The Telegraph has a list of Spooks Top 10 Moments.
As the gripping spy drama reaches its end, Michael Hogan relives Spooks's finest moments.
After 10 series and 86 episodes, BBC’s stylish espionage drama is being retired from active service. Here, we revisit the memorable incidents – some gory, some sinister, some shocking – that have kept viewers enthralled for a decade.
1. Frying tonight
The spy saga’s first and most notorious spook-slaying came early on, setting the tone for regular shocks thereafter. At the end of the second episode, Helen Flynn (Lisa Faulkner) had her head dunked in a sizzling deep fat fryer by a far Right extremist. It brought new meaning to the phrase “battered to death”, and there were 154 complaints to the Broadcasting Standards Commission.
2. The name’s North. Lucas North… or is it?
Moody Lucas North (Richard Armitage) took over as section leader in series seven. Two years later, a head-spinning twist revealed that he wasn’t Lucas North at all but John Bateman, a drug dealer who had bombed the British embassy in Dakar 15 years earlier, then killed the real North and assumed his identity.
3. Ros rises again
Sharp-tongued Ros Myers (Hermione Norris) joined Section D during the fifth series. The following year, a duplicitous Government bigwig (Anna Chancellor) injected her with a lethal nerve agent but in a Romeo & Juliet-esque twist, Ros was revived at her own funeral. The syringe had been switched for one containing a sedative that temporarily put her into a death-like state.
4. Tom takes work home with him
Section D’s first leader was Tom Quinn (Matthew Macfadyen), much loved for his flowing overcoats and sad eyes. Unlike his workaholic colleagues (“It’s MI5, not 9 to 5” was the original tag-line), Tom had a life outside Thames House and was dating a single mother. The couple moved in together and Tom had his house specially fortified to protect them. In the series one finale, however, he inadvertently brought home a laptop containing a bomb. Then he locked mother and daughter into the house with it. Tick, tick, tick.
5. Eeny, meeny, miney… Oh
Sharp-dressed agent Danny Hunter (David Oyelowo) met his end in a most unexpected manner. At the end of series three, he and colleague Fiona Carter (Olga Sosnovska) were captured by Iraqi extremists. Section leader Adam Carter (Rupert Penry-Jones), Fiona’s husband, was given 30 seconds to choose which of them must be executed. Danny made the decision for him by goading the terrorist, calling him “a death worshipping fascist”, until he was shot in the head
6. Keeping up with Wynn-Jones
Mild-mannered analyst Malcolm Wynn-Jones (Hugh Simon) lasted eight series and became a cult favourite: tweedy, bookish, devoted to the job and his elderly mother. Although not a man of action, his technical talents saved lives. He retired to care for his mother until visited by the murky Lucas North in series nine. North wanted the mysterious “Albany” file but Malcolm smelled a rat and handed him a fake. Fans held their breath when the ruse was discovered and North stormed back to assassinate Malcolm – only to break into an empty, cleared-out house. Malcolm, wily to the last, is still out there somewhere.
7. Get Carter
Heart-throb Adam Carter was the show’s most popular leading man but after four years’ service, actor Rupert Penry-Jones moved onto pastures new. A series seven storyline saw al-Qaeda prime a car bomb to explode at a Remembrance Sunday ceremony. Carter heroically drove it to an unpopulated area, but was blown up in the process – a sequence shown in slo-mo for extra impact.
8 What’s your poison?
When veteran Section D head Harry Pearce (Peter Firth) wears black leather gloves indoors, it spells trouble for someone. So it proved in series nine, when he learned that retired Home Secretary Nicholas Blake (Robert Glenister) was behind the bomb that killed Ros Myers. Pearce visited Blake’s Highland retreat with a bottle of single malt to toast old times. The whisky was poisoned. Vengeful Harry watched his former boss take a dram and die grovelling in front of a roaring log fire.
9. Grievous bodily bra
Wise old bird Connie James (Gemma Jones) was dragged out of retirement by Harry to bolster the team in series six. When a colleague uncovered proof that she was a Russian mole, she did what any cornered lady would do – garroted him with the underwire from her bra and calmly removed the evidence from his pocket as he lay dying in a pool of his own blood.
10. And there’s a couple still to come…
There are memorable twists at the opening and climax of Sunday’s last ever episode (BBC One, 9.00pm). We suggest recording Downton, just this once, and watching Spooks as it logs off “the grid” for good.
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