Bodyguard - BBC One [** Spoilers **]

Alfred Borden

Keeley Hawes is re-teaming with writer Jed Mercurio while we all wait for more Line of Duty.

Their upcoming BBC One series Bodyguard will examine our contentious political climate through the eyes of a former soldier — played by Cinderella's Richard Madden — who returns home to a job with the Royalty and Specialist Protection Branch of London's Metropolitan Police.

When David Budd (Madden) is assigned to protect a political firebrand, Home Secretary Julia Montague (Hawes), the protector may end up as the politician's deadliest foe.

Bodyguard's ensemble cast also includes Sophie Rundle (Peaky Blinders), Gina McKee (Our Friends in the North), Rowena King (Breaking News) and Vincent Franklin (Cucumber)

http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/line-of-duty/news/a839833/line-of-duty-writer-jed-mercurio-keeley-hawes-bodyguard-bbc/



This could be very very good.

The Black Oil

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPL0oegknJw

Been a while since I've watched a BBC drama. Some Line of Duty pedigree, so hopefully this will be good.

Mr E

Merged.

The Black Oil

Starts Weds, August 1st.

Mr. Guappa

Don't see this listed for tonight, and can't find any info on when it is actually starting.

brian_t

It has no air-date yet

dball

its august alright. but no date yet:

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20180730-nine-tv-shows-to-watch-in-august

JP Liz V1

It might take Poldark's Sunday night 9pm slot

brian_t

brian_t

Starts on Sunday 26th August at 9pm according to DigiGuide with the second episode on Monday at 9pm.

somesoldiers

Starts tonight folks

Mike Litoris

Can't effin wait for this!!!!

Marje

That was a great start - that first 15-20 minutes was great.

They all look psycho to me

cml387

Being Jed Mercurio, I'd guess that not all is at appears.

The sacked assistant is being mysteriously shadowed by a black Range Rover,and the driver appears at a "veterans for peace" meeting (incidentally black Range Rovers seem to be Jed's favourite vehicle, as seen at the end of LOD 3).

Meanwhile the bodyguard has his own gun and would easily win a "spot the psycho" competition on his stare alone.

You have to have an explosive start (sorry) and you were hooked from the beginning.

The Black Oil

Clearly we're going to learn more about David's mental state (he's pretty isolated too) and how obsessed he becomes with Montague (Hawes is quite busy going by IMDb). I laughed at a few things, the PA and the coffee, for instance, and the mixed race line for its PFO factor. Chief Whip was an arse. And the first pic David found of Montague - she looked suitably evil. I missed the initial set up with the train, but it was good stuff.

Mike Litoris

The was, again, epic TV. And ep 2 tomorrow!


Those first 15 mins were intense.

razorblunt

I enjoyed, it's only 6 episodes so I'll probably stick with it (then again I said the same with Gunpowder).
The coffee scene was a bit jarring though, I didn't understand the giggling, I have to say.

JoeA3

I thought it was only so-so tbh.

That coffee spilling / giggling scene was really bizarre too. Plain weird behaviour by her assistant. I guess that’ll become clearer in later episodes.

Agent Coulson

That opening 20 minutes was tense as sh1t and really good.

Then the last 35 minutes were fairly flat and routine.

There was enough there to bring me back for episode 2.

Lizsalander

I enjoyed it

I'm guessing he's going to get torn between his role and an anti-government plot by his army pals.

Something akin to Clint Eastwood in Magnum Force

Marje

Got a mad idea that the whole train thing was a set up for Budd to get his job with the minister to kill her off... but it does seem a tad extreme to do this when I think of it.
The assistant spilling the coffee was part of the plan to get Montague to trust Budd.

Nothing will be straight forward as it seems in regard to a Jed Mercurio story

Marje

Would I be right in saying Apsted and Budd did have a plan to kill Montague together?

He has hidden the gun in case they search his place.

What's he going to do with the information he heard about the school. I think he will bide his time and protect her for now.

EDIT: Why do they not have a record of an ex-military officer fingerprints? Unless he burned them off before he tried to kill her.

Lizsalander

Not sure about that sex scene

A distinct lack of minorities in this show, the 2 token blacks/asians were directly involved in the shootout to make it look balanced.

The Black Oil

The show is kinda uneven. It's not a mind feck like Line of Duty.

I'm sure being covered in that much blood will do a lot for the Home Secretary's PR. David's personal trauma will have quadrupled by the end of the show, but riding her will take the edge off.

And we're back to internal politics.

razorblunt

Lizsalander wrote: »

Not sure about that sex scene

A distinct lack of minorities in this show, the 2 token blacks/asians were directly involved in the shootout to make it look balanced.

Well they're all over the place after the explosion anyway!!


Got a bit silly post sniper. Yer man stayed on the roof far too long, casually tried to walk down to the lifts then?

But great up until then and afterwards.

Agent Coulson

The action scenes are incredibility tense and the rest of the story line is quiet weak for me I think they will end up having one twist to many.

Talisman

Marje wrote: »

Nothing will be straight forward as it seems in regard to a Jed Mercurio story

There's a bigger game being played in the background.

We are led to believe that Montague is power hungry and wants the PM's job - the assistant (Chanel?) an ex-husband have both said this. Her ex-husband's role as Chief Whip is to keep her in line with the party and that includes protecting the PM.

I think the assistant who spilled the coffee was Montague's ex-husband's bit on the side. Their relationship would have been his way of keeping tabs on Montague. My reasons for thinking this was her reaction to the coffee spill - it seemed the kind of stereotypical immature reaction of the younger mistress towards something bad happening to her lover's ex. She was also collected in a Range Rover after she was escorted from the office and I think the ex-husband arrived to the scene where he abused Budd in the same vehicle.

The beneficiary of the terror alert is the Security Service (MI-5) - Montague intends to give them sweeping surveillance powers. A host of domestic terror incidents helps smooth over any potential PR problems and her record on Iraq/Afghanistan policies makes her a perfect political candidate to be the stooge of the Security Service.

So the other twist in the story is likely to be that the Security Service are running the terrorist cell and the head of the Security Service is playing Montague. He briefed her on the attack on the school before the counter-terrorism meeting which was some time before the event took place.

The police not being able to identify the shooter throws up a number of possibilities, each of which could involve the Security Service. It could be that the shooter was scrubbed from the system / the police don't have access to the database containing his details / the results of the search were altered.

Budd's PTSD friend could be an unwitting pawn of the Security Service - attributing the attack on Montague to a homegrown "Lone Wolf" will reinforce the need for increasing the surveillance powers of the Security Service. If his military background became public it would change the dynamic of the political discussion.

There are some interesting threads to the story and hopefully we'll get to see something of the police investigation because I think the story around the counter-terrorism players will get boring. The extra curricular activities of Montague and Budd is just a nonsense storyline and nothing new.

gmisk

Watched it and enjoyed it, not up there with line of duty but still pretty excellent Keeley Hawes is terrific as always.

Your man's kids aren't having much luck are they!

gmisk

Talisman wrote: »

There's a bigger game being played in the background.

We are led to believe that Montague is power hungry and wants the PM's job - the assistant (Chanel?) an ex-husband have both said this. Her ex-husband's role as Chief Whip is to keep her in line with the party and that includes protecting the PM.

I think the assistant who spilled the coffee was Montague's ex-husband's bit on the side. Their relationship would have been his way of keeping tabs on Montague. My reasons for thinking this was her reaction to the coffee spill - it seemed the kind of stereotypical immature reaction of the younger mistress towards something bad happening to her lover's ex. She was also collected in a Range Rover after she was escorted from the office and I think the ex-husband arrived to the scene where he abused Budd in the same vehicle.

The beneficiary of the terror alert is the Security Service (MI-5) - Montague intends to give them sweeping surveillance powers. A host of domestic terror incidents helps smooth over any potential PR problems and her record on Iraq/Afghanistan policies makes her a perfect political candidate to be the stooge of the Security Service.

So the other twist in the story is likely to be that the Security Service are running the terrorist cell and the head of the Security Service is playing Montague. He briefed her on the attack on the school before the counter-terrorism meeting which was some time before the event took place.

The police not being able to identify the shooter throws up a number of possibilities, each of which could involve the Security Service. It could be that the shooter was scrubbed from the system / the police don't have access to the database containing his details / the results of the search were altered.

Budd's PTSD friend could be an unwitting pawn of the Security Service - attributing the attack on Montague to a homegrown "Lone Wolf" will reinforce the need for increasing the surveillance powers of the Security Service. If his military background became public it would change the dynamic of the political discussion.

There are some interesting threads to the story and hopefully we'll get to see something of the police investigation because I think the story around the counter-terrorism players will get boring. The extra curricular activities of Montague and Budd is just a nonsense storyline and nothing new.

That all sounds pretty spot on to me.

Some of them don't really count as twists thought tbh. Especially security service probably being linked to terrorist cell, that seemed to be sign posted.

Spook_ie

gmisk wrote: »

That all sounds pretty spot on to me.

Some of them don't really count as twists thought tbh. Especially security service probably being linked to terrorist cell, that seemed to be sign posted.

I'd view that signpost the same way as a single pole direction sign in the countryside, always pointing in the wrong direction.

Given that the police have now asked Budd to spy on his boss for them, even to the point of offering covert surveillance gadgets, I wouldn't bet against them being behind it.

Only thing I can't fit in anywhere is Budd's not telling anyone he knew the sniper.

The Black Oil

I presume it's so that no heat is brought to bear on the veteran's support group/dissenters.

gmisk

The Black Oil wrote: »

I presume it's so that no heat is brought to bear on the veteran's support group/dissenters.

As well as no heat on him maybe?

I think the police might find it a tad odd...that he has stopped a terrorist attack on a train, his kids are almost blown up in a terrorist bomb, and he stopped another terrorist/assassin attacker...all in a seemingly short period of time lol

Talisman

gmisk wrote: »

Especially security service probably being linked to terrorist cell, that seemed to be sign posted.

I thought so too, but her ladyship watched it with a friend and neither of them picked up on it.

Heckler

As before, action scenes are very well done, main plot to be seen, sexy times between the leads unless its going somewhere meh.

The train bomber scene was tense and the van at the school was typical (in a good way) british. Short, noisy and well executed. The whack of the bullets off the car by Apstead in the sniper scene nearly had me ducking.

If this had been an american drama there would have been all sorts of nonsense going on.

Talisman

The Black Oil wrote: »

I presume it's so that no heat is brought to bear on the veteran's support group/dissenters.

I think it's related to him hiding his PTSD condition. Andy (the sniper) mentioned that if Budd had put PTSD on his CV he wouldn't have his job. Presumably the meetup is for PTSD sufferers who focus blame on the British government for the war and its consequences which include their condition even though Andy focused primarily on Muslim radicals in his speech.

Marje

Was Mahmood the bomber or the blonde hair bodyguard - if it was Mahmood, Budd knew what was in the suitcase or did he?
Was it MacDonald who planned it all and that's why he didn't want to go.

Not a lot happened except for Budd nearly killing her and the last 10 minutes.

What was on the tablet she got.

A lot of questions

cml387

We know she has information on the PM, the secret service knew she was going to use it, but they wanted to plan the timing.

Highly unlikely that Mahmood is the bomber.

Something made both PPO's run to the podium before the blast but I couldn't see what it was.

The Black Oil

Well, that recap was certainly long.

Are we going to have an attack every week now? Suppose it is called Bodyguard after all. So, inevitably the security services are the more slippery feckers - did they conspire with Julia's ex? To get more surveillance powers that she was already driving towards, legislatively? David's being squeezed, how long can that last? Mahmoud is an easy fall guy, I reckon. Seeing him pop up again paralleled with Julia's reference to Bradford and Birmingham, etc. Show is notbad once you gloss over its more drivel ish elements.

Marje

I thought it was Mahmood at the door but going by this picture it was someone else? For some reason a good few have decided to use the tag #Bodygaurd on twitter

https://twitter.com/BevanWray/status/1036358141296951296

gmisk

Marje wrote: »

What was on the tablet she got.

A lot of questions

The tablet seemed to have a report on someone who was basically an alcoholic, used cocaine. Oh and had assaulted a woman.
I thought it was hinting that she was using this information to blackmail the pm (or someone close to him) to make a play for the leadership?
Also how did he use the tablet with latex gloves on... Why was steeley Hawes stupid enough to leave a printed page with the password right beside the tablet!?!
It's all a bit insane and OTT, but gripping as hell.

Will chanel the pissed off assistant who gets picked up in swanky jeeps come back into it... I'd say so.

pinkypinky

There's something oddly emotionless about the whole thing though. I'm watching it but not as engaged as I should be for something so tense.

gmisk

pinkypinky wrote: »

There's something oddly emotionless about the whole thing though. I'm watching it but not as engaged as I should be for something so tense.

I know what you mean....maybe its just because it is so OTT and unrealistic?
I am still enjoying the ride though...so to speak....

Harry Palmr

It's great, dunno what anyone would be complaining about. The public seems to love it as well the consolidated 7 day ratings are 10.5m while the overnights are at about 6.5m for the first three episodes which is remarkable these days as you can usually reckon 30% will have abandoned ship by the third part of a 6-8 episode drama.

The guardian series blog is great for speculation and chances are we're all wrong.

Mike Litoris

Harry Palmr wrote: »

The guardian series blog is great for speculation and chances are we're all wrong.

That was essential reading for Line of Duty especially when things got twistier than twisty.


Here's the blog for the latest episode. Beware of spoilers folks.


https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/sep/02/bodyguard-recap-series-one-episode-three-theres-no-way-this-can-end-well

Basq

It's good fun.. it's not quite in the same calibre as LoD but that's a difficult benchmark.

Just waiting for the association to be made between the shooter and Budd.

Definite red-herring that Paul "Bleach In The Eyes" Ready is involved in the conspiracy.. he's a cracking actor - terrifying in Utopia and proper comedic chops in Motherland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ1g2NWmdyM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cqQhcKcwJI

ED E

cml387 wrote: »

Something made both PPO's run to the podium before the blast but I couldn't see what it was.

Something made her run, I think he saw her running and took off. She could see more of stage right where he'd see stage left and the figure is standing stage right.

cml387

Basq wrote: »

Definite red-herring that Paul "Bleach In The Eyes" Ready is involved in the conspiracy.. he's a cracking actor - terrifying in Utopia and proper comedic chops in Motherland.

Yes of course,he is spooky
I had just got that scene from Utopia out of my mind. Thanks a lot:D

oneilla

Started watching this last night and didn't realise it was Jed Mercurio but I got Line of Duty vibes early on. Great show.

The sex seems a bit unnecessary and the attack during every episode is a bit much but looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Marje

Another packed full episode

Didn't expect Montague to die (or is she under protection and not dead)
Who changed the bullets in Budd's gun
MacDonald is definitely hiding something
Thought Budd was trying to tell the female bomber to pick Mahmood picture

Basq

Marje wrote: »

Another packed full episode

Didn't expect Montague to die (or is she under protection and not dead)

I'd be leaning towards that.. but with Jed Mercutio at the reins, who the hell knows..

all a bit preposterous but I'll keep watching.