What did you think of The Honourable Woman?

[LauraPashley]

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?

Not sure about monica, if as many posters have said, she ordered the hit on the spook in the taxi - episode 2 I think?

I hope we are not all over thinking it and there is a satisfying conclusion, eg the secret is more than Kassim being Nessa's and the truth behind all these random characters:
Dialysis Man
Hanged flagpole man
judith Stein
Schlomo
Monica etc

well all of them really

That's what I mean though. We're being led to believe she's some cold manipulator following a CIA agenda, bumping people off left, right and centre, lies, more lies...but what if the surprise is that she genuinely wants peace, and has worked out how to achieve it?

Or thinks she has, anyhow!

According to the cast (in interview) Young Nessa is dark skinned because she went on holiday just before filming started. It was too late to recast her. So nothing untoward in it. Would have thought makeup team would have adjusted the two so they were more similar though. Beautiful little girl whoever she is.

I am fed up with the length of this week; it doesn't seem to be moving along at all ....

(And not even an appropriate emoticon to express my frustration.)

On the skin tone thing, my skin can vary immensely in colour depending on how much exposure to the sun that I have had. It was definitely darker as a child because I went abroad on a more frequent basis.
Maybe it has just been a while since Nessa managed to catch a few rays?
ZeroSome I am totally with you on the slowness of time!

One little thing that has been niggling me....when Attica jumped on the rapist she had him in a stranglehold out of sheer anger & disgust at him raping Nessa, and was obv in a white hot rage which gave her strength....but then let him go & then "just" poured the oil from the lamp over him where she could have finished him off.

If that was her brother/ cousin it could be why she came to her senses, not part of the plan.

For the FOURTH Thursday in a row DP will be away with work. I have loyally held on until the weekend for him previously but WIBU if I just bloody well watched it at the same time as the rest of the country this week? And WIBU not to let on, so that I can watch it again with him at the weekend and dazzle him with my predictive powers?

I'd watch it Bishop.
Sod waiting till the weekend.

Good. I will do it with a clear conscience now. He's highly annoying to watch anything vaguely thriller-like with anyway - the Bridge, Line of Duty et al - as he's always about several brain cells behind the plot. Even my passive aggressive pausing of the programme while I patiently explain doesn't seem to have affected this.

MIAOW!!! .

That was horrific. Worse than the other one.

That was completely unnecessary. It didn't even serve a plot point. What was it meant to show? I'm really upset after watching it, it felt totally gratuitous.

I suppose it was a way of getting Hugh and Nessa into the same room. But as plot devices go, it was really shoddy.
There could have been other ways of engineering that.

Agree, highly uncomfortable viewing.

That aside though, an interesting episode with lots to think about. My big question is though (because I can't remember!) why has big boss lady at mi6 told hugh that he needs to stay away from the Americans and not investigate the suicide of that other chap? I remember it being mentioned when she offered him the job... Was it Monica that had said it shouldn't be looked into, when they were in the car (her and boss-lady)? I wish I had a better memory! Sorry if that doesn't make sense, poor memory stretches to not remembering names also!!

I liked portrayal of Rachel in this episode as genuinely nice person, no undertones, decent friend/employer/wife/mother. Poor lady though, what a spineless muppet she married!

Did you spot the photobombing Labrador trying to upstage Stephen Rea?

It was the American General who visited. Boss lady and told her not to look into flagpole man.

The Americans had told her, when she confronted them about the lying actress. But I can't remember what it was in exchange for...

Confused now about Frances. I had thought she and Bloom were in Monica's pay (the female boss they refer to being Not Nessa). But this episode she was in a huff about Nessa ignoring her advice about the contract, and talking to Monica. Unless that was a double bluff.

What game is Monica playing? Discrediting Schlomo (Israel), then killing Meschal (Palestine) once they knew Nessa had agreed to the contract...had she a plan to put in someone else? Or did she WANT Nessa to find out so she could expose it on the public stage (now she's a Baroness) and...what? position herself as genuinely honorable? And therefore be a credible reconciling force? I think so much of this hinges on whether Monica is an ends-justifies-the-means force for good. Or not.

There's a thing in the credits - 'what price a country'. Is this what Monica's prepared to do? All the killing? Burned Man has now said it's what he was prepared to do. Is it Nessa giving up her peerage, her company, her family, her son? Is it Atika? Bringing up another woman's child, sacrificing a love (or pretending one), watching all this time. She said at the beginning how patient you have to be. But then the Palestinians wouldn't need someone to watch over Nessa if Atika was already fulfilling that role.

Hmmmm.

Gosh, for all its faults, isn't it great to have telly that makes you think.

I'm wondering who Angelica will be with at the restaurant when Hugh spies on her...

What is Angelica's job again?

Gosh, I wonder if she's the honorable woman. Whether all this time she has been conniving (in revenge?) to stand for something, in cahoots with Monica??

I don't think we have been told what Angelica does.
I felt that Hugh's great efforts to find out who was behind the second digital interceptor was a waste of time and resources, who else could it have been, apart from the USA?

Do you think that the burned face man was a more sympathetic character this week? I am standing behind my Stockholm syndrome theory. What did "she agree to"? The fake kidnapping of her son?

Isn't it just the contract? What would be interesting is whether Mechal found out from Nessa/Frances/Atika...

This week's rape was horrible to watch.
I don't think it was gratuitous, I think it was used as a counterpoint to the other rape by burned face man, which was done although the way I am explaining it may be misconstrued for a "higher purpose"; he was a soldier under orders. As said up thread, burned face man came across as more sympathetic and raped Nessa, I am now sure under orders. (He spoke about Kassim to the other small boy in a nice way.) It is amazing how multifaceted these characters are.
Accountant rapist, was more sinister, he enjoyed humiliating nessa, which i found more distressing.

On a lighter note, I loved Schlomo's character; he and Hugh working together are great - they are the reall honourable people in this programme.

Very intrigued by Lindsay Duncan - who is she going to meet for dinner? Given her office and hairstyle, she makes me think of Edina in AbFab, but maybe she is a spook too....

Also now that Rachel knows about Kassim, maybe the secret will no longer be safe and Kassim is in danger.

Just had a thought, as Monica has the satellite phone and is speaking to Nessa via Hairy man in Utrecht, then she must have Kassim.

Which then means that Burned face man and his Dad (dialysis man) are not bothered about Nessa revealing Kassim's parentage. 8 Years ago, the Sharia court said that Nessa was free to leave once she had given birth to Kassim. This would mean that Ephra getting Nessa out of the West Bank was not necessary.

Dialysis man was responsible for Eli stein's death. However I am wondering if he had a deathbed epiphany (he surely can't be alive 8 years later.) And now that Stein is all about education, he is trying to help Nessa "I have plans for Nessa Stein".

I think ironically, the good guys are Dialysis man and burnt face son and Burnt face killed Nathaniel Bloom because he was in the pay of Monica (definitely a bad 'un,) not an innocent stooge....

Poor old Ephra has just been played by everyone, Monica, the Israelis...