A central female character who doesn’t unravel at the appearance of her ex is apparently too much to ask for.

By Morgan Cormack

Published: Friday, 24 February 2023 at 12:00 am

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Liaison has all the foundations to make it a damn good thriller: a stellar cast led by Eva Green and Vincent Cassel, directed by Emmy award-winning Stephen Hopkins of 24 fame, and an action-filled look into post-Brexit Britain and espionage. Sounds promising, right?

Except the new Apple TV+ six-parter continues to rely on an age-old trope that just doesn’t cut it anymore. While Liaison may be a contemporary thriller, its reliance on characterising Green’s character, Alison Rowdy, as a female who needs rescuing or protecting in some way is… bothersome.

It’s tiring watching the ‘damsel in distress’ trope play out at the best of times, but especially when you have such a multi-layered character like Alison: she’s intelligent, multi-lingual, has a healthy relationship, a nice house and is respected in her male-dominated line of work within the government. But even so, she somehow becomes sidelined by an ex from her past, Gabriel (Cassel).

Liaison explores how the mistakes of our past have the potential to destroy our future, set against a tale of international cybercrime and politics. While it’s impressively action-packed in parts, its multiple plot lines really are underlined by the lingering and slow-burning romance at the centre of the narrative.

Gabriel and Alison are ex-lovers with a past that isn’t quite revealed until the final episodes, but from the first glance of this pair together, it’s clear that they have a lot of unfinished business. While Alison is involved in this high-flying case and has the respect of her colleagues, she almost immediately folds into herself when she first catches a glimpse of Gabriel on the CCTV footage that her team brings up in the office.

Sure, it’s a shocking moment but suddenly, the voices of her governmental colleagues asking about his diplomatic immunity fade into the distance, focusing instead on Green’s stoic expression. She only speaks when Peter Mullan’s Richard Banks (her boss) suggests finding a way to revoke Gabriel’s immunity, a natural line of questioning after it looks like he’s involved. “No, we can’t do that,” she says, giving an excuse about media backlash.

She lingers in the board room after her team leaves, still looking shocked and breathless, an expression which continues as she drives home in the rain. In the first episode’s final moments, we see Gabriel and Alison somehow reunited through the rain-filled window of her home, where their hands rise up to meet each other.

In any other instance, a scene like this would be romantic (if not, a little cringe-worthy too) but here, it feels disjointed. Honestly, it just stirs up feelings of annoyance because you just know that it’s the beginning of Alison being thrown off of her A-game with the arrival of her ex on the scene.

The onscreen chemistry between the pair is definitely undeniable but that’s not the gripe with Liaison. Instead, it’s the fact that while Alison is as much of a protagonist as Gabriel is, so it feels odd when the action happens around her, rather than her being in the driving seat of figuring it all out.

We don’t immediately know the intricacies of Alison’s job, just that she works for the British government, has a father who was once a very important person in NATO and he now lives in an imposing castle. We come to learn eventually, though, that she’s the “personal assistant” to Banks (Mullan) but we follow her as she becomes increasingly involved in a string of international cyberattacks that are threatening London, and also her personal life.

The threats of this international crime operation do strike very close to home for Alison, and she and Gabriel work together to combat this newfound threat to the UK. But you can’t help but feel that she is the ‘damsel in distress’ in this series. She’s investigating it all but with Gabriel on the scene, he takes the lead and does his best to protect her.

Apple TV+

With female-led thrillers so few and far between, it would have been amazing to see Alison characterised as a bad-ass, as someone who brushes aside her own feelings for the sake of sussing out the bad guys and saving the day. Instead, she says things like “I need you, I really need you” to Gabriel in French.

In parts, Liaison feels similar to BBC One’s standout hit The Capture, with shared focuses on tech, cyber security and government conspiracy. But it’s let down by the fact that Alison has been written as a woman whose life apparently unravels at the appearance of a former lover. She’s someone who is hopelessly still in love with Gabriel after years apart – and don’t we know it.

While the action scenes and shoot-outs in this series are exciting in and of themselves, you can’t help but feel that Alison is merely a chess piece in this wider male-dominated game of espionage and politics. It’s reflective of reality, sure. But it would have been wonderful – somewhat revolutionary, even – to have turned it all on its head.