This is a guest post by JHyde, Spooks Forum Moderator
Sugarhorse. It’s not just American slang for cocaine and heroin. It’s code for the most successful story arc Spooks has seen in its eight seasons so far.
There are several reasons for this. We were privy to significant personal backstories for both Connie and Harry, something that Spooks writers have been stingy in doling out. Lucas’ beloved character was born in the blood of this storyline, one which gave him a reason to be and to keep fighting. But perhaps most importantly, it was the believability of this story arc that resonated with us all. The conspiracy theorist in all of us paid homage to something we recognised as plausible.
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
Most of us who watch Spooks are either old enough to remember the Cold War vividly or have heard our parents (and grandparents) talk of ‘duck and cover’ or ‘red under the bed’. We are drawn to the mystery of the world as it existed behind the Iron Curtain for so many decades. Not to mention the many spy stories that litter our knowledge of that time – Graham Greene and John Le Carre are as much our references on this period as the history texts now written, mostly because so much of our knowledge of that time relies on the first hand accounts of those who were there, who lived it. (Most famous English spy writers also worked for the Services at one time or another.) The history of life in the Soviet Union is bleak and dusty, but there’s still an unknown quantity to it. The mythology of life in the east was and is one of great secrecy. Spies dodging each other in side streets and alley ways with unreliable weaponry. Both sides fumbling, with traitors everywhere. Most importantly, when we think of Russia and the former Soviet Union, we generally think of spies and tradecraft. Russia and spies, like wine and cheese.
In short, classic material to mine for Spooks. In a way it’s surprising they took as long as they did to get there. No one does spy mania quite like the Brits; as Winston Churchill put it so eloquently: “There is a well-certified class of people prone to spy mania.” (And he should know!) Moreover, one of the prime responsibilities of MI-5 is to establish where conspiracy ends and fact begins – they even have a department especially allocated to it. Only in Britain would this conspiracy make sense and the reasons why lie in the history and literature of a nation. The main events of modern British history almost always have a spy story to accompany them.
When the Wall came down, the intelligence archives of East Germany were looted and many of the older operatives exposed. This is where Sugarhorse becomes a real possibility. Both sides starting from scratch and building a network for future generations. Spying habits are hard to break and this is what makes Sugarhorse sexy: it’s an old enemy waiting in the dark. No fundamentalists, no anarchists – just the unique beast that is the Russian nationalist of old. Through the stories passed on to us, and the ongoing struggles for democracy widely reported in the press, the new Russia remains something we don’t completely understand. A not so new blueprint for Spooks writers to use for season 7.
Especially given the events of the last month in uncovering the Russian spy ring in the US that was put in place up to twenty years ago, this conspiracy theory looks unlikely to die anytime soon. Let’s just hope that Britain’s answer has a less wimpy name than ‘Sugarhorse’ and that Russia’s Tiresias isn’t anywhere near as powerful or deep seated. Russia’s more recent backward slide into its own doomed history says to me that it might be sooner than we think.
Continue the discussion on the Spooks Forum Sugarhourse thread.
JHyde is a moderator at Spooks Forum and Spooks fan fiction writer – see her latest fan fic here.
