Black Doves Recap ‘The Cost of it All’: Helen Fights Back

Black Doves Season 1 Episode 5 Recap and Review

Reed was a spymaster who has clearly been very successful in running the Black Doves programme. She would not be alive, much less thriving, were she not very good at her job. But even the best make mistakes, and here she made rather a big one – she thought Helen could be replaced by Dani, and in a relatively short timeline. When Helen delivered a beat down on Dani without wrinkling her outfit, that was a demonstration of her skill that she has not lost, Jason aside. Ten years of service to a capitalist entity with no loyalty except to money, and Helen showed she still had what made them recruit her in the first place. More than a satisfying fight against the woman trying to steal her husband and take her life, Helen just might have saved her own, too, from further attempts from Reed and her associates. At least for now.

In the penultimate episode of the first season of Black Doves, Helen found herself under siege from all sides. She, along with Sam and Cole Atwood, had to escape the Chinese who were trying to get to the American spy. The Clarks found and took Kai-Ming, along with Eleanor. Williams had been shot. They all had to hide in MIchael’s apartment, because apparently after ten years of high level espionage in London, Helen did not have a safe house set up. 

At home, she was visited by an MI5 officer, Perryman, and asked about her visit to Vanessa at the US Embassy. Did Perryman and Wallace notice that Helen did not answer Perryman’s query about why she went to see Vanessa that day? If they did, neither of them pushed Helen for an answer. 

Wallace in particular had other things in mind. Andrew Buchan was beautifully restrained as his Wallace tried to pierce his wife’s everything-is-fine facade. There was this pained awareness that he was a political nerd who happened to marry a beautiful woman who may not have been wholly satisfied with the life and love he provided her. ‘I love you… And you fight for what you love, don’t you?’ It was a declaration from Wallace, half plea, half forgiveness, and Helen, distracted with everything that was happening in her spy life and her ceaseless drive to avenge her murdered lover, could not even tell him she loved him back. When she told him she was going out, to buy a present, after having just gotten home late after, she said, she had been buying presents, he did not protest. He knew it was an excuse, and he did not yet have the strength to fully break the veil of their pleasant married life. 

Helen needed to leave because Reed called her. They met at a bookshop, as spies in decades past have done many times before. Reed wanted Helen to hand Cole over the next morning. She also wanted the recording that people have been searching for since the murder of the Chinese ambassador. Helen asked about the Clarks, whom she claimed murdered Jason and his friends, Commissioner Yarrick, perhaps even the Chinese ambassador. Reed warned Helen that she could not take down an organisation like the Clarks, a warning that Helen refused to heed because they killed Jason. Give me a convincing love story, or give me Wallace.

Reed and I were on the same page. She said she looked into Jason, whose life was notably steady, with no red flags, until he got involved in the murder of the Chinese ambassador. She again asked Helen what she told him, and Helen again lied, she told him nothing. Reed reminded Helen of the one rule she could not break as a Black Dove, the rule that was punishable not by exile but by death. 

Helen had no intention of handing over Cole to Reed. When she woke up the next morning, alone in her bed because the heartbroken Wallace slept on their children’s room, she realised what Jason’s Christmas present and his connection to Maggie meant. She went to the jewellery shop where Maggie had worked as an assistant, drugged the old man working there unconscious, and broke into their safe. There, she found the recording everyone had been after.

Why did Reed send Dani when surely she could have sent other assassins to kill Helen? Dani fangirling over Helen before their fight started was cute. It felt like a test for Dani, to see if she were ready to replace, truly replace, Helen.

Why didn’t Helen kill Dani? That did not feel like mercy, merely convenience. Under the auspices of the Black Doves, Helen could call into Reed to request assistance in getting rid of a body, or bodies. Now that she was on the outs, she had no such support. The jewellery shop was right in the middle of a busy street. There would be cameras outside. There was an unconscious old man behind the counter. It would have been far trickier to get away with murder in broad daylight than a break in. Though, of course, we still needed to accept that Helen somehow found all the cameras in the jewellery store (which would have plenty of cameras) and tidied things up before she ran away, and that the old man did not call the police to check the cameras outside when he woke up. It’s all right. This is an instance when we can very much accept the rule of cool in writing. 

What was in that footage that people have killed and died for? It was that of Trent Clark and the Ambassador on the night he died. The Ambassador knew that Trent had been providing his daughter with drugs, and told him that if he saw him again, he would kill him. Trent pushed the Ambassador, who fell, hit his head, and accidentally died. In a panic, Trent called his mother. Stephen Yarrick showed up with a small crew and instructed his men to make the scene look like an overdose. He could then be heard on camera saying that he needed to phone the prime minister.

So the Chinese were at least half right. The Metropolitan Police was involved in the cover up. And, it looked like this conspiracy went all the way up to the prime minister. 

Now, Helen had the recording device that Repair Shop, i.e. the Clarks, wanted. They had Eleanor and Kai-Ming, and told Helen that unless she handed the device over to them by midday the next day, her friends would be killed horrifically. With multiple stories up in the air, we should be in for a good finale. 

Rating: B+

Strays

💌There was a flashback of Williams immediately following Kent’s death, with blood still on her face, as she headed to Eleanor’s place and asked her to be her new partner. I genuinely enjoy these two. 

💌According to Cole, as long as they had Kai-Ming, they could get Trent, because he was in love with her. 

💌The British Prime Minister met with the new Chinese Ambassador Hang, along with Wallace, Les Mullery who was the Director General of MI5, Perryman also of MI5, and Mitch Porter who was the CIA station chief. Porter accused  China of taking Cole Atwood, whom he insisted was agency staff, not a spy. Ambassador Hang called the US and UK actions warmongering, and said they unless they received compensation (the military contracts they wanted), they would retaliate. 

💌The Prime Minister called someone about the recording device.

💌Whilst at Michael’s home, Reed called Sam and told him to kill Alex Clark. She also wanted Cole Atwood, but Cole was gone. Sam went to the address Reed provided and found that Alex Clark and her men were waiting for him. 

💌Before leaving to kill Alex Clark, Sam told Michael that this was the last one. Hmm, what about Hector Newman and his debt to Lenny?

💌So Lenny told the Clarks that Kai-Ming was at Williams and Eleanor’s flat?

💌I can’t be the only one who loves Wallace calling Helen ‘Hels’?

💌 Helen confessed to Sam that she told Jason she was a Black Dove.

You can access Recap Lab’s full coverage of Black Doves via this link.

Episode Title: The Cost of it All

Episode Writer: Joe Barton

Episode Director: Lisa Gunning

Original Air Date: December 5, 2024

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