The Secret Agent: Episode 2 (1992)

 

Today’s (late) update is brought to you by Word 2013, which decided to crash after I finished writing this review.  To make things even more delightful, it then decided to point and laugh at me while chortling, “AutoRecovery?  What AutoRecovery?!”  I don’t know about you, but for me, nothing inspires quite as much petulance as uncooperative technology, so I had to sit and grumble for a while before rewriting this entry.  (In other words, if there seems to be an undercurrent of seething bitterness threaded through this post, you know why.)

 

At any rate, here we are again!  Mr. Vladimir makes another appearance in episode 2, although this one is very brief.  He’s only in a couple of scenes, and he’s not used liberally in either.  I will say, though, that PC’s nonverbal acting skills were well on their way back when he made this.  He has some nice reactions here.

 

Plot-wise, this episode focuses on the build-up to the act Verloc has been tasked with performing.  He’s receiving a lot of conflicting pressures from different directions.  In addition, to masquerading as an anarchist and operating on behalf of the embassy, he’s also a police informant.  And as if that wasn’t enough, his wife knows virtually nothing about any of these roles.  He has several divergent identities layered one on top of the other, and he’s at a loss for how to get out of his situation intact.

 

I failed to mention it earlier, but in the film version of The Secret Agent, the one I talked about yesterday, Mr. Vladimir is played by none other than Eddie Izzard (I’m so glad he’s joined the Bryan Fuller fold of late; he was great on Hannibal last season.)