When asked in the 30 day challenge what my favorite bromance was, I picked John Porter and Gerry from Strike Back. My initial reaction to that question was to pick Lucas North and Adam Carter from MI-5 but since their bromance only lasted a short while, I passed them over for one that seemed more substantial. Today I’m going to give Lucas and Adam their due.
Lucas and Adam meet for the first time when Harry is signing Lucas in to MI-5 headquarters. Lucas had just been released from Russian custody; he was captured 8 years ago while on assignment and has been withering away in prison ever since.
Lucas is enjoying his requested meal of fish & chips, when he’s hastily introduced to Adam. Lucas wipes his greasy fingers onto his well-worn sweater in order to give Adam a proper handshake.
Adam welcomes Lucas,
Lucas shares his meal,
and the bromance is born!
It may seem trite for Adam to say “welcome home” to Lucas, after all that he’s been through, but it’s a phrase that holds a heavy meaning. My Dad, a Vietnam veteran, says something similar to other Vets upon meeting them for the first time, “welcome home, brother.” It’s purpose is to give each and every Vietnam veteran the welcome home that they never received at the time of their own homecoming, unlike the war heroes of past wars who had whole parades in their honor.
I think Adam was expressing a similar kind of sentiment. Lucas deserved a heroes welcome, instead of being jostled around under cover of darkness; Adam understood that, like he did with so much concerning Lucas.
When Lucas and his debriefing get put on hold for a crisis involving a soldier’s kidnapping by terrorists, Lucas desperately wants to help. “I know how it feels, alright?” he tells Adam, “I know what it’s like for him, so…let me help.”
Harry thinks it’s a bad idea to go against protocol but Adam wins him over. Adam understands that Lucas needs an anchor, he needs to feel useful in order to find his place again.
“Where do I go, Harry, and what am I supposed to do when I get there? Just tell me and I’ll go and I’ll do it.”
When the terrorist contact had been tracked down, Adam and Lucas sneak into his house and retrieve valuable information from his mobile telephone. They work really well together as a team. Lucas seems a bit rusty, out of his element in regards to technology and whatnot but Adam gives him the opportunity to adapt and balance himself out.
As the operation progresses, the location of the kidnapped soldier is finally discovered. Adam and Lucas rush to the scene, knowing they have very little time left to get the soldier out alive. Adam knows the house will be rigged with traps, preventing them from entering successfully. Lucas, knowing the young terrorists have had dealings with Russians in the past, calls them and speaks with a Russian accent; convincing them to move the hostage to a different location. “don’t think, just do!”
The mood surrounding Lucas changed considerably during this scene. The sense of accomplishment at having come up with a useful idea at such a pivotal time, and actually have it work, is priceless!
As is the impressive heel-of-the-hand-to-the-face move
that Lucas executes so gracefully!
With the soldier now safe, Lucas and Adam rush off to the Remembrance Day ceremony that has proven to be the bigger threat. A massive bomb was found in a car just outside the memorial service. While Adam deals with the bomb, Lucas hunts down the code that can disarm it. Lucas tackles the targeted woman and all out wrestles with her, but all to no avail; she poisons herself before any information can be wrangled out of her.
And then, well,
you know what happens next.
Even though Adam and Lucas were only in one episode together, they truly are my favorite bromance. Harry and the higher-ups may have orchestrated the release of Lucas and returned him home, but it was Adam who gave him his life back.
Nowhere in Particular RA 
You might also be interested, if you can find it — I looked a little, and I can’t, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there, just that I am not searching in the right place — for the deleted scene with Adam and Lucas. There were four deleted scenes featuring Adam from Spooks 7 — three of them concerned the fact that Adam had completely lied about his background / history and someone who vetted him had covered it over. He essentially came from a working class background and didn’t have the education he claimed — and I think maybe didn’t have the parents he claimed to have — my memory is a bit fuzzy, despite his appearance, and this info was uncovered through a series of conversations. But *one* of the scenes had Adam and Lucas walking out the building together on their way to the operation where they burgle the terrorist’s house, and talking about why they decided to be spooks.
These scenes were posted only on the BBC site, and AFAIK they were not included in the DVDs of the series. I only saw them once or twice on yt, and that was before I was downloading vid like I am now, so I don’t have them. (Actually, RAFrenzy would be the person to ask.) But they would fit well into your discussion, insofar as (iirc) Lucas and Adam discover they had similar motivations for doing this work — among them, the thrill.
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W-O-W! that is some really interesting info! Adam lying about who he was in order to become a Spook…Lucas and Adam really are MTB 🙂
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I can see a thumbnail for the scenes here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fbnkp but I can’t play them (not in the UK) — maybe you can mobilize someone to DL them for you 🙂
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Awesome! I must see this deleted scene. *begins to scheme*
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when you get this schemed, remember me please
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I’m a crap schemer, so don’t expect much 😉
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The companion book “Spooks: Personnel Files” (published 2006) shows the following background for Adam. His father was a diplomat and his mother was an architect. When he wasn’t living abroad with his parents, he was in boarding school, one which he ran away from to visit a friend. He went to St. Paul’s School in London for secondary education before spending his gap year teaching English in the West Bank. He then went to Cambridge to major in Arabic.
Part of me thinks that this deleted scene was Adam trying to make Lucas feel comfortable or at home now that he *is* home after 8 years in Russian prison. Adam had a history of torture in the hands of his wife’s ex-husband and seemed really sympathetic to Lucas’ need to belong to the Grid again – after all, the poor man was incarcerated while working for Section D and was the section chief at that time before Adam took over the job.
Either that or they deleted it because it didn’t match with what the earlier writers had written for Adam’s upbringing.
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No, I think they were trying to muddy Adam’s background, changing it from the official story which he created. This is the description from wikipedia, which is more or less what I remember — that the characters are like “what? but I thought …”
The episode includes four deleted scenes, which feature more on Adam’s past. In the scenes Harry tells Ros that he was looking for Adam’s mother, but could not find her because before his death, Adam altered her records on where she lived. Harry visits a wealthy estate where she worked and is told she is currently in Blackpool. In the last scene, Harry and Ros toast to Adam. Those scenes have been included on BBC iPlayer on the Spooks website.[4]
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If that were indeed what they were doing, then the vetting process to get into MI6, where Adam first started before Harry recruited him into Section D must really be so shoddy.
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To me that point is amply demonstrated by series 9 — that they didn’t know Lucas was someone else, and they were unaware of Beth’s South American connections. It’s something a lot of people think; I remember a lot of conversations about it at the time.
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Which is really quite mind-boggling because in the first few seasons, they knew everything about their operatives. They cross-checked everything (if I base it on the companion book, that is, which includes ‘copies’ of reference letters and interview transcripts as well) and the writers were quite meticulous with details.
If I didn’t have this book as well as Harry’s ‘diary’ (another Kudos publication) which documents his life before Section D up to when Ruth threw herself in front of the bus (so to speak) to save Harry, then I would have probably taken what S9 had to sell me.
But it still wouldn’t have made any sense…
Which is probably why we’re all still mulling about it 🙂
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it’s when things go wrong, when people get sloppy, that the real thrills begin though. if the rules were always followed, if everyone was checked out forwards and backwards, that would make for some very boring storylines!
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yes, the deleted scenes I saw are after Adam’s death, and the family friend tells Harry that her father paid for Adam’s schooling to get rid of his accent, etc. his mother was that family’s maid. not that big a deal to me, in the US, but I know the class system can be a real obstacle in the UK.
as for the scene with Lucas and Adam, he was trying to put Lucas at ease, basically saying “just focus on the job, it’s the only life any of us have anyway”
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Nice post K.! I do like their relationship. I hadn’t been watching Spooks so wasn’t attached to RPJ/Adam when I first saw Lucas. I liked Adam at first sight, though. I went back and watched his episodes pre-Lucas. They definitely had chemistry!! 😀
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I saw Lucas before Adam too, but now I’m slowly catching up with old episodes and I like Adam very much 🙂
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I was heartbroken when Adam died – mainly because i wanted to see more of RPJ and RA working together. The chemistry was really good and, i think, as a double act, they would have been magnetic.
For this reason (and please don’t point out all the reasons this wish is probably futile – leave me to me my fantasies) my dream cast for Poldark would have RA as Ross and RPJ as his cousin Francis.
Interesting about the deleted scenes. i wonder if this SL was pulled and then attached to Lucas because the script writers realised that they wouldn’t have time to develop it with Adam.
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that’s an interesting thought, that the “dual persona” storyline was actually meant for Adam, hmm…
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I enjoyed revisiting these scenes! Thanks for putting it together!
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I love that first episode of season seven because we’re first introduced to Lucas but also the way these two play off each other.
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I second that. I fall in love with Lucas all over again when I see these scenes. Thanks!
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that palm to the face scene gets me every time. why do I sigh like a love-sick puppy when I see it? it’s not exactly romantic 😀
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It’s great to see Lucas featured again, with your gifs. Always happy to see Lucas in the early episodes, where he even has a few scripted jokes.
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the way I do a post is that I write it first, then go through my saved pics/gifs to find appropriate ones to plug-in to the different parts of the post. this time that was quite easy because Circus’ gifs practically did the whole episode!
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Hi! I’m a lurker mostly, I like to read your site Kelbel, it more than often makes me smile. 😀 I happen to have the deleted scenes saved on my computer (as I’m not in the UK, I might have found them sometime ago on YT). Though the quality is poor, I can send you the file by e-mail, maybe you or someone else can put it on their site. Have a good day everyone!
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I just e-mailed you, thank you for coming out of Lurkdom to offer! 😎
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*puppy eyes*
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like I would leave you out, silly puppy!
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Great post- loved Adam from the start, and love his so brief interactions with Lucas. Extra scenes would be great to see!
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the scenes UG shared with me are mostly Harry finding things out about Adam, not really Adam and Lucas. I can share them with you through e-mail though, if you’re interested.
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I’ll keep looking as I have a chance. This is one scene, Adam and Lucas are walking out of the entrance to the Grid, it’s probably about 45 seconds long. I’ll also ask Skully.
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yes, I think that’s at the beginning of the one that was just recently shared with me. it doesn’t say much though, just Lucas asking Adam what his life was like before he became a Spook, whether it was respectable. Adam says he was recruited while at University, so he never got the chance to find out what respectable felt like. the other clips were between Harry and Ros, and then Harry and a family friend of Adam’s; discussing Adam’s upbringing.
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huh. OK. That’s the scene. I thought that Lucas said something in the scene about himself as well — but perhaps not. Or perhaps there was another version of it floating around at some point. I hate that they didn’t put that on the DVD.
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the clip I saw started out right in the middle of Lucas talking as they’re coming out the door and Lucas is putting on his coat. I think Adam is asking him if he thought about ever being out in the field again (as a Spook) while he was in Prison, and Lucas said of course, wouldn’t you? to which Adam says he’s been a Spook for so long, he can’t remember any other way.
the person who recorded the clip though did so just by filming their television screen, so maybe there was a sentence or two that was missed.
it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense why they wouldn’t include that on the DVD. unless, as was suggested, it sounds too similar to what happened with Lucas in series 9, and they wanted to cover their tracks 😉
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which would imply they were thinking about that possible twist for Lucas alredy in the wake of S7 — OTOH, if that’s the case, why let people see those scenes with Adam at all? as far as I can tell you can still see them on the BBC iPlayer. A puzzle.
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it probably has to do with some kind of red-tape and not the storyline at all. it is an interesting concept to consider though 🙂
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