Diksha Sundriyal
Apple TV+’s ‘Liaison’ reveals a few secrets and sets up another mystery in its penultimate episode. With Antropa inching closer to its plan, the UK and French governments don’t have much time left. They need to bring the truth to light. Otherwise, the consequences would be disastrous, not just for the UK but also for the entire Europe. The one person who can help with that is Samir, but he is still in France, and Alison needs him in London. In this episode, titled ‘Family Album,’ she and Gabriel make some progress, but by the end, they discover some startling secrets. SPOILERS AHEAD
Liaison Episode 5 Recap
Alison and Gabriel escape Antropa’s mercenaries. Her father survives and is hospitalized, while Alison and Gabirle find Samir and Myriam. Back in London, the pressure to sign a deal with Antropa increases, and Richard becomes desperate to stop it. He tells Alison to bring Samir to London so that they can prove all of Antropa’s schemes and prevent the country from going to the wolves. Alison asks for Gabriel’s help, but he is unsure about helping her.
Meanwhile, Gabriel’s employer spies on Didier and discovers his connection with Antropa. It turns out that Didier and his real boss have been planning to attack the entire European Union in a plot similar to the attacks in London. They want to establish Antropa as the only cybersecurity company. Their plans are revealed to Saint-Roch, who can’t wait to bring down Didier.
Liaison Episode 5 Ending: Who is the Mole?
A little digging into Didier reveals that he has been planning the expansion of Antropa, whose head is a Frenchman called Francis Miller. The conversation between Didier and Sabine shows that her security clearance in the EU will be used to mount an even bigger attack. Dumas also discovers that, like Didier in the French government, there is an inside man in the British government. It could have been Mark Bolton, but from how the events unfolded, Mark was just a pawn. The real mole is still out there, pushing Antropa’s agenda.
Before they do anything, finding out who the mole is is essential. Saint-Roch and Dumas meet with Alison and ask her to keep an eye on Didier. His upcoming visit to London is just a cover for his meeting with Miller. They suspect their British mole will also attend that meeting, which might be their only chance to find out who he is. They also agree to let Alison take Samir to London to help prove the plot against her country and stop the government from signing a deal with Antropa.
The existence of a mole complicates matters because now, we don’t know whom to trust. From the nature of the attacks and Antropa’s reach in the French government, it is clear that they have someone higher up in the British government. This is someone who is in on everything at the highest level. Someone who is to the British what Didier is to the French. All these hints point towards one person: Richard Banks.
While Banks has been openly speaking out against Antropa, this could simply be a ruse to keep himself in the clear should things get out of hand. He is in charge of the cybersecurity department and seems to be doing the bare minimum when it comes to saving the country from terrorists. He sends Alison on errands, but on his end, it doesn’t look like he has done anything considerable to stop the attacks.
At this point, he is the most obvious suspect to be the mole. This makes things worse for Alison because she trusts Banks completely. She told him that she was bringing Samir to London. Now that he knows precisely where they are going to land, he has the opportunity to get his hands on Samir and kill him before he can reveal anything to the world. It would be a huge setback and a betrayal for Alison and will raise the stakes for the finale.
Why did Alison Kill Nathalie?
Alison and Gabriel’s past has been an important plot point of the show, and in this episode, we get the complete picture of what happened to them all those years ago. When they were young, Alison and Gabriel were part of a group of protesters. Alison and Gabriel fell in love, but there was another person in this relationship: Nathalie.
The love triangle didn’t pan out well, and Alison and Nathalie fought over it during a protest. In anger, Alison threw a bottle at Nathalie, who unknowingly stepped into a fire and was burned alive. The act was caught on tape, and while Alison didn’t push Nathalie into the fire, she did instigate it. She would have been held responsible for Nathalie’s death. When the time came, Alison’s father convinced her to lie and place the blame on Gabriel instead. She did it, throwing Gabriel in prison while returning to London.
Alison feels guilty for Nathalie’s death and blames Gabriel, but the story has another side. It turns out that Gabriel had been lying to her back then. He wasn’t really a protester. He worked for Military Intelligence and had been tasked to infiltrate the group of protestors to disband them. He did this by sowing conflict that he knew would tear apart the group. He encouraged the conflict between Alison and Nathalie, ultimately culminating in the latter’s death.
While Alison might have been responsible for Nathalie’s death, Gabriel also held some accountability. He started the chain of events that ended with a person burning to death in the town square. But there’s more. Apart from his primary mission, Gabriel was also told to target Alsion. She was the daughter of a NATO officer and couldn’t be seen associating with the protestors. So, Gabriel focused on building a relationship with her, which he eventually used to manipulate the events so that she would end up doing something drastic to ease her departure from France.
In addition to this, Gabriel was never sent to prison. Because he was undercover, he had to keep up with the story that he spent a few years in prison. In reality, he moved on from the mission but kept the cover, which he later used to guilt Alison into helping him. He also used this as a sympathy factor to get the protestors, who still considered him a friend, to get favors from them. Considering all this, it is clear that Gabriel is just as complicit in Nathalie’s murder as Alison.
Read More: Are Liaison’s Alison and Gabriel Based on Real Spies?
