Flushing Out the Mole

The trap closes at last, and Karla's mole is caught. Smiley springs it himself, and the long waiting finally pays off. The agreed price is a trade: the mole for several English spies the KGB has been holding. Prideaux is still not found, and that is an account the mole has left open. The victory, such as it is, arrives with a bill attached.

Then comes the interrogation. Smiley sits with the mole and learns how it was done and why. The answers are workmanlike and entirely human, and they rob him of any sense of victory. There is no champagne here. The man who caught the spy does not get to feel good about it. With the Circus's command structure hollowed out, he stays where he is to pick up the pieces.

John le Carré and Arthur Hopcraft wrote it, John Irvin directed it, and it went out on 22 October 1979. Alec Guinness is Smiley, and this is the episode where he finally sits still with the consequences. Michael Jayston is Peter Guillam, Anthony Bate is Sir Oliver Lacon, George Sewell is Mendel, Hywel Bennett is Ricki Tarr, Terence Rigby is Roy Bland, Ian Richardson is Bill Haydon, Michael Aldridge is Percy Alleline, Bernard Hepton is Toby Esterhase and Ian Bannen is Jim Prideaux. Everyone from the long investigation is here, which is exactly right for a finale. Ian Bannen's Prideaux hangs over the hour without quite being in it.

Catching the culprit turns out to be the easy part. What follows is the aftermath: a hollowed-out Circus and a man who has won the game without winning anything that feels like peace. The episode suggests that intelligence work leaves you permanently exposed to ambiguity, and it is hard to argue with that. And by the final scene, Smiley has what he wanted and none of what it promised.