Woman of the Month: Zoe Reynolds

Zoe Reynolds from Spooks

I’ll admit that it was a bit of struggle to find a Woman of the Month for March. When I started this blog, I told myself I could only chose heroic female characters (no villains) and that I would limit myself to one per book, film or show. I also try to refrain from choosing a character until the entirety of her story is completed – you never know where she’s going to end up, and I've had one too many instances in which I would spotlight a female character right before she came to a sticky end. Occasionally I break these rules, but given that I’m in the middle of finishing or continuing a lot of shows that are well into their collective runs, I find myself scrambling to find a decent candidate.

So, let’s go with Zoe Reynolds. No, I have no idea where her story ends up, and given the nature of the show there’s a good chance it won’t have a happy ending, but I don’t have many options at this exact moment. (I suspect that if I was further along than season two, it would be Ruth Evershed getting profiled here, as I know she sticks around until the final season).

Like last month’s Camille Bordey, Zoe Reynolds is more of an archetype than a full-formed, three-dimensional character… and that’s okay. The general vibe of Spooks is one of secrecy and professionalism, and we learn very little about the backgrounds of our main cast beyond their basic training and specialized skill-sets. Their lives revolve around their jobs, and they exist almost entirely in the moment. This actually poses something of a challenge for the actors, as they’re required to convey internally complicated people beneath carefully controlled veneers – and for my money, it’s mostly through Zoe that the writers explore the strain between the necessities of the job and the allure of normalcy. Whenever she goes undercover (most notably as a high school teacher) you can tell she enjoys the perks of “civilian” life.

Although she’s a consummate professional, who can keep her head in high-stress situations and never loses sight of long-term objectives, every now and then her cold demeanour gets punctured. When a superior officer she admires is revealed to have been running phantom agents and pocketing the bribe money for herself, she’s distraught. When she learns the man she’s been seeing in a local pub is married, she ends up in tears in an office corridor. At the end of the day, she’s only human.

It’s fun seeing Keely Hawes in one of her first major roles, and I like that she has a short, practical haircut and is allowed to wear non-glamourous clothing to work. Every now and then she’s required to present herself as something of a honey trap, but it’s never gratuitous (*side-eyes Sidney Bristow in Alias, who spent most of her uncover work in a bikini*) and in many ways, she’s the antidote to all those sexy supermodel spies, being more likely to save the day from a boardroom while wearing sensible shoes than doing dangerous field work in an evening dress. Now, here’s hoping she doesn’t meet the same fate as poor Helen Flynn…