A Review of 'Secret City' Season 2 Episode 6 - "Two Cheers for Democracy"

The season closer begins with a big question—will Harriet (Anna Torv) find the USB stick and reveal the full extent of illegal drone strike program? The whitewashed version as it stands is that Pakistan hacked the drone. The fuming PM (Don Hany) has no choice but to expel the Pakistani ambassador (Dalip Sondhi) and surely he must explode in a frenzy of recriminations soon. In the meantime, he is watching Eisenhower speeches on youtube and getting psyched up. He now knows he is being stitched up by the unholy trinity of the Minister of Defence (Joel Tobeck), the US ambassador (Christopher Kirby) and Trebuchet the drone supplier, as represented by the mystery man (Michael Denkha).

Someone else definitely wants to get their sticky little hands on the USB: both Harriet's hotel room and her mum's place have been turned over.

Meanwhile

Meanwhile the hostage is back from Pakistan, but he is a total wreck. The PM tries to keep his physical state a secret and is frustrated by the man’s wife, who (of course) goes to national television. Leaks and whistleblowing are a recurring theme in this show and hopefully will inspire real life action. The thrust of the show seems to be that everything is shades of grey and when the going gets bad, someone has to stick their neck out and stand up for the truth.

Speaking of truth, Vaughn the spylord (Justin Smith) is coming out of the shadows and becoming more likeable! He offers his resignation to the PM, knowing his position is untenable. Harriet, now a frequent visitor to his home at all hours, asks him to obtain a declassified version of the document emailed to Mina a long time ago. She thinks it will reveal who the Rabbit is. Funnily enough the Rabbit hasn't featured lately but right on time he/she/it pops up again with a message on Karen's son's pad.

Rabbit Revealed

Vaughn at first refused to help Harriet (even though in my opinion he still owes her a favour) but then changes his mind, perhaps because he realises he can finally burn all his bridges. The declassified document shows that General Lockwood (Andrew McFarlane) was deeply involved. When Harriet phones Sullivan (Rob Collins), we see the fake lobbyist listening in. He is the new Vaughn! And presumably, he is the Rabbit, since we also see a livestream of Karen's sleeping son on his surveillance monitors.

Desperate to find out the truth before the parliamentary vote the next day on whether Australia uses military force in Pakistan, Harriet goes to Lockwood's house. How does she know where all the high-ranking officials live? And why do they let her in? In any case, she standing by the nice log fire and confronting Lockwood when the Rabbit himself pops up. Is he here to clean up the loose end discussed at the end of the previous episode? Yes, he is! He wants the USB!

Shenanigans

The Rabbit also confesses to killing John Smith but says he didn't need to kill Bailey (Jacqui Weaver). The Rabbit threatens Lockwood with a gun but he doesn't flinch, then strangely when the Rabbit puts the gun on Harriet, Lockwood crumbles. Next, in a rather contrived melee, Lockwood gets busy with the poker and Harriet escapes with the USB in hand.

How can she get the truth out? The obvious step would be to leak to the television show that everyone else leaks to, however, Harriet chooses to give it to Karen (Danielle Cormack). Karen then gets a call showing the stream on her son, so Harriet goes to the PM. He says he is too tainted by the whole mess already, so then she goes to Vaughn. He doesn't care any more! He’ll do it!

Another plotline needs solving so Harriet then rushes off to meet Mina (Louisa Mignone) coming out of detention. Mina doesn't admit to killing Bailey, she doesn't deny it either. For me this doesn't really work, I believed Mina when she said Bailey was more useful alive. It's much more feasible that Trebuchet whacked Bailey. In any case and despite me holding out for a supernatural twist, Bailey never came back.

Endgame

We now enter the final wrapping up of the show. It's been good. I watched it slowly over the course of two weeks and thoroughly enjoyed it. I wouldn't mind a season 3 and I also don't mind if the writers stop there.

The confession of Caroline has been published online. She admits to making the drone strike and says what I hope we all think deep down, that we need to care about deaths far away as much as deaths close to home, if we are to progress as a species.

It's a moving finale. We sweep through the various castmembers, all watching the confession on their different electronic devices: The traitors from Trebuchet; The PM, who ultimately managed to keep his hat on in this episode; Lockwood; Sullivan the hunk; Karen the opportunist politician; Robbie the kid, who lost his entire family right back at the beginning.

And where is Harriet? She is finally leaving Canberra.