Hey kids, let’s get the band back together!
No one in Season Two of The Bletchley Circle actually utters these words but if they did, it would be fitting.
This image is NOT from The Bletchley Circle.
Season Two, Episode One is titled “Blood on their Hands Part 1 and Part 2”. It opens back at Bletchley Park during WWII. It’s 1943 and we see a newcomer, Alice Merren (played by Hattie Morahan who played Elinor in Sense and Sensibility which I wrote about here) solving a problem with a code.
You can build the most perfectly complicated machine in the world, but it’ll still be run by people. People love shortcuts.
Hattie Morahan as Alice Merren
Next we see her kiss John Richards (played by Paul McGann, Doctor Who’s Eighth doctor), a scientist at Bletchley, after he explains that he has been reassigned. He can’t tell her where he’s going and it seems that this is the end of whatever their relationship is. Our old buddy Jean McBrian (Julie Graham) witnesses the kiss but says nothing.
Paul McGann as John Richards
Jump to 1953 London (which takes place after the happenings of Season One which I wrote about here)….
First we witness Alice calling the police, handling a gun and then a dead John Richards. We learn that Jean has been attempting to contact Alice but the letters have all been returned. Alice has now been arrested for Richards’ murder but when Jean visits her, Alice has no interest in discussing her case.
Jean decides she’s going to get her crime solving team back together, whether they (or Alice) want it or not. We find that Lucy (Sophie Rundle) is now working for Scotland Yard, though only as “clerical support officer”. She seems to be learning a lot of useful skills though like picking locks and how to search rooms. Millie (Rachael Stirling) is currently at a translation post and Susan (Anna Maxwell Martin) is currently researching boarding schools for her children. Thus far though, she hasn’t found one that lives up to her “standards”. Susan learns that her husband, Timothy (Mark Dexter) has been offered a foreign post but won’t accept unless she approves.
Although Alice doesn’t want any help from them, Jean is the driving force this time for the group’s crime solving activities. Susan is suffering from some PTSD type symptoms from last season. She balks at getting involved again despite Jean’s pleas.
Susan, you’re good at this type of thing. We need you.
Other people need me more.
As expected, they quickly get to the bottom of the mystery but learn that what they thought was a case of one woman (Alice) taking the blame for someone else (new character Elizabeth “Lizzie”) is actually a vast military conspiracy related to sarin and highly questionable experiments. Lizzie is played by the brilliant Faye Marsay of The White Queen miniseries which I wrote about here.
Faye Marsay as Elizabeth “Lizzie” Lancaster
Like Season One, I recommend Season Two of The Bletchley Circle. Like the previous season, these first two episodes are highly focused on the six women – Jean, Millie, Lucy, Susan, Alice and Lizzie. The “bad guy”(played by Paul Ritter) has a very small part. Timothy is important only as Susan’s husband and how his behavior and plans for his career affect her. It focuses on: Susan’s ability to deal with her life after the prior traumatic events and her relationship with her husband; Jean’s stubbornness in helping Alice and Alice’s reasons for not wanting that help; the relationship between Alice and Lizzie and how it led to Alice being sentenced to hang.
One month after they solve the case, one group member is recovering from a bullet wound, Susan’s life is about to change and it looks like Alice will be the “new Susan”.
Episodes three and four are called “Uncustomed Goods Part 1 and Part 2”. Alice is now unable to get a job because of her past. Although she continues to remind prospective employers that she was found innocent, the fact that she was in the news works against her.
Lizzie is living with Alice though she is away during the week, studying at a teachers’ school (ironically at Bletchley Park which is now a college). Millie, who lost her job in the first two episodes of this season, is now working the black market to pay bills. Something goes wrong with her partner and his supplier and Millie is kidnapped.
The other three ladies (Jean, Lucy and Alice) organize a search for her when the police don’t believe she is in danger. Once Millie is free, the four of the women work to bring down the head of the organization that kidnapped Millie and killed her partner. These episodes also show up the growth and strengthening of Alice and Lizzie’s relationship.
Unfortunately episodes three and four from Season Two are not as strong as episodes one and two. Faye Marsay (who plays Lizzie) is a wonderful actress and she is given little to do in the later episodes. Julie Graham, as Jean, is strong this entire season as is Rachael Stirling as Millie. I have no complaint about Sophie Rundle’s portrayal of Lucy. It just seems that Lucy’s skills (eidetic memory) are not emphasized as much in Season Two. The loss of Anna Maxwell Martin’s Susan is definitely felt in episodes three and four. While Hattie Morahan’s Alice is strong, her approach is more common sense based than Susan’s impressive cognitive skills. I still recommend The Bletchley Circle, Season Two with the caveat that, in this case, the sequel isn’t as strong as the original.
The DVD for Season Two includes some cast interviews as well as interviews with writers, producers and one woman who was at the real Bletchley Park. Audrey Wind, who was a worker at Bletchley, explained how the strict security impacted the lives of the workers even many years after the war. During the war, “they told us there would be no advancement because they didn’t let anyone out for security reasons”. Their bosses emphasized that “lives depend upon you breaking these codes”. Because they had signed the Official Secrets Act, after the war the women were not allowed to tell anyone what they did during the war. “For 30 years after the war we were sworn to secrecy so nobody could say a thing”. Said writer Guy Burt a “generation of people who had been astonishing and had done wonderful things had then faded from view and really weren’t recognized by their families, by the government, by anybody.” He also explains how the show emphasized the shifting allegiances of the post-WWII world. During the war, the Russians were allies but afterwards were the enemy. The Germans were exactly the opposite. This is referenced when Millie talks about her job as a translator for the German diplomatic ministry in Episodes one and two. Both seasons of the Bletchley Circle were shown on ITV in the United Kingdom and PBS in the States.
I encourage everyone to learn about the “real” Bletchley Park. The official home of Bletchley Park is at www.bletchleypark.org.uk. Any research should start there. More information about the real Bletchley Park can be found here. Bletchley Park is now a museum and you can find info about it here and here. For more info about the women of Bletchley Park go here. A movie, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, about Bletchley Park alum Alan Turing will be released in October 2014.
My English Obsession 