A Review of 'Secret City' Season 2 Episode 4 - "Broken Bird"

This is episode four of six in season two. The tension is already quite high, and if it's anything like season one, it will continue to ratchet up from this point on.

Beginnings

We begin with William Vaughn (Justin Smith) and Helen Wu (Renee Lim) in bed, arguing about the failed arms deal. It seems that Sami (Robert Rabiah) is not dead! And as Wu says, “We have his weapons and his money William.” That can't be good. However, Vaughn thinks Sami has been warned off. I'm inclined to agree with his wife that this is not over.

The US Secretary of Defence (Rob MacPherson) has flown in to try to make amends with the Australian PM (Don Hany), who isn't at all impressed. What also emerges is that the drone has not yet been found.

Story Arcs

The various story arcs are beginning to intertwine: Our heroine Harriet (Anna Torv) goes to interview Helen Wu at the Department of Defence, but she doesn't get very far. As she gets chucked out, she passes Caroline (Laura Gordon) the drone operator in the corridor. Soldier Sullivan (Rob Collins) is angry with General Lockwood (Andrew McFarlane) and wants to know where Caroline is. And then Harriet calls and tells him.

I like how the story rotates between all the different characters. Next up and rather surprisingly, we have the PM talking to Caroline the drone operator. He says he wants to know what happened, “from the pale horse's mouth as it were.” I like this PM, he seems like a good man, so I'm sure we will soon see him doing something despicable like crushing a kitten with his bare hands, that's how this show works. At this point, he waxes philosophical about the nature of power. Caroline seems to want to tell him something but sticks to her officially approved story.

Drone

When the drone is finally located somewhere in the hilly Australian countryside (which actually looks surprisingly like Western Europe), the finders call it in and report that the “data brick” is not there. On the other end of the phone is the man (Michael Denkha) who Bailey (Jacqui Weaver) spoke to back in episode one, a man who might well know something about her murder. This is an exciting twist!

Harriet is of course up to her usual tricks, so she has hacked Bailey's now dormant social media accounts. As she says to Declan (Benedict Hardie) “Oh relax, Bailey's dead so she's not going to hurt you.” It does seem a bit odd though to be doing the hacking directly from Karen's office but still, the plot must advance somehow. We can pretend that she is on Tor. Torv on Tor.

Harriet immediately notices the out of place Oliver Choi sunglasses adverts (which were of course the way Bailey contacted her Chinese connection back in episode one). There's an encrypted login so Harriet get any further, but she knows something is there.

Secrets and Lies

Lockwood dumps Caroline on Sullivan in his hotel room, which might be seen as rather loose action until we find out that they are actually married. I had imagined they were both part of some shady special forces unit, this still might be true but it's becoming more unlikely. Caroline wants to use Sullivan's computer (to check her Facebook since she's been off it for days—sorry that was a joke), but he drugs her and goes off for drinks with Harriet downstairs. This is certainly a cavalier step and of course Caroline wakes up and escapes, after first having a good look at the two drinking in the bar. The writers are having fun subverting Harriet and Sullivan's non-functioning relationship and we get further food for thought when she asks him what he would do to the person or persons who betrayed his team in Pakistan. He says “I'd execute them… at night… from behind… so they didn't see it coming,” which is of course exactly how Bailey was killed (it still seems that she really is dead).

I thought Harriet already knew this because we already did, but it's only when she goes to see Mina (Louise Mignone) in detention that she finds out Helen Wu is Vaughn's wife. Harriet then doorsteps her and gets to chat with the lovely armsdealing couple. The arrangement that they come to is that Harriet keeps silent on the whole shootout in the car park incident if Vaughn manages to get into the encrypted message on Bailey's social media. I'm not sure if that's a good deal for Harriet, since she has just seen the head of a government agency murder someone, nevertheless it keeps the plot ticking over.

When he hacks the message, Vaughn seems genuinely surprised that Bailey was working with the Chinese. As Harriet says, this is odd, since we all knew that for a long time already.

Revelations

When she gets home after another one of her very long days, Harriet gets a knock on the door from Caroline. I liked the opening exchange, which begins with, “You fuck him yet?” She tells Harriet about the kill missions in Pakistan and then does the old 'go to the toilet, steal the wallet and run away' trick. Harriet shouldn't have fallen for it!

Karen (Danielle Cormack) is naturally very interested to hear the kill mission revelations, you can almost see the opportunities flash up in her eyes and she decides to get on the Intelligence and Security Committee. The PM is resistant at first and then sees the advantages of her asking the hard questions.

Meanwhile, Vaughn is in the office monitoring everything when he notices Sami menacing Helen on one of his many home camera feeds. She was right! Sami has not given and so he gets the weapons. A deal is a deal. To be honest, I'm not sure why Vaughn doesn't just disappear him.

With Harriet's credit cards, Caroline gets a cab out to a tatty cottage in the countryside and has an argument with a comrade before going off to dig up a black box. Is this the data brick from earlier and is it the proof she needs? Her comrade winds up dead, Harriet finds him later on, but we don't know for sure that Caroline killed him.

Lastly, the mysterious man (Michael Denkha) appears again telling the PM and the Secretary for Defence that the Pakistani Secret Service hacked the drone. This to be seems a bold claim if based purely on an IP address, which can of course be spoofed.

Thoughts and Predictions

Wow things are really getting going! With two episodes left, it is hard to predict what will come, but I'll try anyway:

• Harriet will probably get herself arrested again.
• If Caroline didn't shoot her friend then who did? Was it the smooth-talking US ambassador?
• So did Sullivan kill Bailey or was that a red herring?
• Will the PM will manage to get the hostage soldier back in one piece?

We shall see! I'll post my review of episode five in the next few days.