Wasn't the final scene bleak!

The last scene showed that Smiley and Ann were living apart whereas in the rest of the series people were mentioning 'give our love to Ann.'

Also Ann mentioned it was an Uncle who owned the house.

Its that man again!!

Because Ann told Smiley she had no deep feelings for Haydon, the revelations and eventual fate of Haydon did not upset her in the way he'd hoped. Smiley wanted something like revenge, and inflict some emotional pain on Ann as she had to Smiley through her infidelities.

"Poor George" indeed. Brilliant professionally, but ultimately mortal, flawed and vulnerable



He's lost it! He thinks there's a pigeon in Catalonia that's in control of his legs!

I've been listening to the Radio4 series of broadcasts about the career of Kim Philby and how he betrayed MI6 and hoodwinked the Americans for good measure. In the post-war years the situation so far as British Intelligence was concerned was very bleak. Eventually the Cambridge spies were exposed but it took years to achieve and the betrayals cost the lives of many agents abroad. I think it was this atmosphere of gloom that the author was trying to imply.

Terribly bleak. We knew about George's weakness all along, but to actually see it like that was hard.

Still, I think Ann was wrong about life being a puzzle to him. He may have been vulnerable where she was concerned (and the fact that it was a problem was her OWN fault!), but I think he understood life in general better than most.

On the contrary, Anne delivers the summation of TTSP: "Poor George, life is such a mystery to you."

Give Sian Phillips some work? I'd take her anyway I could've her, especially in that era. Hard to believe anybody could play Anne Smiley other than Sian Pihillips at that time.