Featured in Graham Norton i gosti: Cher/Keira Knightley/Michael Fassbender/Josh Brolin/Jalen Ngonda (2024)
Synopsis
Helen begins a passionate affair with a man who has no idea what her secret identity is. Helen’s employer finds himself in the crosshairs when her lover falls victim to London’s dangerous underworld and asks Sam to protect her. Bingo, the owner of the guitar shop where Sam buys his guns, is played by Rat Scabies, a member of the classic punk band The Damned.
You meet Helen Dawson (Keira Knightley), a normal mother of two married to a politician, right?
Wrong, in fact he has been a spy since shortly before meeting the politician, handing over the country’s secrets to a spy organization called «The Black Doves», which has been selling them to the highest bidder for years. Unfortunately for Helen’s boss, Helen has started an affair and when Helen’s new lover is murdered, she goes on a revenge mission to find her killer. As Helen sets out on her mission, she soon finds out that her lover’s murder may be connected to the death of the Chinese ambassador.
It’s these big action scenes that kept my interest throughout the series
And she also gets involved in plenty of shootouts (which reminded me of «Shoot ‘em Up» and «John Wick»), hand-to-hand combat (which proved she’s definitely not a damsel in distress), and explosive, lucky escapes (which will keep you on your toes). And I didn’t even get bored during the flashbacks to when Helen started spying, because even in those scenes there was some good gunplay. I also loved the one-liners that both Helen and her spy partner Sam (Ben Whishaw) deliver so well.
For example, after an explosive and lucky escape, Helen dislocates her shoulder and has to put it back in place by slamming her arm into a wall
Afterward, Sam says, «That was pretty impressive.» And Helen says, «You should have seen me push two people off me that same afternoon.» However, while I was never bored and definitely didn’t feel like this series is too long and would have worked better as a long film, I think the final episode could have been about 10-20 minutes shorter and towards the end of the series I found it a bit too complicated. I understand they were trying to set up the final episode for a second season, but I still think they could have done that if they had made the series a bit shorter. I also think that if they do a second season, Helen’s husband Wallace (Andrew Buchan) should be portrayed as a stronger character, because throughout the series, Helen has to constantly sneak around investigating her lover’s murder, but even when Wallace becomes suspicious at the end of the series, he never confronts her about her secrecy.
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Despite these minor issues, I would definitely watch a second season and would also happily rewatch and buy this series on DVD. One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of this month’s must-watch TV and streaming premieres.