The relationships between the characters are still quite barbed, but there were occasional signs of defrosting. I particularly liked the moment when a cutting remark John (Andrew Buchan) made about Lenny's (Peter Mullan) dying friend elicited a flutter of emotion across the severe Scot's lips. Mullan's clearly the standout performance every week; doing so much with so very little.
John and Calum (Jody Latham) can best be described as hesitant friends, who occasionally fall into a father/son dynamic (see John making Calum a boiled egg with bread "soldiers"), and their growing friendship is evidenced when they go undercover as inmates in a prison. They're there to assassinate Leo Westbrook (Mark Benton), the masterminding behind the Sapphire cartel who's smuggling eastern European kids into mainland Britain. John and Calum have personality clashes here and there, but there was a nice moment when John interrupted his "mouthy" cellmate being beaten up by Leo's accomplice Gabor Antonov (Peter Sullivan) and called Gabor's goons off.
It was also great to see Rose (Tamzin Outhwaite) given something exciting to play, as she was relieved from babysitting eye witness Savanna (Nicholas Burley) to blackmail paedophile Mr. Hyde (Rob Jarvis) into introducing her to Clinton McSmith (Johann Myers), posing as an infertile woman looking for a child. Rose intended to plant a weapon inside Clinton's barber shop to frame him for murder, but soon found herself forced into giving Clinton oral sex, before the lowlife was pumped full of lead by a Bulgarian hitman (Jason Croot) sent by Leo because he'd outlived his usefulness. This attack prompted Rose to retrieve the handgun she'd planted in an upstairs toilet cistern and blast the assassin from the other side of a bathroom door.
It was a great sequence in an episode that had a few more up its sleeve, not least John's eventual deal with Garbo to give him five minutes alone with Leo, allowing him to inject the rotund villain with a hypodermic needle, suffocate him to death, and pin the blame on a simple case of accidental choking. The scene was set to the eye-rolling cliché of classical music, which still worked petty well. Indeed, The Fixer's often guilty of embracing clichés (Leo listens to Bach and paints military figurines in his cell), or of letting its characters speak hokey dialogue ("sometimes I think I need to kill people. It's the thing that makes me feel alive"), but it just about gets away with it. Just.
This episode also introduced some new elements to the show, and strengthened its mythology. We met Matthew Symmonds (Elliot Cowan, last seen smoldering as Mr. Darcy in Lost In Austen), who is painted as a pen-pushing rival for Lenny's position, eager to takeover Lenny's team and use them for his own ends. I also found it interesting to hear John's thoughts about where his loyalties lie, as he clearly acknowledges Lenny has brainwashed him into becoming a killer (psychologically giving him a "family" too), but he seems okay with that -- just so long as the criminals being targeted for elimination are chosen for the right reasons. Lenny may be a manipulative bastard, but he's in this to ensure scum are taken off the streets, not to play office politics.
Overall, this was a great conclusion and proof that The Fixer works best with more narrative breathing room. I still don't think Andrew Buchan's a particularly effective lead, because he looks too soft and lacks the edge I'd have liked to see in the character, but even he felt more comfortable to watch here. I'm actually excited to see the next episode now, which I wouldn't have thought possible this time last week.
8 September 2009
ITV1, 9pm
written by: Ben Richards directed by: Sam Miller starring: Andrew Buchan (John Mercer), Tamzin Outhwaite (Rose Chamberlain), Jody Latham (Calum McKenzie), Peter Mullan (Lenny Douglas), Phil Davis (Roger Bowland), Elisa Terren (Manuela), Elliot Cowan (Matthew Symmonds), Mark Benton (Leo Westbrook), Johann Myers (Clinton McSmith), Nicholas Burley (Savanna Ford), Jamie Glover (Jamie), Rob Jarvis (Hyde), Peter Sullivan (Gabor Antonov) & Jason Croot (Ivano Popov)
