I Spy With My Little Eye…

spoilers, etc below

i LOL'd at the "deepfakes of their parents doing donkey porn." Tom Harris, the man you are (omg, and then the line about the haircut. perfection.)

i will say there was a certain vibe about the books taking place in the early 2000s where Alex would have been a bit more unreachable that i did kind of appreciate

yay diversity obviously bc the books desperately needed it (but i'm wondering how this whole clone plot is going to work when there's also girls at Point Blanc)

"what do Fiona call you?" "she doesn't" :sob:

i'm kind of obsessed with the David Friend and Alan Blunt lore

the girl who played Fiona was perfect. no notes.

okay i'm sorry but i hate that Tom found out Alex's secret this on?? like where is my delirious train ride confessional after the boy gets trapped in the sewage systems of venice?? also, the two of them slowly drifting apart in the books until Alex knows that spilling his biggest secret is the only way to keep his only friend????? god they messed this one up imo, such a pivitol point in the books and i feel like they "blew their load" a little quickly on this one.

tom: "i have to suffer because you're a dick" is a crazy line. 11/10

literally tom:

i'm so glad we got Alex Rider King of Sass in that interview with Eva lmfaooo i love this kid

The Team knocks out a security guard and steals their radio. The team mimic can perfectly replicate the knocked out guard’s voice. They get caught because they pronounced the name of the company correctly.

The Team disables an alarm. The only way to do this is to rip it out of the wall and disassemble it until it physically can’t make noise anymore. This very loud process is clearly heard by the posted security guard nearby, who rolls their eyes and text their supervisor that the logistics contractors are fooling with the alarms again.

The Team breaks into the facility at night. There they meet a single security guard who is chanting potential names for NPCs in their DnD campaign out loud while they do their patrols. They encounter a fire extinguisher. They pause in their chanting to check that it is properly charged and to apply a sticker that reads, “Anal use only”. This guy is disgustingly good at their job. There’s no way around it, they’re going to catch you. And you’re going to have to deal with the fact that you’ve been had by someone who has a supply of stickers that say “Anal use only” and who unironically wanted to name their NPC shopkeep Mammogrammus.

The Team attempts to bribe a security guard. This is its own post but know there’s no way in hell that would work.

The Team breaks into the high security room and disables all the alarms. Security control sends several guards to investigate why there are no alarms going off.

The Team attempts to break into the high security room but can’t because it’s randomly decided not to let anyone at all in today.

The Team steals a keycard with “””””unlimited””””” access to the facility and gets caught because the computer system that manages keycards randomly revokes access for no reason.

I’ve completely forgotten what happened in Snakehead tbh, so I was surprised to see it mentioned a few times in the thread.

As for which book I think could be adapted next, I still stand by Nightshade, because

1: Mrs Jones content, obviously

2: I think it has a more layered plot compared to the rest. It has opportunity for story flexibility/expansion when being adapted for screen yet enough book plot that it can still stay true to the book. Some of the standalone adventures with a one time boss, wouldn’t have enough content to fill 8 exciting episodes, they would have to find subplots to fill up the gaps. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s harder to do right when book fans are involved. Nightshade has enough of a plot that would keep the story flow (on screen) effectively paced.

However, I saw a comment saying that Nightshade needs the padding of the other books and I think that’s an excellent point (essentially so it doesn’t go from one big boss to the next—Scorpia to Nightshade—and feel too similar to the first tv show. I agree that that would work also because it’s better build up to the big boss with smaller bosses for bigger impact).

Wow! The lighting in this show! I need to write a whole thing about this!

Reminder that I haven’t read the books since I was a child and have forgotten a lot, but I’m pretty sure in those Alex was usually portrayed as the typical teenage boy protagonist. He was snarky/sarcastic, gave the bad guys henchmen nicknames, and for the most part he really worked alone. I’m almost finished season 2, but a difference I noticed is that he hasn’t got his all the really cool spy gear (that I was always envious of) he would usually be given at the beginning of missions, and when he was in a bad situation he could only rely on himself to get him out of it. But in the show they took those away, and due to that he really has to rely on people.

Both in season 1 and now in 2 he couldn’t have made it without Kyra (when he gets captured/caught and strapped to a table, then when he impersonates K7 and she has to guide him out) and its obvious that his relationship with Tom (Jack too, but I really think Tom’s a big one here) is really special to him, not just because he’s able to think outside the box (like when Alex wanted to just wait all day for the journalist guy and Tom was all ‘i’ll just set off the alarm and evacuate the building) but also because he’s his best friend and makes him laugh/smile. Alex smiles so much at Tom’s antics and I really love the show for choosing to maintain that this is a teenage boy who needs his friends to keep him grounded.

And when he’s all convinced that Yassen is in the area he tells everyone!! Jack, Tom, even Sabina! (who really he should’ve at least tried to keep the whole spy thing a secret from i feel like come on, Alex, please) He jumps out in situations when he should stay hidden! He is not secretive when it comes to those he loves! And you can see that he wants and needs them to believe him. From what I remember, book Alex was more ‘ooh! Cool teenage spy, beating up all the bad guys and saving the world cuz Blunt won’t let him go!’ (Or maybe not, I’ll reread them someday) but this Alex cares!! This version of Alex cared so much about what happened to his uncle Ian, he cared so much that his evil clone was hurting Tom and ran as fast as he could to get to them, he cares so much about Kyra he went on a drugged up rant about how she’s special and he wouldn’t fall for fake Kyra’s tricks again. He cares so much about Sabina and her dad.