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Review of 'The Rook' 1.5

The Home Secretary

By Paul LevinsonPublished 5 years ago 1 min read
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The Home Secretary came into focus in The Rook 1.5 this past Sunday. No figurehead, she, but a crucial player, who's been having an affair with Conrad, and wants to be Prime Minister. And she's well played by Gina McKee, whom I first noticed in The Borgias.

But the big news is Farrier, who's not only fired by the Home Secretary, but displays some powerful super powers of her own. Unless I haven't been paying attention, this is the first time we've seen them. As this series progresses, it's apparent that there are more EVAs than first met the eye.

I've said the show reminds me of Heroes. It also has threads of Sense8. The Gestalts, indeed, are closely related Sense8 clusters—born on the same day, in powerful telepathic connection, the only difference being the Sense8 cluster members are not physical twins. But the cluster members come from all around the world, and the back story of Nazim brings home the global distribution of EVAs.

The resonances of The Rook with other series—in reviewing it in the past weeks, I've mentioned Heroes, Counterpart, and Sense8—is actually its great strength. Because although it bears resemblances to these and other shows, there's something about The Rook that's all its own. Something in the pacing, or the characters, or both. Take the Home Secretary, for instance.

She's having an affair with Conrad, and the rules say they either now must break it off or go public with it. Jennifer (that's her name) breaks it off, because she thinks the Prime Minister is vulnerable and thus open to Jennifer becoming the PM. So, I'm wondering—is she also an EVA of some sort, and if she becomes PM, wouldn't that be a provocative development? (Hey, the current Prime Minister in our real world is... well, let's not go there.)

has "that same whimsical sense of humor as Levinson's other short stories 'Ian's Ions and Eons' that leave you with a good feeling when you finish"—5-star review

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About the Creator

Paul Levinson

Novels The Silk Code & The Plot To Save Socrates; LPs Twice Upon A Rhyme & Welcome Up; nonfiction The Soft Edge & Digital McLuhan, translated into 15 languages. Best-known short story: The Chronology Protection Case; Prof, Fordham Univ.

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