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This is the character sheet for Spooks. Under construction.
" Warning! As the series is now finished, and given the high cast turnover rate, there will be SPOILERS!"
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MI 5 Section D Staff(As of Series 10)
Sir Harry Pearce (Peter Firth)
The head of Section D, Harry Pearce is the central character at the core of the show, and is the only character to be in every season. He is known for his firm but fair leadership, as well as defending his operatives from trouble. Harry is a skilled Spy, with experience dating back to the Cold War as well as Northern Ireland, but as a result has more than a few skeletons in his closet...
Dark and Troubled Past: Usually related to his time during the Cold War and Northern Ireland.
Deadpan Snarker: Although this applies to most of the Spooks characters (especially when the Americans are involved, Harry makes it something of an art form...
Heroic BSOD: It takes 10 series but the death of Ruth finally pushes him into one.
I Need a Freaking Drink: Regularly seen pouring himself a glass of scotch after a hard day. When he is interrogated in one episode, his interrogator states that part of the profile of a traitor is recourse to hard liquor; Harry retorts that this would apply to most people in the service.
Mysterious Past: Harry's actions during the Cold War and Northern Island are mentioned but never full revealed. However, certain events during the former do become major plot points in the final few series...
Papa Bear: Harry is incredibly protective of his agents, and you will have hell to pay if you are responsible for threatning them..
Reasonable Authority Figure: Although in the first two series he is closer to Da Chief, he becomes more willing to break the rules along with his agents than he was in earlier series-although this doesn't mean he was never adverse to bending them....
Section D field officer in Series 9 & 10. Formerly a Special Forces trooper. He was one of the few officers besides Harry to survive 'til the end.
Erin Watts (Lara Pulver)
Section Chief during the final series. Also served as provisional Head of Counter-Terrorism between series nine and ten.
Calum Reed (Geoffrey Streatfield)
Junior Case Officer in series ten, brought on by Erin Watts to replace Beth Bailey. His knowledge of electronics is on par with Tariq, and the two of them often work on that aspect of missions together. Until Tariq dies.
Tropes:
Those Two Guys: With Tariq, to the point of being Malcolm and Colin, part two. Takes it hard when Tariq dies in front of him at the steps of Thames House.
Former Section D Staff (Beware of Spoilers)
Tom Quinn (Matthew Macfadyen)
Chief of Section D, Tom is the central character of the show from Series 1-3. An incredibly skilled operative,who increasingly found it difficult to reconcile his personal life with his work life, eventually leading to his being decommissioned. He later reappears in a brief cameo in the final episode as a private assassin whom is hired by Harry to kill those responsible for Ruth's death.
Junior Case Officer for Section D from Series 1-3.
Tropes:
Broken Pedestal: She very much admired Tessa, and was distraught to find out that she was running phantom agents to pocket their payroll.
Cunning Linguist: An Oxford graduate in Modern Languages. In Season 2 she is seen translating Serbian, and she is also revealed to be fluent in German.
The Exile: After the court finds her guilty of manslaughter and conspiracy to murder, Harry manages to secure a deal whereby she escapes jail time - by taking on a new identity and moving to Chile.
Danny Hunter (David Oyelowo)
Junior Case Officer for Section D from Series 1-3.
Money Fetish: Upbraided by Harry for fiddling with his credit rating in one episode. However, this fetish makes him a natural at stockbroking when placed undercover in a bank.
The Dandy: The team regularly tease him for his penchant for nice clothes and grooming:
Zoe: You, in the army? They don't do designer khaki, mate.
Dying Moment of Awesome: His final words to the terrorist holding him and Fiona hostage: "Fuck you, you death-worshipping fascist!".
Helen Flynn (Lisa Faulkner)
Junior Case Officer for Section D in Series 1.
Tropes:
Cruel and Unusual Death: Hand and face burned in a chip pan then shot in the head. The sheer gruesomeness of it almost got the show cancelled.
"Gruesome" may be overselling it a bit. The face dunk and headshot both went unseen by the audience since the camera was more focused on Tom's reactions to the scene.
We Hardly Knew Ye: Her death only two episodes into the first season was extremely shocking, and was the first of many signs that this is a show where Anyone Can Die.
Malcolm Wynn-Jones (Hugh Simon)
Technician and Data Analyst for Section D from Series 1-8, when he retires. He also makes an appearance in Series 9.
Tropes:
Crossword Puzzle: When Adam wants something decoded quickly, he says "Quick as one of your crossword puzzles".
MacGyvering: During a grid lockdown, he and Colin manage to build a robot with which to communicate with the outside world using only the materials in their office.
Omnidisciplinary Scientist: There is virtually no technical subject, from computer security to chemical weapons to explosives, that Malcolm does not seem to be an expert on.
The Rainman: In the script for one of his first episodes, he is described as being "an odd-looking man in a bow-tie. He sounds almost autistic—a walking intelligence encyclopaedia."
Colin Wells (Rory MacGregor)
Technician and Data Analyst for Section D from Series 1-5
Kill The Cutie: Of all the team, Colin is the most harmless and the least regularly exposed to danger, which made his execution at the hands of rogue MI 6 officers all the more cruel.
Those Two Guys: While it is clear that Malcolm and Colin are best friends, the significance of it for the two background characters becomes clear when Colin dies, and Malcolm angrily tells Harry "He wasn’t just some geek who did crossword puzzles, he was my bloody best friend!”.
Ruth Evershed (Nicola Walker)
A senior intelligence analyst. Ruth was seconded to Section D from GCHQ in 2003 (Season 2); this was her dream job, as she hated GCHQ for having "too many bloody mathematicians". As part of her transfer, she was required to pass details of MI-5's operations on to GCHQ. Tom discovered this, and quickly turned her. She is present from Season 2 - Season 5, and again from Season 8 - the finale of Season 10.
It Gets Easier: She laments that she's become completely desensitised to the horrible things she sees in her work, and feels that it's left her "dead inside".
An agent from MI 6 that Harry "borrows", Adam becomes a permanent addition to the team, taking over Tom's role as Section Head (and central character) from Series 3-7. He is killed in the first episode of Series 7 attempting to get a Car bomb away from an area with people.
Tropes:
Adult Fear: His nightmares are not of what will happen to himself, but that something will happen to his son Wes and he won't be there.
Heroic BSOD: Several times in Season 5, revealed in the season finale to be the delayed effects of PTSD and survivor guilt after his wife Fiona's death in the previous season.
Heroic Sacrifice: Dies driving a car rigged with explosives to an empty square so that there would be no civilian casualties; had he bailed a few seconds earlier, he might have survived.
Hat, Coat, Accent: He first appears as a crazy homeless man, who stumbles upon Zoe, Danny, Sam, Ruth and Malcolm having a secret meeting while on the run. However, he quickly breaks character to tell them that they are being bugged and followed, before biding them time and annoying their pursuers.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Played with (when Ruth accidently calls him Tom) but averted. Although it is clear that Adam is the same kind of character as Tom, it is averted by the fact that Adam is introduced while Tom is still around (albeit on the run), thereby higlighting their contrasts; Adam has a more casual and affable persona, in addition to his qualities as The Ace. Also, it helps that Tom is more or less broken at this point. However, after Tom leaves, it is clear to Adam that the team don't quite yet entirely trust him as a replacement.
Adam's wife, and a senior case officer seconded from MI-6 at Adam's request, partly so that she could spend more time with her husband and son. Present from series 3 to series 4, when she is killed by her Syrian ex-husband.
Tropes:
Dark and Troubled Past: No one except Adam knows her real name, and with very good reason.
A Junior Case Officer in Section D from Series 3 to Series 6. He was transferred at Adam's request for a mission involving an Islamic terror cell - which turns into the kidnapping of Danny and Fiona. His move is made more permanent in Series 4.
Token Religious Teammate: Justified, in that Zaf's background allows him to infiltrate Islamic terror cells more convincingly than others. Also subverted in that while Zaf is of a Muslim background, he's not very devout - though he does find misrepresentations of his culture and religion annoying.
Joanna Portman (Miranda Raison)
A field operative in Section D from Series 4 to Series 8. Formerly an aspiring journalist, Adam recruited her himself when she showed unusual tenacity and guile in finding out who he was, alerting Zaf and Ruth to an approaching kill squad, and gaining an hour of phone recording of the villains. She was active until Series 8, when she was killed as a human shield.
Heroic BSOD: During Series 7; when she and Adam were captured by the Redbacks, she was not only tortured, but repeatedly raped. She has frequent visions of her attacker, which distress her so much that she is in danger of compromising missions.
Took a Level in Badass: Though she was cunning and resourceful to begin with, by Series 5 she had become noticeably more physically capable.
Rosalind "Ros" Myers (Hermione Norris)
First introduced as an MI 6 section chief and a member of Collingwood's conspiracy, she leaves Six and joins MI-5 after betraying said cabal. Took the rank of Senior Case Officer and served as number two to Adam Carter in series five and six. Succeeded Adam as section chief in series seven. Killed in a hotel explosion at the end of series eight.
Defrosting Ice Queen: Series eight sees Ros undergoing this to some extent. Shows up most obviously in the fourth episode, during an exchange with a drug addict who shares a noticeable resemblance to recently deceased officer Jo Portman.
Heroic Sacrifice: Dies in a hotel explosion, while trying to rescue the Home Minister.
Tom Quinn's predecessor as Section Chief, prior to the start of the series. Imprisoned in Russia for eight years after a botched operation, he was returned to MI-5 at the start of series seven, and quickly reinstated as a Senior Case Officer. Spent two series as Ros Myers' number two, before regaining his post of Section Chief in series nine. Threw himself from a rooftop in the last episode of series nine, after his Mysterious Past prior to MI-5 was brought into the open.
Tropes:
Broken Ace: Comes packaged this way. In fact, press material from Kudos basically says this and also that he's trying to rebuild his skills and regain his former prominence.
Dark and Troubled Past: His lengthy imprisonment gives him some major issues, especially when it becomes plot-relevant.
Interrogated for Nothing: For years, he was subjected to waterboarding for information about 'Sugarhorse', which he knew nothing about. Though Harry did.
Loss of Identity: Undergoes this after becoming trapped between "Lucas the Hero" and "John the Monster". Ultimately kills himself after being unable to reconcile the two, and destroying everything he cared about in both lives in the process.
Prisons Are Gymnasiums: Sort of. Straight after he gets back, Lucas asserts that being in a Russian prison has made him stronger and more wary than ever; Harry retorts that he's half-starved and running purely on adrenaline.
The Mole: Subverted and Inverted. Seen passing intel to Russian contact and ex-wife Elizavieta, he later reveals that it was "junk intel" designed to get the Russians to trust him so he could find out their plot against Britain. Spends the next several episodes pumping his Russian connections for information to help MI-5 in its own mole-hunt.
Stockholm Syndrome: Invoked by Harry concerning Lucas and his former torturer Darshavin. Ultimately subverted.
Tariq Masood (Shazad Latif)
Technician and Data Analyst. Hired in the second episode of series eight as a replacement for Malcolm. Poisoned in the second episode of series ten.
Refuge in Audacity: His golden moment comes when his phone goes off at the opera.
Woman: Do you mind awfully not doing that? Siviter: Are you a Nazi, madam? Woman: I beg your pardon? Siviter: I mean, we Wagner fans are a rum lot. I myself bugger skinheads. So kindly don't tell me what I can or cannot do.
It's All About Me: Or at least, all about the United States, in the eyes of the Grid team.
Tsundere: She reveals to Tom that the reason she acts so demanding and aggressive during the security arrangements for the President's visit is that it's her first major assignment, and her superiors are just waiting for her to screw it up.
Michael Collingwood (Nicholas Jones)
Head of Counter-Terrorism at MI 6 at the beginning of series five. Also the visionary of a conspiracy working to turn Britain into a virtual police state.
Tropes:
Knight Templar: A firm believer of "saving the village by burning it down". First manipulates al-Qaeda cells into attacking Britain, then stages his own terrorist attacks, all in the name of getting a series of anti-terrorism measures in place that would effectively erase civil liberties in the name of national security. He also assassinates and then discredits key members of Parliament who oppose his plans, and later throws others in jail.
Knight Templar: Though slightly less so than Collingwood; Oliver Mace saw the Tom Quinn incident as an opportunity to neuter and subjugate MI-5 for the government's purposes.
Members of government
Nicholas Blake MP (Robert Glenister)
The Home Secretary in the British government from Series 5 to Series 9. Harry regularly briefed and liaised with Blake, and he was one of the few politicians who Harry respected. Killed by Harry at the beginning of Series 9, when it was revealed that he was one of the architects of Nightingale.
