as "Division" and, after a three-year hiding period, is back to bring down the organization. The main cast in various seasons features Q, Lyndsy Fonseca, Shane West, Aaron Stanford, Melinda Clarke, Xander Berkeley, Noah Bean, Tiffany Hines, Ashton Holmes, Dillon Casey, and Devon Sawa.
As noted, this is the second TV adaption of the original French film (which was also remade in 1993 in the US as “Point of No Return”, both of which I have seen). I haven’t seen but a couple episodes of the first TV adaptation as yet, but it is widely regarded as superior to this version. However, I enjoyed this version very much and it is my favorite spy series next to Burn Notice (or perhaps equal).
The Wikipedia description of the premise:
The series focuses on Nikita Mears, a woman who escaped from a secret U.S. government-funded organization known as Division, and after spending three years in hiding, is back to bring Division down. Division, created and supervised by an organization called Oversight, is responsible for black operations including espionage, sabotage, and assassination. Under the leadership of its first director and founding member, Percival "Percy" Rose, Division has gone rogue and performs under-the-table murder-for-hire. To protect himself, Percy has created a series of 'black boxes', hard drives containing every job Division has ever done, as leverage to prevent Oversight from removing him and/or ending Division. Percy's black boxes are hidden in secret locations around the world, under the protection of Guardians, high-ranking Division agents.
Division fills its ranks primarily by recruiting young people with troubled backgrounds, often directly from prison. Division fakes the recruits' deaths, erases all evidence of their past lives, and molds them into efficient spies and assassins. The recruits generally do not have the freedom to leave the agency. Recruits may be "cancelled" (killed) if their progress is deemed unsatisfactory, and to this end, Division implants the recruits with tracking devices and kill chips.
The show’s main characters are:
Maggie Q as Nikita Mears: The show's central protagonist and titular character, Nikita is a spy and assassin who has vowed to destroy the secret agency that trained her: Division. She is the mentor and close confidant of Alex, and she is a former protege of Amanda. She gains close ties with majority of the people she works with, such as Michael - who eventually becomes her love interest - Seymour Birkhoff, Owen Elliot and Ryan Fletcher.
Q by the way is another smokin’ hot sultry actress with martial arts skills courtesy of training with Jackie Chan’s stunt team:
Shane West as Michael Bishop: An ex-Division agent who fell in love with Nikita and joined forces with her to destroy his former employers.
Lyndsy Fonseca as Alexandra "Alex" Udinov: The young woman Nikita rescued the night Division killed her family. She trained to destroy Division, and she also seeks revenge against Division for the massacre of her family. She is Amanda's former protege and Nikita's very close friend.
Aaron Stanford as Seymour Birkhoff/Lionel Peller: A computer genius, hacker, and nonconformist. Former employee of Division until he sided with Nikita in order to bring order to the underworld of black ops and corrupted crimes.
Melinda Clarke as Helen "Amanda" Collins: The show's main antagonist in the third and fourth season, Amanda is a master manipulator, interrogator, and psychologist. She is also a former head of Division as well as an enemy and former mentor of Nikita and Alex.
Xander Berkeley as Percival "Percy" Rose: The show's main antagonist in the first and second season, Percy is the former head of Division who involves his government access with black market crimes and assassination of powerful people around the world.
There a slew of interesting characters on this show, well-acted by all of the cast. The most interesting characters, aside from Nikita herself, are Percy, Amanda and Birkhoff.
Percy, masterfully portrayed by Xander Berkeley, a long-time character actor, is a brilliant but ruthless administrator who has turned a “black ops” government agency into his personal “assassination bureau” and stepping stone to power, looking first to become a member of the powerful cabal overseeing Division, and later to supercede that cabal and join an even larger cabal. This is the character’s most useful concept for us: the notion of “turtles all the way down” as a description of the nested interactions of the world’s “powers that be” and how finance, corporations and governments work together to oppress the rest of us.
He has one line in the series that sums up this perception:
People want to believe that God has a plan for them. They don’t want to hear that anyone else does.
Amanda, portrayed by yet another ultra-sultry actress, Melinda Clarke, is an example of the malevolent psychologist and brainwasher, representing the dark side of the psychiatry profession which is often a cover for the desire to seek power over others by manipulating the cognition and emotions of society.
Birkhoff, on the other hand, is the exact opposite of the previous two characters: he is the irreverent criminal hacker, rich from his previous criminal hacking exploits until coerced into working for Division, with a variety of hidden lairs, his own high-tech combat drones, and a bad attitude.
What can we learn from this show? Well, not as much as from Burn Notice in terms of actual reality-based methods. This is more the over-the-top spy show. But as an illustration of how one well-trained individual can wreak havoc against the PTB, it’s a motivational masterpiece. Mostly, though, it’s an “attitude trainer.”
Person of Interest (2011–2016)
Person of Interest is an American science fiction crime drama television series that aired on CBS from September 22, 2011, to June 21, 2016, with its five seasons consisting of 103 episodes. The series was created by Jonathan Nolan; executive producers were Nolan, J. J. Abrams, Bryan Burk, Greg Plageman, Denise Thé, and Chris Fisher.
The series centers on a mysterious reclusive billionaire computer programmer, Harold Finch (Michael Emerson), who has developed a computer program for the federal government known as "the Machine" that is capable of collating all sources of information to predict terrorist acts and to identify people planning them. The series raises an array of moral issues, from questions of privacy and "the greater good", the concept of justifiable homicide, and problems caused by working with limited information programs.
Katharine Trendacosta of Gizmodo noted that by the end of the series in 2016, Person of Interest had been transformed from a "crime-fighting show" with an entertaining plot device into "one of the best science-fiction series ever broadcast".
I agree with that assessment. Although initially, in the beginning of season one, I was somewhat disappointed that the show appeared to be another “crime of the week” procedural drama, albeit with a sci-fi twist in the use of artificial intelligence, by the end of season one it was clear that the show was much more.
The main characters were all engaging and well-acted by experienced character actors. The most important four are:
Jim Caviezel as John Reese: a former United States Army Special Forces soldier and later a CIA SAD/SOG operative in the Special Activities Division
Michael Emerson as Harold Finch: a reclusive, security-conscious, and intensely private billionaire software engineer. His real name is unknown and he has many aliases (most commonly Harold Wren), using various species of birds as the last name.
Amy Acker as Root, a.k.a. Samantha Groves (seasons 3–5; guest season 1; recurring season 2): a genius hacker obsessed with the Machine. Root also has a keen interest in its creator, Finch.
Sarah Shahi as Sameen Shaw (seasons 3–5; recurring season 2): a former United States Marine and later a US Army ISA operative/assassin who was working for Northern Lights. Shaw unknowingly deals with the "relevant" numbers generated by the Machine.
And of course, there are the two AIs as well, notable in that this show was well in advance of the present “AI boom”:
The Machine is an artificially intelligent system, created at the request of the U.S. government, to sift through the data collected by NSA mass surveillance. It is able to accurately predict premeditated lethal crime by analyzing the data from all surveillance cameras and electronic communications worldwide which are fed to it by arrangement with the NSA.
Samaritan: Initially developed by Arthur Claypool (a former MIT classmate of Finch's and Ingram's) at the NSA, Samaritan was the result of a second project that was terminated by Congress when the Machine was developed first. Unlike the Machine, Samaritan is designed as a more open system rather than a black box, lacking the precautionary restrictions Finch had built into the Machine, and can be directed at specific targets.
Root in particular is a fascinating character who has a very flexible, almost non-existent, moral code. She operates almost entirely out of self-interest but is willing to work with and protect members of her team when she has one. Her motivations are primarily intellectual; she wants to free the “Machine” AI. Previously she used her hacking skills to run her own criminal enterprise as an assassin for hire. Working with the Machine, she is almost fearless in firearms combat, able to take out six Russian hit squad members with two handguns.
The Person of Interest Wiki has a page on her:
In one episode, she is quoted as saying:
One day, I realized all the dumb, selfish things people do... it's not our fault. No one designed us. We're just an accident, Harold. We're just bad code. But the thing you built... It's perfect. Rational. Beautiful. By design.
There are a lot of other interesting quotes from the show as well, such as this one:
John Reese: Never understood why people put all their information on those [social networking] sites. Used to make our job a lot easier in the CIA.
Harold Finch: Of course. That's why I created them.
John Reese: You're telling me you invented online social networking, Finch?
Harold Finch: The Machine needed more information. People's social graph, their associations. The government had been trying to figure it out for years. Turns out most people were happy to volunteer it. Business wound up being quite profitable, too.
— "Identity Crisis"
Or this one:
John Greer: Don't you recognize an idealist when you see one?
Control: An idealist who wants to make the world a better place by murdering a few hundred people?
John Greer: Oh no. The world has only ever been made a better place by violence. You know that. Every leader who ever preached peace did so guarded by armed men. One thing we can agree on: Kill a few people at random, nothing changes. But kill the right people...
— "YHWH"
This show has lots to learn from: conspiracies, spy tricks, surveillance avoidance, cons, attitude adjustment, and more.
Revenge (2011–2015) (which I’m binge re-watching as I edit this post)
Revenge is an American drama television series created by Mike Kelley and starring Madeleine Stowe and Emily VanCamp, which debuted on September 21, 2011, on ABC. The plot is inspired by Alexandre Dumas' 1844 novel The Count of Monte Cristo…
A young woman poses as a new resident returns to the affluent beachside town, the Hamptons, in order to seek revenge at the families that wronged her 20 years earlier, but in the midst of her plan, she uncovers secrets, lies, and affairs, and finds herself in multiple dangerous situations that could tear the beachside town apart.
That synopsis doesn’t remotely do the show justice. It makes the show sound like a prime-time soap opera – which *technically* it is. There’s a ton of family drama, teen romance, and assorted other garbage liberally sprinkled on top of what is really a crime conspiracy drama. Wikipedia doesn’t bother to give you the actual synopsis of what the show is about. One has to go to the individual character pages to get a better idea of what the show is about.
For example, here is part of the page on the lead character, Emily Thorne, wonderfully played by the drop-dead gorgeous Emily VanCamp:
Emily Thorne has been described as a flawed and multifaceted heroine figure.[2][3] She is emotionally scarred by her father's unjust imprisonment and a childhood spent in the foster care system, and she commits many morally questionable acts motivated by her obsessive desire for retribution against the woman who destroyed her family. Emily VanCamp, who portrays Thorne, described the character as having become "corrupted" to the point where she was concerned that it would be difficult to make Thorne appealing to audiences. Thorne usually appears calm and calculating, but as the series progresses, she begins to reveal vulnerabilities that impedes her efforts to get vengeance. According to VanCamp, Thorne has tried to bury her emotions but has an unstable emotional side, which means her feelings come out in extremes.
In Revenge, Thorne serves as a modern female version of Edmond Dantès, the main character of The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, the novel that inspired the series. According to Anthony Letizia of alterna-Tv.com, similar to Dantès being falsely imprisoned for 14 years on a false charge of treason, Thorne was imprisoned in juvenile detention and her father was framed for financing a terrorist attack on the United States. Thorne has been left shares in Nolcorp, which she liquidates to the value of $40 billion and is a fund for her revenge against the Grayson family, making her the second richest character in the series after Nolan. Letizia notes several more similarities between the characters such as both of them training in combat after leaving incarceration in preparation for their plans of revenge and both pursuing revenge against a group of powerful and wealthy conspirators.
Her pursuit of revenge has been noted as a sympathetic aspect of the character. Commentators cited the 2008–2012 global recession as making viewers more receptive to Thorne's efforts to get revenge against a group of privileged elites for the harm they caused her family….
Like her father, she is incredibly intelligent and is capable of resolving complicated situations with great cleverness. She is also proficient in shooting and martial arts and speaks fluent French and Japanese. Emily does not kill her targets, although some of her actions have led to people dying at the hands of others.
Well, that does sound a bit more interesting than a bunch of Hampton’s elites back-stabbing each other. Especially since one of her trainers in the arts of revenge is none other than...Hiroyuki Sanada! Most recently seen in “John Wick – Chapter 4” and as discussed previously in this series one of Japan’s best known actors in the West. He appears as Satoshi Takeda, the man who trains Thorne and also one of her associates in martial arts and revenge methodology. It is implied that he is a ninja, although that is never actually stated. In a later season the character is also portrayed by Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa, another well-known Japanese actor., precisely because Sanada was shooting the film “Wolverine”, as discussed earlier.
Takeda is presented as a ruthless individual, focused and unemotional in his teachings about revenge. He repeatedly cautions Emily and her associate, Aiden, against allowing emotions to interfere with their revenge plans. He also manipulates Emily and Aiden in a couple of instances in order to attempt to reorient their actions more in accordance with those plans.
In short, a really interesting guy.
The villains of the series are the Graysons – Victoria and Conrad – and their associates who were involved in the terrorist funding and the framing of Emily’s father. Madeleine Stowe – another incredibly sultry actress who was a favorite of mine back in the 90’s – plays Victoria as the grande dame of the Hamptons, lording over lavish parties while repeatedly cheating on her equally cheating husband, played by Henry Czerny. Their vicious well-written arguments are a staple of the series.
The rest of the characters are either irrelevant to the overall series concept – former lovers, potential lovers, teenagers, victims, etc. - with one exception: Nolan Ross, played by Gabriel Mann. Nolan is a genius hacker whose company was bankrolled by Emily’s father before being framed. The company took off, turned Nolan into a billionaire. However, when Emily was released from juvenile prison, Nolan remembered his gratitude to the father and turned over to Emily her portion of the ownership of the company, which amounted to at least $1 billion, thus bankrolling her revenge.
The character is represented as a bit of a fop, but very intelligent, loyal and quirky, as well as annoying. He acts as Emily’s conscience, trying to prevent her from going too far. But despite being told to back off repeatedly, he continues to be Emily’s “tech support” person, intercepting emails, planting files in people’s computers, manipulating photos, and the like. In later seasons, there are whole subplots revolving around his own issues with the Graysons and the conspirators involved, as well as his own romantic issues with both men and women.
All in all, what can we learn from this show? Clearly one can learn not to lose focus when pursuing a plan of revenge. This is amply demonstrated with various problems rising from Emily’s losing focus. But the show also illustrates how the rich, corporations, the law, the government, crime all interact to oppress us and create victims – and again, how one trained individual can conceivably fight back.
The Blacklist (2013–2023)
The Blacklist is an American crime thriller television series created by Jon Bokenkamp that premiered on NBC on September 23, 2013. The show follows Raymond "Red" Reddington (James Spader), an ex-US Naval Intelligence officer turned high-profile criminal and one of the FBI's Most Wanted fugitives who voluntarily surrenders to them after eluding capture for decades. He tells the FBI that he has a list of the most dangerous criminals in the world that he has compiled over the years called the "Blacklist", and that he is willing to inform on their operations in exchange for immunity from prosecution on condition he works exclusively with rookie FBI special agent and criminal profiler Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone), to whom he seemingly has no connection.
Each season has received positive reviews, with many critics praising Spader's performance in particular. On February 22, 2022, the series was renewed for a tenth and final season, which premiered on February 26, 2023, and will end on July 13, 2023, with a two-hour series finale.
This was, in my view, the best television series of the last ten years. Yes, I know I said this isn’t a “review” essay, and it’s not. But this show lasted ten seasons, a relative rarity on television, so someone besides me likes it. It’s also won a host of awards.
Most of the characters on the show are engaging, in particular Aram Mojtabai, played by Amir Arison, who provides some comic relief on occasion as the nerdy computer hacker who is usually saying something inappropriate to the situation. But really the only character worth discussing is Reddington himself.
The Blacklist Wiki at Fandom.com describes Reddington is this way:
Raymond Reddington is a highly intelligent, highly driven individual with developed sociopathic tendencies. This appears to be the product of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) as there are no signs that he was born this way. Sly, manipulative, and charming, Red is always three steps ahead of everyone else, and is determined to keep himself a mystery. As he puts it, “I’m a criminal. Criminals are notorious liars. Everything about me is a lie.” That’s probably true, actually, but who knows for sure. He dislikes rude people, which is something that Agent Ressler pointed out after Red let a notorious drug dealer get away with false identification. Ressler mentioned that Red wouldn’t let the drug dealer get away because he was rude and Red doesn’t like rude people. Red responded with, “He is on my jet.”
Red does not believe he’s a psychopath. In his eyes, what he’s done in the criminal world is all an effect of the murder of his family. He turned his back on his country and his career because somehow they were responsible for the elimination of his family. He functions with his own set of morals, that most of society probably wouldn’t agree with.
He is also an extremely ruthless individual with no qualms about killing and often chuckles at victims' death with a smile (rarely). He does not needlessly kill for the pleasure of it nor is he a genocidal maniac hellbent on eliminating all crime, but rather sees it as an effective means of gaining information, leading to the eventual deaths of blacklisters. He displays almost no empathy when killing people but instead covers it up with an affable facade to deceive his victims into lowering their guard so he can kill them or exploit them. He himself stated that when he kills someone he doesn’t pretend to care how they feel; he shot, stabbed, and suffocated them but he never coddled them, because it is disrespectful. He is shown to be extremely compassionate and caring towards Elizabeth Keen and is fiercely dedicated to protecting her and will go to extreme lengths to make sure she's safe, while also displaying a natural care for the members of his unit. He is polite, kind, and caring towards people that he has known for an extended period of time, with his affable persona almost always on display. He is nothing if not a man of his word, as he always keeps his promises.
This is a very good description. They further summarize his history as follows:
Raymond Reddington attended the United States Naval Academy, graduating at the top of his class at the age of 24, and was being groomed for admiral when he disappeared while coming home to visit his family for Christmas in 1990. Four years later he resurfaced, selling classified documents to the enemy, and was charged with treason in absentia. Over the next 20 years he built a syndicate of contacts: spies, thieves, smugglers, drug traffickers, people smugglers, human traffickers, arms traffickers, counterfeiters, forgers, hackers, mercenaries, and assassins. During this time, U.S. assets located in Moscow, Islamabad, and Beijing were compromised. He infiltrated the private sector, and there was no industry that was out of his reach, including technology, shipping, communications, security/military contracting and pharmaceuticals. Eventually he went from just selling secrets to starting wars, toppling governments, and influencing geopolitics to suit his needs. He became known as “the Concierge of Crime” due to his ability to arrange deals in the black market. He was ranked fourth, and later first, on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list as an “arrest on sight” fugitive, as shown when he surrendered to the FBI in “Pilot”. In a flashback in “Requiem”, Red reveals to Kathryn Nemec that he created his criminal network with the sole purpose of protecting Elizabeth Keen and when his enemies got too close, went to the FBI to ensure her protection more directly.
Is he someone to emulate? Well, he topples governments, so there’s that. He eliminates criminals who go beyond what he considers to be correct – although that is mostly for his own benefit as well. Mostly he is the epitome of the “criminal mastermind”, a modern-day Moriarty without a Holmes to interfere with him. I personally don’t think building a criminal empire per se is a useful goal, depending on exactly which criminal activities one is engaged in, but certainly the capabilities he can draw on as a result that are displayed in the series are impressively valuable. Having an army of criminal experts owing you their income and favors is a powerful asset. Having tons of stolen secrets hidden in a bunker in Latvia helps, too. Having made tons of enemies over the years, however, is not. However, if one is a criminal mastermind, one can treat that as “a cost of doing business.”
All in all, the character has many valuable characteristics which are worth of emulation. The show itself is outstanding with many engaging characters and well-written stories with numerous unexpected twists and turns.
And so we reach the end of this series. I might post more in the same vein in the future, but this series has gone on for an epoch and so deserves to be interrupted. There are plenty of other movies, TV shows, comics, and characters that I can draw on to illustrate the themes of this blog.
I look forward to seeing your reactions to this series. Keep in mind, however, what I’ve said at the start of each article: I’m going to ignore all comments relating to criticism of the subject from an “art critical” standpoint. What matters is how these productions I’ve discussed relate to the subject of this blog: The Five Essentials – Philosophy, Attitude, Knowledge, Skills and Technology. And they all do relate in one context or another. They have influenced my own perception of the Five Essentials over the years, and if you study them, they can influence yours. In the end, of course, YMMV.
You've made me remember 'Burn Notice', 'Leverage', 'Nikita' and 'Person of Interest' with fondness. I never realised 'Leverage had a spin-off. 'The Blacklist', less so. I think I enjoyed the first 4 seasons and gave up at the beginning of the 5th when I realised it was becoming a lesser imitation of itself. Glad I did because it gave me time to watch great series like 'Slow Horses'.