Symmonds (Elliot Cowan) has become Lenny's (Peter Mullan) superior, following the death of his predecessor, and coerces him into accepting an assignment to find justice for three soldiers killed in Afghanistan. The young men were officially killed by a roadside IED, but were actually murdered by Arabs after stumbling upon an operation to import heroine from the Middle East poppy fields to England. The drug lord controlling the importing from his London base is ex-SAS soldier Gideon Stone (Daniel Caltagirone), who thus becomes the target for John (Andrew Buchan) and Calum (Jody Latham).
At times, it felt like this episode was about to get quite complex, particularly when Lenny started to realize Symmonds has been double-dealing with Stone and manipulating his unit into doing his dirty work, but it ultimately boiled down to a rather simplistic mano-et-mano grudge-match between ex-soldiers John and Gideon -- two sides of the same coin, in many ways.
An early gunfight between the pair, scrambling around shipping containers stacked at a dockyard, ended with John being shot three times in the arm. Unable to go to the hospital (because doctors report gunshot wounds and Lenny's team "don't exist"*), John is taken home to convalesce, with a 50/50 chance of surviving one bullet lodged in his shoulder. This means the emasculated John is pushed into the background mid-episode, forced to coordinate the ongoing operation with Calum and Rose (Tamzin Outhwaite) via phone.
The Fixer still fails to sink its teeth in half the time, so watching most episodes is like being toyed with. There are moments that spark, plots that show promise, but it never quite comes together. So you take what you can from each episode and move on: so, guest-star Daniel Caltagirone was pretty good as this week's villain (in fact, I'd be happier if he was paying the lead in this series, as he has that flinty edge missing in Buchan), I'm enjoying the uncertainty over Symmond's motives as Lenny's "boss"; it was nice to see Calum and Rose do something without John around to rescue them (however brief); and the script by Spooks' Christian Spurrier was at least nimble and easy to follow.
But none of that excuses some noticeable slips in quality and plausibility: why didn't trained killer Gideon shoot to kill when he was yards away from John, instead of just wounding him? Honour amongst soldiers, I guess, but it felt ridiculous. Likewise, John and Gideon's game of hide-and-seek around the shipping containers bent the laws of physics, with Gideon able to disappear and reappear vast distances. Also, why didn't Calum take John straight to hospital after he was shot, if he was unaware that wasn't the done thing? And why didn't Gideon recognize Calum at his garden gate? He'd seen him plain as day back at the dockyard earlier, so must have known it was an attempt to distract him from the intruder in his house.
Overall, this was a let-down coming hot-on-the-heels of last week's huge improvement, but it filled an hour quite nicely and its many nitpicks didn't overwhelm proceedings. I just want The Fixer to achieve its full potential, but it regularly comes up short.
15 September 2009
ITV1, 9pm
written by: Christian Spurrier directed by: Sarah O'Gormon starring: Andrew Buchan (John Mercer), Tamzin Outhwaite (Rose Chamberlain), Jody Latham (Calum McKenzie), Peter Mullan (Lenny Douglas), Elliot Cowan (Matthew Symmonds), Daniel Caltagirone (Gideon Stone), Saskia Butler (Talia Jade Stone), Lewis Alsamari (Hakan Celil), Daniel Betts (Dr Phillip Palmer) & Elisa Terren (Manuela)
* The exact nature of Lenny's outfit is difficult to pin down. His team "don't exist", so a trip of a hospital would leave them exposed to the authorities when they questioned a gunshot wound, yet Lenny can easily slip people undercover into prisons and is regularly seen at crime scenes full of police.
