Netflix thinks that I'm going to "love!" the spy series Black Doves, and I'm too occupied with breakfast to scroll down, so let's have a look. It will be a reprieve from endless Christmas romcoms, anyhow.
Scene 1: No such luck. Santa Claus stumbles through a bar, singing "The guys of the NYPD Choir were singing 'Galway Bay'". Huh? Heavily intoxicated, he stumbles out into the street, and...um...out of the show.
A seedy looking guy (Andrew Koji) scopes out the bar -- The Coal House, a famous pub on the Strand in London -- and tries to call Maggie. She's out, so he calls a black-haired woman to complain that he's in trouble.
Left: Andrew Koji's butt
The black haried woman patches him through to Philip. (Thomas Coombes).
Seedy Looking Guy asks: "Did you talk to anyone?" Philip says no; then he's strangled to death. The black-haired woman is stabbed.
Seedy Looking Guy calls someone else and starts to tell them "I..." -- probably "love you," before he is shot. Way to kill off all of the introduced characters! Now who's the focus, Santa Claus?
Scene 2: Rome. A new seedy-looking guy sits at a bar, smoking. Mrs. Reed calls. He ignores her, but she keeps calling until he answers. He says "Ok, I understand." I don't.
Scene 3: Maybe London. An old lady with a dog...wait, not a focus character. A nuclear family Mom gets her sons and daughter ready for the Christmas pageant. There's a son and a daughter running up the stairs while squealing in delight and another son in the back yard, but when they appear again, there's only two. Big continuity error, guys, but they turn out to be just props to demonstrate her nuclear family-ness.
Then she goes into the study, where her husband (Andrew Buchan),the Minister of Defense, is negotiating with the Saudis and worried about the death of the Chinese ambassador. The coroner says it was a drug overdose, but you never know. I'm not sure what the Saudis have to do with it.
Scene 4: A swanky party. Mom greets some people, announces that this party is her light when things seem dark outside. Then an Elderly Woman pulls her aside and announces that Jason Davies, a Justice Department official whom she was having an affair with, was murdered.
She flashes back to kissing Jason and playing with his lips -- it's the Seedy Looking Guy from the first scene -- then assures the elderly woman that she wasn't working an angle. It was a real romance.
"Maggie Jones, who worked in a shop, and tabloid reporter Phillip Bray were also murdered." What about the black haired woman? She can't be Maggie, since Seedy Looking Guy told her "I can't reach Maggie."
Elderly Woman wants to know if he said anything during their last meeting that might have gotten him murdered, or if he was trying to find out Mom's true identity as a Black Dove.
Back story: Mom -- finally named Helen -- has been doing deep cover for ten years, courting and marrying the Minister of Defense and feeding them government secrets. She's in too deep to back out now, and besides, the Minister is on the road to Downing Street!
Elderly Woman tells her to keep quiet, don't call attention to herself, and especially don't investigate your boyfriend's murder.
Scene 5: The Elderly Woman approaches the Second Seedy-Looking Guy, now named Sam (Ben Whishaw)
He's retired; he hasn't had a hitman assignment for seven years; but the Elderly Woman insists: find out if someone is planning to murder Helen due to her association with Seedy-Looking Guy, and if so, kill them.
Later, Sam is drinking in a bar when a guy approaches him. They chat, and Sam invites him up to his hotel room. Say what?
Cut to Helen disobeying orders and going to the Seedy-Looking Guy's apartment. She snoops around, cuddles with his coat, destroys a bug, tries to open a secret panel....
Wait -- what about the guy Sam invited to his room?
Screwing after the break
