Little Drummer Girl

[prand]

I'm enjoying this series.

On top of the "qualities" mentioned just above (cars and bras), I've read a lot of Le Carre, although not this book, but I can follow it in the way that many his books develop, revealing bits slowly and deliberately, (ponderously perhaps), to keep you guessing about where the plot may go, and revealing character's motivations and histories along the way. Le Carre's books often also contains the thread of recruiting and inserting a single operative, vital for the success of an operation. Drummer Girl has this typical theme.

So in some way I am filling in the gaps that aren't shown on TV. For example, I can tell the first couple of episodes are likely to have been the shorthand equivalent of something like 300 pages of scene setting and character background. The recruiting/audition portion would have taken a far longer time in the book than the day or so, and 20 minutes of screen time, which seemed a little easy to get Charlie to agree to take the "part".

[boyse7en]

I'm finding this series quite hard work so far.

Enjoying the seventies bra-burnt fashion
Enjoying the "spot the car" scenes aimed at old duffers like me

But I'm a bit lost on the plot at the moment.

What was the whole thing about her driving the red Mercedes into Austria? How did the Palestinians know to come to collect it? I mean, how do they know she even exists?
Maybe it will get clearer as we go on, but I'm missing some of the basics at the moment

[mattyn1]

boyse7en said:

I'm finding this series quite hard work so far.

Enjoying the seventies bra-burnt fashion
Enjoying the "spot the car" scenes aimed at old duffers like me

But I'm a bit lost on the plot at the moment.

What was the whole thing about her driving the red Mercedes into Austria? How did the Palestinians know to come to collect it? I mean, how do they know she even exists?
Maybe it will get clearer as we go on, but I'm missing some of the basics at the moment

Yep - me too! Can someone please explain?

[Paul Dishman]

mattyn1 said:

Yep - me too! Can someone please explain?

She's supposed to be Michel's (the Palestinian that Mossad are holding in the Munich Olympic Village) girlfriend. I think the premise as that as none of the terrorist group knows her then Mossad can substitute her and get her to penetrate the cell.

Now they've killed Michel, then there's nobody around to realise that she's a ringer.

I read an interview with the actress who plays Charlie, Florence Pugh, who said that because the production had been sold to the Yanks there wasn't any nudity in it. She reckoned the Yanks are scared of bums and nipples, so she must have forgotten she'd spent much of the time bra-less and chilly

[mattyn1]

Paul Dishman said:

She's supposed to be Michel's (the Palestinian that Mossad are holding in the Munich Olympic Village) girlfriend. I think the premise as that as none of the terrorist group knows her then Mossad can substitute her and get her to penetrate the cell.

Now they've killed Michel, then there's nobody around to realise that she's a ringer.

I read an interview with the actress who plays Charlie, Florence Pugh, who said that because the production had been sold to the Yanks there wasn't any nudity in it. She reckoned the Yanks are scared of bums and nipples, so she must have forgotten she'd spent much of the time bra-less and chilly

Thanks. But.......

Michel is the brother of the terrorist who sorted the bomb at the beginning ..... right?

So she is not supposed to be a lookalike of the girl who delivered that suitcase? Just simply a fabricated person?

Why did they kill both Michel and the other girl?

But her boyfriend is a lookalike of the brother! Why?

[Paul Dishman]

mattyn1 said:

Thanks. But.......

Michel is the brother of the terrorist who sorted the bomb at the beginning ..... right?

So she is not supposed to be a lookalike of the girl who delivered that suitcase? Just simply a fabricated person?

Why did they kill both Michel and the other girl?

But her boyfriend is a lookalike of the brother! Why?

I’m lost now

[mikees]

I’ve had to explain a simple plot to wifey. I’m not going to do it again for you lot :-)

It’s not that hard

[prand]

mattyn1 said:

Thanks. But.......

Michel is the brother of the terrorist who sorted the bomb at the beginning ..... right?

So she is not supposed to be a lookalike of the girl who delivered that suitcase? Just simply a fabricated person?

Why did they kill both Michel and the other girl?

But her boyfriend is a lookalike of the brother! Why?

OK I can explain, apologies for Spoilers!!

Yes - Michel is Salim, the PLO bomber (and brother of Mr Big Khalil) who got captured by the hitchhiking Bambi and Thumper and shut up in the padded room in Munich for interrogation.

Charlie is a real person, who did once meet Salim, but has been selected to play a fictional, but plausible girlfriend, and their relationship and trail of love has been fabricated. She and the fake Michel (Jose, Gadi etc) are playing out a love affair so that witnesses and watching PLO spies think they have just been having enjoying some R&R together, while the real Salim has been locked up by the Israeli intelligence.

This trail goes back to London (watching her in plays in London, attending auditions), shared hotel visits (with pretend passionate underwear ripping), match books from the bars they have been to, visits to the Acropolis etc all with Gadi/Jose dressed as Salim, and Charlie wearing very flamboyant clothes, driving round the distinctive red Merc, and delivering the semtex to Austria, This is create a false trail for Khalil, big brother to find Charlie, and, I assume, get her inserted into Khalil's bombing cell (and probably think he can use an innocent western girl for bad things, when it is intended by Kurtz to be the other way round).

So they killed the other girl and Salim to prevent him revealing the truth and denying that Charlie and he was an item. Also there was a bit of Israeli vengeance added in by Kurtz who wanted retribution for the bombing, additionally to give his German police contact two guilty bomber bodies bodies for helping him out. This was not a popular move by others in the Israeli group - particularly Gadi/Jose who seems to have misgivings over the whole operation.

[mattyn1]

Got it!! Thanks

[boyse7en]

prand said:

OK I can explain, apologies for Spoilers!!

Yes - Michel is Salim, the PLO bomber (and brother of Mr Big Khalil) who got captured by the hitchhiking Bambi and Thumper and shut up in the padded room in Munich for interrogation.

Charlie is a real person, who did once meet Salim, but has been selected to play a fictional, but plausible girlfriend, and their relationship and trail of love has been fabricated. She and the fake Michel (Jose, Gadi etc) are playing out a love affair so that witnesses and watching PLO spies think they have just been having enjoying some R&R together, while the real Salim has been locked up by the Israeli intelligence.

This trail goes back to London (watching her in plays in London, attending auditions), shared hotel visits (with pretend passionate underwear ripping), match books from the bars they have been to, visits to the Acropolis etc all with Gadi/Jose dressed as Salim, and Charlie wearing very flamboyant clothes, driving round the distinctive red Merc, and delivering the semtex to Austria, This is create a false trail for Khalil, big brother to find Charlie, and, I assume, get her inserted into Khalil's bombing cell (and probably think he can use an innocent western girl for bad things, when it is intended by Kurtz to be the other way round).

So they killed the other girl and Salim to prevent him revealing the truth and denying that Charlie and he was an item. Also there was a bit of Israeli vengeance added in by Kurtz who wanted retribution for the bombing, additionally to give his German police contact two guilty bomber bodies bodies for helping him out. This was not a popular move by others in the Israeli group - particularly Gadi/Jose who seems to have misgivings over the whole operation.

Thanks, that makes a lot of it clearer.

But I'm still confused by the Merc to Austria bit. At the moment the bombing cell don't know anything about Salim's (fictional) new girlfriend, so wouldn't they have wondered why an unknown english girl was delivering a load of Semtex to them?

[Brave Fart]

Presumably because Khalil will have told them that his brother's new girlfriend will be the courier. In turn, Khalil must be convinced that Charlie really is genuine - hence why they got her to see Salim's body, and why she wrote the love letters to Salim. At some point, Khalil will need to "verify" Charlie, as it were.

[prand]

boyse7en said:

Thanks, that makes a lot of it clearer.

But I'm still confused by the Merc to Austria bit. At the moment the bombing cell don't know anything about Salim's (fictional) new girlfriend, so wouldn't they have wondered why an unknown english girl was delivering a load of Semtex to them?

That's exactly right. They're expecting Khalil to be intrigued with Charlie and why she delivered the Semtex at pretty much the same time his brother was killed. So the plan by the Israelis is for him to follow the trail, across Europe to London to find her, and she can try to gain his trust and find out who the real big players are, not just Khalil, but higher up the foodchain.

[outnumbered]

In the last episode, I wondered if a lot of the road footage was done at Millbrook on the Alpine route (which pops up in lots of films, TV shows, mags etc). It certainly looked a bit familiar.

[marcosgt]

Was it my imagination or was there a painting of Alec Guinness as George Smiley on the staircase at Charles Dance’s place?



M

Edited by marcosgt on Monday 26th November 00:18

[CooperD]

I have to admit I did enjoy watching this series. The acting and locations were top drawer, and it was great seeing some of the old vehicles particularly in my case the Citroen DS. However I didn't find it as entertaining as the Night Manager.

[ribiero]

CooperD said:

I have to admit I did enjoy watching this series. The acting and locations were top drawer, and it was great seeing some of the old vehicles particularly in my case the Citroen DS. However I didn't find it as entertaining as the Night Manager.

It wasnt as good as the film (which felt of it's time), plus it felt like most things the bbc get their hands in now quota-washed, but it was still pretty good to watch.

Night Manager, Tinker,Tailor etc top drawe Le Carre

[Halb]

Capri sounded like mine, it was brilliant.

---

Wow, another top drawer spy thingy from the beeb, this and KIlling Zoe is a one-two punch. LDG reminded me so much of the beeb's Tinker, Tailor. SO well done, acted, devised, plotted. A clever programme than required one to actually watch with interest.
This and KZ are the best things that the beeb has done for a long time, same genre different styles. Such a shame that those in charge of BOnd can't be as entertaining.
LOved the old vibe, might have to rewatch TTSS and SP now. Best Le Carre adaptation for a while.

[droopsnoot]

^^ Killing Eve, surely?

I finally got around to watching TLDG over Christmas as there wasn't much else on. Enjoyable, but I did struggle with the plot, and am not all that well up on the various sides involved. Still a good watch, though, and the various old cars a nice bonus.