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Telly addicts

What did you think of The Honourable Woman?

563 replies

LauraPashley · 03/07/2014 23:12

I can't decide! MG for me veered between really good and really annoying. Loved her clothes tho. Is she in a relationship with the nanny?

OP posts:
dustyspringfield · 30/07/2014 14:34

Thank goodness for this thread. I hadn't realised how much had gone totally over my head Blush
I agree, Atika is playing a 'long game' and was responsible in some way for the Gaza kidnap, and had been 'working' Ephra before this.
Oooh it's become rather good, hasn't it?

dancingwithmyselfandthecat · 31/07/2014 11:29

I'm loving this series and I can't wait for tonight. But the bloopers!

maternal dna only from a toothbrush.
my mum does the books in a stone factory at night.
The Israeli "we do not negotiate with terrorists". Hmm. How many Palestinians got released in exchange for Gilad Shalit? And not the only time.

OnlyLovers · 31/07/2014 12:15

The DNA thing annoyed me too.

The stone factory thing –I have a mini-theory that Nathaniel knew it was a lie and knew he was going into danger, but allowed himself to be led there out of a) devotion to Nessa and b) the hope that he might find something out.

The terrorist thing: to be fair, Gilad Shalit was released in 2011, so not until after these events took place. But I don't know about any other releases/exchanges and am willing to accept that there might have been more since.

ZeroSomeGameThingy · 31/07/2014 12:29

I'm longing for tonight too! And hoping iPlayer will deliver it speedily; really don't want to be impatiently prodding the laptop at three in the morning....

Are pps talking about a different phone to the one that was shoved into her hand in a Westminster corridor? (So long ago I can't remember the details now.)

OneStepCloser · 31/07/2014 12:48

Sudden thought, Atika and Burned Guy brother and sister maybe?

OneStepCloser · 31/07/2014 12:55

Maybe Atika tried to have a baby with Ephra and failed and that her brother was bought into impregnate Nessa?

Although I have no idea why a baby would be so explosive?

GypsyFloss · 31/07/2014 13:33

Oh there's a thought!

Greengrow · 31/07/2014 14:02

Watching episode 4 now....

GypsyFloss · 31/07/2014 22:13

I'm away and can't get the latest episode on iplayer. Please could someone put me out of my misery and give me a quick synopsis...followed by a lengthy analysis? Smile

GlaikitFizzog · 31/07/2014 22:23

Um, well.

Kassim is nessa's
Sholmo has tapped the cabling (he is denying it but it's pretty sus IMO)
Nessa and attika are/were an item I think.
Ephors was dealing with us based spy, she made him hand the company over
Nessa feels betrayed by attika for shagging ephra
Ephra agreed to the tapping based to secure nessa's release (I think, someone confirm please?)
A professor at the uni in Israel worked out that it was being used as a cover for the tapping operation, went public, now dead!

Is that everything? Am I right? I sometimes don't trust my own memory of something!

DollyParsnip · 31/07/2014 22:24

I've not seen it yet either, but the Guardian has a weekly synopsis / discussion on it's website though it is somewhat vague.

It's up now trying not to peek!

GlaikitFizzog · 31/07/2014 22:25

I still think we don't know what nessa's secret is, as after ephra found out about kassim, she still said her secret was safe

GypsyFloss · 31/07/2014 22:47

Great, thankyou. I've had a quick look at the Guardian site too.

So did Nessa declare her love for Attica or have I got that wrong?

BOFster · 31/07/2014 23:37

It went over my head if she did, but maybe.

I think Schlomo is genuinely innocent of the wiretapping, despite looking like a Bond villain. It was Ephra, as part of the agreement to rescue Nessa. He always was spineless and corrupt- that's why Nessa got kidnapped in the first place.

I hope Rachel takes him for everything he's got.

ZeroSomeGameThingy · 31/07/2014 23:42

They did something strange; they recapped something we had not seen last week - Atika confirming to Ephra that Kasim is Nessa's child. He then let Nessa know that he knew. She asked why Atika had told him. He said "Ah, I'm a little loose with my affections..." and then some guff about secrets that own the carrier of the secret.

Later Nessa tearfully confronted Atika - weeping on her shoulder in a cottage garden. She said Atika could have chosen her. And that she had known how she felt about her from their first meeting at the checkpoint. Atika spouted stuff about having no choice.

Oh and the professor went public about positive discrimination at the Stein uni but was killed (it appears) because while rooting around for evidence of that he stumbled upon the wire tappers doing their creepy listening.

BOFster · 31/07/2014 23:46

I'll have to watch it again, without going out to make coffee or use the loo...

ZeroSomeGameThingy · 31/07/2014 23:59

You're definitely right about Shlomo Bof. Ephra did it without his knowledge. (Assuming the "it's over" conversation was about their longstanding business relationship which Shlomo didn't know enough about...)

But I wouldn't be at all surprised if Rachel knew or guessed pretty much everything but likes her life just as it is.

chopinbabe · 01/08/2014 00:18

This thread is excellent!

I am so enjoying this series but have to admit a lot of it goes over my head but the tenseness within it is addictive. I am looking forward to watching the whole thing again from start to finish when maybe, I will be able to follow all the plot!

OneStepCloser · 01/08/2014 08:28

Schlomo is innocent I think, (pony tail American looked totally suspect when telling Nessa about him) Ephras definitely well dodgy I think he knew about the Students as he wanted to brush it off when Nessa talked about it. It seems as though he's had to do what the Israelis want but also the Americans and possibly the Palestinians, he's up to his neck in it.

Atika telling Ephra about the baby is odd as well as she's kept quiet about everything else, why tell him now?

The secret must be tied to their Father I think.

ZeroSomeGameThingy · 01/08/2014 09:50

Someone up-thread mentioned the blackberries / strawberries?

I have no idea if there was any religious or other significance but - Nessa, in captivity, smiled and ate the blackberries surely because they would have reminded her of blackberry picking with her brother at their mother's cottage in the country. (The place where she cried on Atika while Rachel watched from the window....) At the same time Ephra refused the strawberries proffered by his DD because he was thinking that poor Nessa wouldn't be enjoying any lovely English summer fruit. Because of what he had done.

My, I'm good.

Greengrow · 01/08/2014 10:10

Every episode starts with the work Who when it should be Whom. It annoys me every time. Other than that - good.

OnlyLovers · 01/08/2014 10:12

Zero, yes, I spotted that too! How weird to put something in a recap that wasn't in the original. We didn't need it either; it was obvious from Nessa and Ephra's conversation that he knew.

Glaikit:

Kassim is Nessa's Yes, agree.
Schlomo has tapped the cabling No, I don't think so. I think it was orchestrated by Ephra and possibly done by rebel elements within Schlomo's company.
Nessa and Attika are/were an item I think. No, I think Nessa was/is in love with Atika but the latter doesn't have the same feelings for her, although does feel she 'owes' Nessa for consenting to the rape to stop her from being harmed.
Ephra was dealing with us based spy, she made him hand the company over Agree – but I think US based spy (Monica?) is barking up the wrong tree about Schlomo (see above).
Nessa feels betrayed by attika for shagging ephra Yes.
Ephra agreed to the tapping based to secure nessa's release Yes.
A professor at the uni in Israel worked out that it was being used as a cover for the tapping operation, went public, now dead! I don't think he worked that out. I think he thought the dodgy recruitment of inferior students was 'just' racism and discrimination against Israeli Arabs (although he may have started to suspect after finding the surveillance basement). What he didn't realise but might have been on the way to finding out (which was why he had to be bumped off) was that 'they' (I don't know who 'they' are yet!) were recruiting Jewish ex-soldiers as students to work for the tapping operation.

Other thoughts

I knew the prof was dead in the water right from the off, poor man. Sad he was quite cute too

Ephra is shagging Atika partly because he likes having a secret that he 'owns' –he feels otherwise emasculated and insecure, probably stemming from their father's murder and their orphanhood and exacerbated by being forced to step down and let Nessa take over. He's pretty despicable, basically.

I thought Schlomo was a bad guy at first but now I think he's innocent and Ephra's been using him.

OneStep, the secret about a baby of Nessa's, half-Jewish and half-Arab, conceived by her rape by a Palestinian terrorist while she was in captivity, would be explosive because, as she said this week, everyone would view everything she did in its light.

If she made a decision that benefitted Israelis, Palestinians would assume that she hated all Palestinians and was out for revenge and retribution. If she did something that benefitted Palestinians, Israelis would assume she had been brainwashed or had Stockholm Syndrome and was on Palestine's 'side'.

It would be unrelenting, and people on both sides would try to use her for their own ends. Very much like the Protestant-or-Catholic issue that dogged so many English royals in the past –people being brought to the throne as puppets for warring factions etc. It would make life for her and the Stein company unmanageable and in the end would bring down the company.

Essay. Sorry. Blush

ZeroSomeGameThingy · 01/08/2014 10:21

What he didn't realise but might have been on the way to finding out (which was why he had to be bumped off) was that 'they' (I don't know who 'they' are yet!) were recruiting Jewish ex-soldiers as students to work for the tapping operation.

Of course! Of course...

Thank you. I hope I would have got there in the end - but I certainly hadn't joined all the dots so far. Of course the two things were logically, not randomly, connected. Oh this is stupendous!

SquidgyMummy · 01/08/2014 10:25

So the secret is Kassim is Nessa's Duh?
Surely there is more to it than that.
Why does Nessa keep saying on the satellite phone "your secret is safe"
Bearing in mind that Ephra now knows about Kassim - when was he told?

I think it's the perhaps implied lesbian relationship with Nessa and Atika Nessa saying "I am what i am" to atika in the countryside and flashback to their first meeting

yes I also think Schlomo is innocent.
I think Monica arranged for the wire tap with ephra's agreement in order to get nessa out of gaza (the tap was supposed to be 7 years old.)

Perhaps the kidnappers want the guy in the Rolls Royce to have the cabling contract so that the israelis cannot spy on the palestinians.

Questions:
-How was Samir Michal (Hanged flagpole man) involved in all of this?
-What about Dialysis man "i have plans for Nessa Stein"
-Surely Monica is pro-America / Israel not palestine?

guardian synopsis is good