You could tell things were getting serious in SS-GB when Archer started calling Mrs Sheenan, his salt-of-the-earth housekeeper, Joyce. He was arranging to have Joyce, her son Bob and Archer’s own son Douggie – or Little Douggie to give his full name – moved to the unoccupied zone for their own safety. Archer even forged some papers to get them there.
Given that the superintendent has been involved in borderline criminality and consorted with members of the resistance from the beginning, it’s amazing the Germans haven’t twigged that he’s a bad ‘un. Yet they continue to see him as their blue-eyed boy, Huth even offering to take him on to his personal staff and get him a German passport. “You’re a survivor,” Huth tells him, though now Archer is tasked with engineering the king’s escape to the US, getting to the end of next week’s finale in one piece is going to need a miracle.
If Archer does make it to the final credits, who will he end up with? Barbara Barga, who doesn’t get any more convincing as a character, proposed marriage and a sunlit life in the US this week, though she did it with a curious gurgle which made it almost impossible to follow what she was saying. “Don’t do it,” the rest of us survivors (there has apparently been a falling off in the ratings during the occupation) shouted. “Sylvia’s the one – or, failing that, Mrs Sheenan.”
Sylvia, who is having a most exciting war, got caught up in the crackdown that followed the explosion at Highgate Cemetery – which she of course was responsible for. Archer found her at a detention centre, where she looked very fetching in a red beret – far better than the ice-maiden Barga. Admittedly, she spat at Archer, but I think it was meant affectionately. True love is always unfathomable.
She escaped later – no Nazi prison has been built that can contain our Sylv – and took refuge in Archer’s flat. “You’ll be safe here,” he told her, recognising that his Nazi bosses are oblivious to the fact that he is a) carrying the secret formulae for an atomic bomb, b) plotting to free the king and c) in league with some very dodgy posh men in cravats who claim to be leading figures in the resistance.
Surprisingly the person who is not safe is Barga, who was picked up by the Gestapo. This is unfortunate because Archer had entrusted the atomic bomb secrets to her in the hope that she could spirit them to Washington. But before her arrest, she manages to burn some and hide the rest in the false bottom of her hat box. “Good girl,” says Archer when he finds the all-important film. So much for my theory that she was a double agent.
There was a bit more violence this week, though still not enough for my liking – occupied London just isn’t scary or edgy enough. Archer’s faithful sergeant Harry gets a going over – do the Germans know he’s in the resistance?; a couple of passers-by get shot for attempting to escape arrest; Sylvia has an attractive bullet wound on the arm; and one of the posh conspirators gets beaten to death by the Gestapo at his Mayfair club. But none of this is affecting or shocking or even very involving. Mostly I was left admiring the sleek beauty of 1940s cars.
The Germans are a bit more interesting. Huth opened up to Archer after the death of Springer, his friend and superior officer, at the Highgate bombing. He explained how he had disliked the Nazis and their “political claptrap” in the early days and thought they were a joke. “But then it became obvious they would win,” he told Archer. “They had mean, efficient brains and determination. I like winners, that’s my weakness. Nazis are winners.” There, in a nutshell, was an explanation of how a bunch of thugs took over a country.
Kellermann was also on a bit of a journey this week. Having been a comedic figure heretofore, he suddenly became calculating and rather sinister, getting the incriminating information that his rival Huth was sending to Berlin about him out of Archer in exchange for freeing Woods. We may have underestimated the sybaritic, tweed-wearing General Kellermann.
By the end of the episode, everyone is heading for Bringle Sands – I knew we would get there eventually. Head posho Colonel Mayhew is planning to blow up the Germans’ atomic installation; Archer is aiming to free the king and deposit him on a British aircraft carrier conveniently placed just off the coast (how can Britain rustle up an aircraft carrier when it’s been defeated?); Huth is seen polishing his boots to the accompaniment of scarily high-pitched music and getting ready to thwart the plucky resistance fighters; Kellermann finally has an inkling that something is afoot; and Barbara Barga is in the hands of the Gestapo, her makeup slightly disturbed. This cannot end well.
Will Archer croak? Will Barbara Barga spill the beans? Will they survive, go off into the sunset together, and settle down in Milwaukee? Or will Archer opt for spiky Sylvia instead? And does the fact that I am obsessing about the love angle suggest I’ve failed to take the heady brew of war, resistance and the quest to build an atomic bomb sufficiently seriously?
