Liason: Storm Warning - A Hacker Story - Personal Thougts
Liason a tv show from Apple is the story of two hackers in Siria that hack France "National Security Center" government facility but they have been found and now have a private contractor breathing on their neck.
At first what got me into this Tv show was the lovely "Artemisia" Eva Green probably most known for their part in 300: Rise of an Empire and Vincent Cassel from Underwater and Westworld.
Usually what makes me watch a new Tv Show is the main cast, the streaming service and the rating that it may have on IMDB, sometimes the rating on the main site might be low but then episodes score high.
Main Cast:
Eva Green - Alison Rowdy
Vincent Cassel - Gabriel Delage
Daniel Francis - Albert Onwori
Aziz Dyab - Samir
Laëtitia Eïdo - Sabine Louseau
Lyna Dubarry - Myriam
Liason is a tv show that cant be taken lightly, you need to pay attention to whats going on or you will probably get lost, episodes are about 45 minutes so a lot happens and each episodes feels like an entire movie, this is a trend that probably started with GOT before that I don't remember Tv show episodes lasting an hour or close, the usual was 30 minutes or even 20, this is a fiction movie and from the first episode I think it lacks credibility as they actors are great but a classic mistake on this theme story is the technical part of the hacker, by now after many hacker movies starting mid 90s viewers can take them as predictable.
The first scene starts with Samir one of the hackers who discovers a hole in the National Security Center at London but is not really who hack them, he stumbles into something already going on bigger than he thought.
This and other hacker related scenes is what actually takes credibility out of the show because of all the random things Samir have on the screen just to make him look busy like sustain ping, computer monitor resources, even though its not wrong I'm a user and sometimes depending what I'm doing I may have the task manager open.
Their location gets discover and the government send a tactical team to retrieve them but someone they failed.
After a tactical team failed to extract the hackers, now France is getting into the private contractor grey area since for some reason they get desperate to extract the two hackers, agree to get Gabriel Delage a private contractor to get them out of Siria before Russia or England get them first.
Eva makes its first appearance on the episode as Alison Rowdy, who is to investigate and supervise the recent hack with Minister Richard Bank, she is the usual Eva Green, serious, without a smile and very intimidating. The hack seems to be just a screen saver from Puss on Boots but Alison is not buying it, she knows there is something behind it.
As Gabriel tries to extract the Hackers things go south and they get intercepted by military, hackers ran away but even at such moment Gabriel is lucky to be friends with the guy in charge or the military group who got him so they let him free. Bad news get to France after the mission failed and now they have no clue where the hackers are and what could happen if he information gets to the wrong hands, in this case anyone who is not them.
So far the story line is fine, its very interesting how things are developing and the production is very good, it really looks like a action movie.
Strange things start to happen after London wakes up flooded, but the main reason this happen is because of a failure on the machinery of The Thames Barrier, a retractable barrier system built to protect the floodplain of most of Greater London from exceptionally high tides and storm surges moving up from the North Sea, it looks like their system was hacked, the software that controls the Thames Barrier has not been updated in many years. Alison is sent to supervise the situation as Mark Bolton is on its way to find out if its a real hack.
Bolton to me looks like the classic IT who is always relax and trying to cover his own mess instead of fixing it, they starting to think that the Puss on Boots hack is related to this one.
Thames Barrier operator call national cyber security because they believe they got hacked as how the system was behaving, they reset it many times but nothing seem to work and it was acting as if someone was controlling it intentionally at the moment, Bolton still don't believe them but Alison does and talks to Mark about it.
There are a lot of characters constantly coming up, some of them don't have names as the operator, again this is the type of show you need to pay attention to details, it might be boring or just too much for average viewers.
Back in Paris Gabriel meets with and old friend who gets him back into the hackers case, I guess its France government trying to get to Samir first while London have no idea who is Samir and nobody knows who is the hacker causing all the troubles. Gabriel is send to London for Samir. Gabriel get to them but they escape and could only retrieve an encrypted USB that may have useful information but the mission remains to get Samir under custody.
Back in London at London there is a meeting in regards of the investigation on the ongoing Hacks happening including the Puss on Boots that started everything, Alison is on that meeting and they show the attacker of Samir partner Walid, Gabriel shows up on a CCTV video during the attack, it was Gabriel trying to get to Samir but Walid distracted him.
Alison for sure knows Gabriel, London knows who is Gabriel so there is a conflict of interest, during the meeting Alison does whatever she can to contain this information and remain classified but London assign Alison's boyfriend Albert who is a layer to lift Gabriel immunity, somehow he arrive as a London visitor from a EU delegation under the name Jean Petit, a fake name for the operation and this gives him immunity but Alison knows the truth and wants her boyfriend to stay out of it.
Alison and Gabriel either were lovers or family, I think its the first as at the end Gabriel pays a visit to Alison staying outside of her place under the rain.
Liason wont be too popular, the story is complicated, many characters involve although its interesting and constantly full of action and suspense, effects and actors are very good and the only thing I didn't like was the hacks themself as its just your classic hacking scene full of admin user with random stuff on the screen. This is a series I will keep watching, each episode is getting higher scores over 7 so I think people are getting interested and could easy be for two seasons more as the story develops. I would give it a 7/10, very entertaining but not something Ill watch over and over.
