Alex Turner (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
foolishnotion) wrote2016-01-18 11:26 pm
foolishnotion) wrote2016-01-18 11:26 pm
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midnightsyndicate app
PLAYER INFORMATION
NAME: Holly
ARE YOU 18 OR OLDER?: Yup, way, way over 18.
CONTACT:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
kalinda99 or PM
CURRENT CHARACTERS: N/A
CHARACTER INFORMATION
NAME:Alistair Alex Turner
CANON: London Spy
CANON POINT: The moment before his apparent death, when he's locked in the trunk, near the end of episode 1.
CHARACTER AGE: 28 (just a guess)
HISTORY:
NOTE: The show gives us only a little bit about Alex's past, so I've recounted here the bits and pieces here as best I could, since the show lacks a wikia. I'd also like to note this is a series that doesn't always explicitly state or explain things, so some of this is from interpretation, particularly the order of some of the events that happen in episode 1's timeframe but that we don't see until flashbacks in later episodes.
Though he is, by all appearances, the son of the wealthy Frances and Charles Turner, Alex is actually the child of a member of their staff. Charles had worked for MI5, the British domestic intelligence agency, and was disgraced and cast out after he failed to detect Soviet moles within their ranks that caused many losses. Frances, however, had discerned who the moles were, but her intelligence and her skills were overlooked on account of her gender. Angry and bitter over this and her husband's incompetence, she decides she wants to have a child who she can groom to be, as she puts it, “[her] spy” and, as such, her contribution. However, it turns out she doesn't need to get pregnant to enact this plan.
Enter Alex, the son of one of Frances' staff and a brilliant, isolated boy with a knack for numbers, who Frances discovers. When he is still too young to remember his real mother, Frances takes him from her and gives him the name Alistair, which he comes to hate. He also dislikes Frances, too, who leaves the task of actually loving him to his nanny—his real mother, though Alex only comes to suspect, perhaps even realize, this later.
It's no wonder that he disliked Frances. She keeps him isolated, not allowing him any social interaction, except perhaps the sort she thinks will further his education. Though he has a bedroom in their large house (Danny describes it as the”loneliest room [he's] ever been in”), Alex actually spends most of his time in another room, where he scribbles out mathematical equations on the walls. It is also implied that Frances, who is gifted at reading people, passes this skill onto Alex, as he demonstrates them later. As such, he would've had some social interaction with others, but probably only what Frances deemed necessary, and only the kinds of people she thought it important for him to learn to read. She is not a good mother to Alex, in fact she isn't really much more than a taskmaster, determined to groom him to be the thing she wants so she might give something to MI5 and regain the favour her family had lost.
To this end she pushes Alex, expects much of him, and ignores the loneliness he feels. The result, of course, is that he is utterly ill-equipped to handle most social situations, he's very shy, and he probably suffers from some kind of social anxiety. The show implies, too, that he more than likely already has a personality disorder, though details are never given. Regardless, it's clear that the job Alex eventually ends up doing (working in intelligence, as Frances intended) is not as the traditional 'spy' that we think of when we hear the word, but rather in decryption, encryption, hacking, etc. Anything where he can utilize his brilliance with numbers and all that's connected to it.
Being an intelligent young man, Alex attends university at the young age of 15, which puts him at an even greater disadvantage socially. He has no friends, though he does gain the respect of some of his teachers, one in particular, who he has a professional relationship with, as opposed to a personal friendship. Alex also never pursues romantic or even sexual relationships, dedicating himself to his education instead.
After he's done with school, Alex does precisely what Frances intended and goes into the intelligence service. We are later told he works for GCHQ (Government Communications), Britain's intelligence gathering organization. It's possible he transfers to MI6, since it's later said he worked there, too, but the details of what he did aren't really given, we just have the implication it probably involved computer hacking or decryption, as explained above. We're also not told the number of years he's worked for the agency before the series begins, but if Alex attended university for the standard four years, then he's probably been in his job for 6 or 7 years. He also lives in an expensive apartment provided by the agency and is kept under surveillance by them, presumably as he's considered a valuable asset. They do clearly pay him well, though.
The series begins here, with Alex having his job with MI6 and living in London. He goes out for a run early every morning before work and it's on one of these mornings that he meets a distressed young man named Danny who has just broken his phone. Alex can see very clearly that Danny isn't okay, despite Danny claiming otherwise. Nevertheless, Alex leaves him once it's clear there's little more he can do and also possibly because he is suspicious of him.
It's a few days later that Danny turns up again, having sought Alex out, because he had a feeling about him. They go on a breakfast date, which goes well, though Alex does not seek Danny out for another week. In that time, he has a background check done on him, but once everything checks out he goes back and they properly begin a relationship. Danny is the first person Alex ever sleeps with, and, he later says, the only friend he has. Despite this, Alex lies to Danny about his parents being dead and about his job, the second of which he is reluctant to talk about at all.
Sometime during their eight month relationship, presumably before Alex realizes he's in love, he is seduced by a waiter at the cafe he frequents. It turns out this waiter is actually an escort hired by Alex's employers, presumably to either ruin Alex's relationship with Danny or to find out if Alex is up to anything or if his loyalty may be wavering. However, Alex only allows himself to be with the escort once and then never contacts him again. This is either because he feels guilty for cheating on Danny, he sees that the sex isn't as good or special as what he has with Danny (thus showing there is something special between them), he realized it was entrapment, or all of the above. He never tells Danny about this.
Perhaps sometime after this, Danny is put out by Alex's disbelief in soul mates and his expression of the possibility that there might be better people out there for both of them. He tells Alex that he should see other people, rather than stay with him because he's the first, if he isn't sure. Alex tearfully rejects this notion, saying he doesn't need to, and the two of them go on as they were. It could be presumed that the first declarations of love come soon after, too.
During their relationship, Alex begins to secretly work on a side project separate from work. It is a complex program that can be used to discern if someone is lying based on facial expressions and language. Though never confirmed, it is later speculated by other characters that Alex began this endeavour because he felt guilty over having to lie to Danny and he didn't want to live in a world where people had to lie to each other like that. As this second part implies Alex intended to release his creation to the public, or perhaps threaten to do so, it's also possible he saw it as his way out of a job that he clearly couldn't otherwise walk away from easily. And of course he never tells Danny about any of this either.
During the final days of their relationship, Danny introduces Alex to his best friend, Scottie, and later relays a story about how Scottie helped him and took him to the hospital after he had unprotected sex with a series of anonymous men while on drugs. It's a very personal story for Danny and he tearfully shares it with Alex, as well as his relief that he didn't get HIV from the experience. Alex isn't put off by any of this, though his guilt about all his lying is obvious when Danny proclaims he wants to have no secrets from him. The two make plans to go away for the weekend, Alex says he must buy a battery for his laptop after turning up the radio – he knows his employers have put both of them under surveillance. This is the last time they see each other.
Sometime that same night (presumably, the following is told in a flashback), agents from MI5 (I assume it is MI5 because they handle domestic intelligence cases, they probably coordinated with Alex's employers) show up at Alex's flat with the express purpose of punishing him for his invention. And they are not the only ones who want to, every other intelligence agency who has gotten wind of it does as well, since a foolproof way of telling when someone is lying, which can be applied to video, and would therefore be very bad for every country's leaders, would be very bad if it was ever leaked to the media.
After they've locked Alex naked in a trunk in his attic and left him there for a period of time, Frances appears (either because she was called in or someone she had on the inside told her about it) to try and save Alex from his fate. She speaks to him, though he isn't released from the trunk, and makes him swear he'll go to America, give up his research, and never make contact with anyone in this life again. Alex says yes to all these conditions, even tearfully saying he'll never speak to Danny again. Frances is relieved by this, tries to open the trunk, but she is stopped and pulled away.
When she comes downstairs, we see that the agents have set up a program (possibly Alex's lie detector) to determine if he's telling the truth. When it reveals he isn't, an angry, distressed Frances is drugged and dragged away from the scene. The viewer never actually witnesses what happens to Alex, but it's presumed that he suffocated inside that trunk.
The attic in Alex's apartment had been made up to look like a BDSM dungeon for whoever discovers the scene, the entire thing orchestrated by MI5 to drag Alex's name through the mud and ensure Danny, who himself has a “dark” sexual history, has no credibility if he comes forward to try to defend Alex's name or starts poking around to figure out what happened. And also to leave the door open for them to frame Danny for Alex's murder if they should choose to. Clearly they had guessed that Alex put something in motion to leave Danny a message.
Later, through some elaborate hacking, Danny is directed to a set of keys to Alex's flat. He goes there and finds the attic, a body in the trunk (which he never gets a good look at in his panic) and, later after he's called the police, a cylinder hidden in the battery compartment of Alex's laptop that contains a memory stick. Danny swallows this and is taken in by the police. He is not, at any point, asked to identify the body from the trunk (not that we see), but he is given a picture of Alex and asked if he knew him. To me the way it's presented makes Alex's fate seem ambiguous, but none of the characters ever question his death and they all behave as if he is.
After this, and the discovery that Alex was actually a spy, Danny sets out to figure out what it was that got his boyfriend killed. He also struggles with whether or not Alex loved him or if that was another lie, but the clues Danny uncovers or puts together during the remainder of the series reveal that Alex's feelings for him were real.
PERSONALITY:
Bold indicates headcanon, which I've assumed based on what the series shows us.
To those around him, Alex Turner probably seems strange. He is soft spoken, sometimes saying very little, aloof, and quite introverted, to a point where he undoubtedly doesn't even attend social gatherings if he can help it. Although the show does not explicitly say so, it's rather likely he suffers from some kind of social anxiety, owing to a lack of social interaction in his childhood. He is well aware of his own awkwardness, telling Danny that he's always felt out of step with everyone else. The unfortunate consequence of this is that, when the series opens, Alex has no friends and has never had any romantic attachments, nor does he seek any out.
So it's unsurprising when it is revealed to us that he is incredibly lonely. What's more, he has accepted this loneliness as something he can do nothing about, resigned to his fate. He tells Danny that he imagined he would spend the rest of his alone and that he can't imagine what it feels like to think otherwise. He has also never had sex before and we learn it's something he'd given up on since he “left it so late.” He says he decided he didn't need or want anyone and that was alright, he had more important things to do, like pursuing his education. All of this describes the sort of person who has entered a state of false contentedness, tricking himself into believing he wasn't someone who was ever going to have friends or romantic or sexual relationships and that's alright, even if deep down he wasn't really okay with it.
Alex has problems with self-sabotage and avoidance as well. He's convinced himself people think he's odd, and thus never looked for social attachment because he feared rejection. Similarly, throughout his relationship with Danny he seems constantly certain Danny will want to leave for one reason or another, first because Alex hasn't come out as gay (or bisexual, I don't think he even knows which label applies to him, my headcanon is that he is primarily attracted to men since the show gives us no indication otherwise) and then later because he's never been in a relationship. In fact this second, self-defeating attitude is the sticking point for why he hasn't pursued relationships at all, as he tells Danny: “How do you tell someone you've never been in a relationship? Who wants to hear, and when they do who wants to stay?” Alex must be surprised when Danny responds that he does, just as he is similarly surprised when Danny continues to defy his expectations and is always patient and understanding with him.
Alex's career is further example of his avoidance. Frances groomed him to be a spy, expected he would go and work for British intelligence and make use of his brilliance with numbers to serve his country. Alex clearly resents Frances for how hard she pushed him and the loneliness she forced on him, and yet he never pursues any other jobs or professions, at least not that we are told about, instead taking the one he'd been groomed for, doing what is expected of him. He may have considered other things, but ultimately I think it once more came back to his low self esteem in the social sphere that caused him to accept his fate: He didn't know how to exist in any other professions besides the one Frances had prepared him for and he was sure he would fail if he tried.
Another example of Alex pushing aside his problems comes in his lying to Danny about his job. He must have justified it as a means to keep Danny safe and also because, again with his fear of rejection, he would've been afraid Danny would leave if he found out about the lies. It's made clear that Alex feels terrible for lying. This guilt and possibly, his newfound desire to escape from his job, become his motivators for his creation of the lie detector that gets him killed, but more on this later.
Of course, Alex may have also told himself that working for MI6 allowed him to help people, even if not directly, and that was another reason to keep doing it. I've come to this conclusion because the series does show him to be a kind person; he meets Danny, then a complete stranger, because he stops in the middle of his morning run to help him, to ask if he's alright. He seems genuinely concerned, and well aware that Danny isn't actually okay despite saying otherwise. We also never see him lash out or get angry with anyone, and it's hard for me to imagine him doing either easily. Further, Alex clearly keeps many of his thoughts to himself (Danny sometimes asks him what he's thinking to get him to talk), particularly anything that might be unkind. For example he is clearly very tidy, judging by the state of his apartment, but he never says anything about how messy Danny's is in contrast, never really gives any indication that it bothers him if it does. Alex isn't very critical, in other words, though he'll give his honest opinion if asked.
It is also unlikely Alex genuinely hated his job. He seems to have enjoyed working with numbers; he tells Danny he has no trouble with them, implying a comfort in something familiar that he understands. Considering how the other characters, from Frances to his professors (including one who was, for a time, probably the closest thing he had to a friend) to Danny all consider Alex a genius, or at the very least incredibly intelligent, as well as how he dedicates himself to intellectual pursuits (they are essentially his life before he meets Danny), he seems very confident in his own abilities, perhaps even to the point of hubris. Indeed the line “Numbers, Danny, I have no problem with” seems to indicate that his low self esteem revolves around his social awkwardness, but does not extend to his intellectual abilities.
Alex's hubris leads him to do something that is either very brave or very stupid: He defies his employers in the creation of his lie detector algorithm. He does this despite likely knowing the considerable risk it poses to himself, all because of the guilt he feels for lying to Danny. He likely also saw it as his way out. Again, this is either very brave or very stupid, depending on one's point of view, since Alex also knew Danny was under surveillance as well and that this entire endeavour endangered both of them. While he may have started out thinking he wouldn't get caught (why do it otherwise?), towards the end of episode one his behaviour indicates that he may have known they were closing in (he turns up the radio before dropping the hint to Danny about his laptop battery so any bugs in the apartment can't hear him) and after he disappears we see he has left hints that allow Danny to find the memory stick with his algorithm on it.
The above example also shows that Alex is a cautious person. As an intelligence officer, it makes sense that would plan ahead and consider various possibilities and have contingencies for each. He is also shown not to trust easily or to be open about his life or himself, he keeps things fairly private. For example, the unusual nature of his meeting with Danny prompts him to lie about his name and he winds up conducting a background check on Danny before he decides to go on a second date with him. He is clearly uncertain of Danny at first, and he admits to him that security within his job is a concern (he claims to work for an investment bank) and suspects Danny may have been sent to entrap him. He does later get seduced by the escort, who was sent to entrap him, but he ends this almost immediately.
When we meet him, Alex is very much a realist whose beliefs are defined by what is logical and scientific; he is, appropriately, very mathematical. He tells Danny he doesn't believe in soul mates, even shoots down the notion, thinking it not a nice idea because what are the odds that everyone would meet the one person out there for them? Danny, who believes he and Alex are something special, is hurt by the idea that Alex puts forward there are better people out there for both of them. Danny's exasperation with it, too, sounds like it isn't the first time some romantic notion he has has been shot down; Alex undoubtedly doesn't believe in the afterlife, or god, or magic, or anything that science cannot prove exists.
Alex and Danny come from two very different worlds and social backgrounds, they may be the very embodiment of '”opposites attract.” Alex's initial attraction to Danny, though not outright stated, very likely has something to do with this, along with the fact that Danny was the first person to actually take notice of him without any judgment, as I explained above. And Danny is easy to read compared to Alex's colleagues, he may be the most innocent person Alex knows, he never wants to have any secrets. There is no indication that he ever lies to Alex about anything. For Alex, who comes from a world where deception and lying are as easy and as necessary as breathing, this must make him feel safer than he ever has and, eventually, more loved than he ever has.
Danny manages to expand Alex's horizons, changing things he had long believed, such as that he'd always be alone, or his refusal to accept things like soul mates. Indeed, Alex's lie detector and desire to live in a world without lies is itself described by Frances as foolish and it's not not likely something Alex would've ever undertaken without having met Danny. They are only together for eight months before everything comes crashing down, and yet in that time Alex finds the motivation he'd been lacking to overcome his avoidance and actually fight to change his life.
ABILITIES:
NAME: Holly
ARE YOU 18 OR OLDER?: Yup, way, way over 18.
CONTACT:
CURRENT CHARACTERS: N/A
CHARACTER INFORMATION
NAME:
CANON: London Spy
CANON POINT: The moment before his apparent death, when he's locked in the trunk, near the end of episode 1.
CHARACTER AGE: 28 (just a guess)
HISTORY:
NOTE: The show gives us only a little bit about Alex's past, so I've recounted here the bits and pieces here as best I could, since the show lacks a wikia. I'd also like to note this is a series that doesn't always explicitly state or explain things, so some of this is from interpretation, particularly the order of some of the events that happen in episode 1's timeframe but that we don't see until flashbacks in later episodes.
Though he is, by all appearances, the son of the wealthy Frances and Charles Turner, Alex is actually the child of a member of their staff. Charles had worked for MI5, the British domestic intelligence agency, and was disgraced and cast out after he failed to detect Soviet moles within their ranks that caused many losses. Frances, however, had discerned who the moles were, but her intelligence and her skills were overlooked on account of her gender. Angry and bitter over this and her husband's incompetence, she decides she wants to have a child who she can groom to be, as she puts it, “[her] spy” and, as such, her contribution. However, it turns out she doesn't need to get pregnant to enact this plan.
Enter Alex, the son of one of Frances' staff and a brilliant, isolated boy with a knack for numbers, who Frances discovers. When he is still too young to remember his real mother, Frances takes him from her and gives him the name Alistair, which he comes to hate. He also dislikes Frances, too, who leaves the task of actually loving him to his nanny—his real mother, though Alex only comes to suspect, perhaps even realize, this later.
It's no wonder that he disliked Frances. She keeps him isolated, not allowing him any social interaction, except perhaps the sort she thinks will further his education. Though he has a bedroom in their large house (Danny describes it as the”loneliest room [he's] ever been in”), Alex actually spends most of his time in another room, where he scribbles out mathematical equations on the walls. It is also implied that Frances, who is gifted at reading people, passes this skill onto Alex, as he demonstrates them later. As such, he would've had some social interaction with others, but probably only what Frances deemed necessary, and only the kinds of people she thought it important for him to learn to read. She is not a good mother to Alex, in fact she isn't really much more than a taskmaster, determined to groom him to be the thing she wants so she might give something to MI5 and regain the favour her family had lost.
To this end she pushes Alex, expects much of him, and ignores the loneliness he feels. The result, of course, is that he is utterly ill-equipped to handle most social situations, he's very shy, and he probably suffers from some kind of social anxiety. The show implies, too, that he more than likely already has a personality disorder, though details are never given. Regardless, it's clear that the job Alex eventually ends up doing (working in intelligence, as Frances intended) is not as the traditional 'spy' that we think of when we hear the word, but rather in decryption, encryption, hacking, etc. Anything where he can utilize his brilliance with numbers and all that's connected to it.
Being an intelligent young man, Alex attends university at the young age of 15, which puts him at an even greater disadvantage socially. He has no friends, though he does gain the respect of some of his teachers, one in particular, who he has a professional relationship with, as opposed to a personal friendship. Alex also never pursues romantic or even sexual relationships, dedicating himself to his education instead.
After he's done with school, Alex does precisely what Frances intended and goes into the intelligence service. We are later told he works for GCHQ (Government Communications), Britain's intelligence gathering organization. It's possible he transfers to MI6, since it's later said he worked there, too, but the details of what he did aren't really given, we just have the implication it probably involved computer hacking or decryption, as explained above. We're also not told the number of years he's worked for the agency before the series begins, but if Alex attended university for the standard four years, then he's probably been in his job for 6 or 7 years. He also lives in an expensive apartment provided by the agency and is kept under surveillance by them, presumably as he's considered a valuable asset. They do clearly pay him well, though.
The series begins here, with Alex having his job with MI6 and living in London. He goes out for a run early every morning before work and it's on one of these mornings that he meets a distressed young man named Danny who has just broken his phone. Alex can see very clearly that Danny isn't okay, despite Danny claiming otherwise. Nevertheless, Alex leaves him once it's clear there's little more he can do and also possibly because he is suspicious of him.
It's a few days later that Danny turns up again, having sought Alex out, because he had a feeling about him. They go on a breakfast date, which goes well, though Alex does not seek Danny out for another week. In that time, he has a background check done on him, but once everything checks out he goes back and they properly begin a relationship. Danny is the first person Alex ever sleeps with, and, he later says, the only friend he has. Despite this, Alex lies to Danny about his parents being dead and about his job, the second of which he is reluctant to talk about at all.
Sometime during their eight month relationship, presumably before Alex realizes he's in love, he is seduced by a waiter at the cafe he frequents. It turns out this waiter is actually an escort hired by Alex's employers, presumably to either ruin Alex's relationship with Danny or to find out if Alex is up to anything or if his loyalty may be wavering. However, Alex only allows himself to be with the escort once and then never contacts him again. This is either because he feels guilty for cheating on Danny, he sees that the sex isn't as good or special as what he has with Danny (thus showing there is something special between them), he realized it was entrapment, or all of the above. He never tells Danny about this.
Perhaps sometime after this, Danny is put out by Alex's disbelief in soul mates and his expression of the possibility that there might be better people out there for both of them. He tells Alex that he should see other people, rather than stay with him because he's the first, if he isn't sure. Alex tearfully rejects this notion, saying he doesn't need to, and the two of them go on as they were. It could be presumed that the first declarations of love come soon after, too.
During their relationship, Alex begins to secretly work on a side project separate from work. It is a complex program that can be used to discern if someone is lying based on facial expressions and language. Though never confirmed, it is later speculated by other characters that Alex began this endeavour because he felt guilty over having to lie to Danny and he didn't want to live in a world where people had to lie to each other like that. As this second part implies Alex intended to release his creation to the public, or perhaps threaten to do so, it's also possible he saw it as his way out of a job that he clearly couldn't otherwise walk away from easily. And of course he never tells Danny about any of this either.
During the final days of their relationship, Danny introduces Alex to his best friend, Scottie, and later relays a story about how Scottie helped him and took him to the hospital after he had unprotected sex with a series of anonymous men while on drugs. It's a very personal story for Danny and he tearfully shares it with Alex, as well as his relief that he didn't get HIV from the experience. Alex isn't put off by any of this, though his guilt about all his lying is obvious when Danny proclaims he wants to have no secrets from him. The two make plans to go away for the weekend, Alex says he must buy a battery for his laptop after turning up the radio – he knows his employers have put both of them under surveillance. This is the last time they see each other.
Sometime that same night (presumably, the following is told in a flashback), agents from MI5 (I assume it is MI5 because they handle domestic intelligence cases, they probably coordinated with Alex's employers) show up at Alex's flat with the express purpose of punishing him for his invention. And they are not the only ones who want to, every other intelligence agency who has gotten wind of it does as well, since a foolproof way of telling when someone is lying, which can be applied to video, and would therefore be very bad for every country's leaders, would be very bad if it was ever leaked to the media.
After they've locked Alex naked in a trunk in his attic and left him there for a period of time, Frances appears (either because she was called in or someone she had on the inside told her about it) to try and save Alex from his fate. She speaks to him, though he isn't released from the trunk, and makes him swear he'll go to America, give up his research, and never make contact with anyone in this life again. Alex says yes to all these conditions, even tearfully saying he'll never speak to Danny again. Frances is relieved by this, tries to open the trunk, but she is stopped and pulled away.
When she comes downstairs, we see that the agents have set up a program (possibly Alex's lie detector) to determine if he's telling the truth. When it reveals he isn't, an angry, distressed Frances is drugged and dragged away from the scene. The viewer never actually witnesses what happens to Alex, but it's presumed that he suffocated inside that trunk.
The attic in Alex's apartment had been made up to look like a BDSM dungeon for whoever discovers the scene, the entire thing orchestrated by MI5 to drag Alex's name through the mud and ensure Danny, who himself has a “dark” sexual history, has no credibility if he comes forward to try to defend Alex's name or starts poking around to figure out what happened. And also to leave the door open for them to frame Danny for Alex's murder if they should choose to. Clearly they had guessed that Alex put something in motion to leave Danny a message.
Later, through some elaborate hacking, Danny is directed to a set of keys to Alex's flat. He goes there and finds the attic, a body in the trunk (which he never gets a good look at in his panic) and, later after he's called the police, a cylinder hidden in the battery compartment of Alex's laptop that contains a memory stick. Danny swallows this and is taken in by the police. He is not, at any point, asked to identify the body from the trunk (not that we see), but he is given a picture of Alex and asked if he knew him. To me the way it's presented makes Alex's fate seem ambiguous, but none of the characters ever question his death and they all behave as if he is.
After this, and the discovery that Alex was actually a spy, Danny sets out to figure out what it was that got his boyfriend killed. He also struggles with whether or not Alex loved him or if that was another lie, but the clues Danny uncovers or puts together during the remainder of the series reveal that Alex's feelings for him were real.
PERSONALITY:
Bold indicates headcanon, which I've assumed based on what the series shows us.
To those around him, Alex Turner probably seems strange. He is soft spoken, sometimes saying very little, aloof, and quite introverted, to a point where he undoubtedly doesn't even attend social gatherings if he can help it. Although the show does not explicitly say so, it's rather likely he suffers from some kind of social anxiety, owing to a lack of social interaction in his childhood. He is well aware of his own awkwardness, telling Danny that he's always felt out of step with everyone else. The unfortunate consequence of this is that, when the series opens, Alex has no friends and has never had any romantic attachments, nor does he seek any out.
So it's unsurprising when it is revealed to us that he is incredibly lonely. What's more, he has accepted this loneliness as something he can do nothing about, resigned to his fate. He tells Danny that he imagined he would spend the rest of his alone and that he can't imagine what it feels like to think otherwise. He has also never had sex before and we learn it's something he'd given up on since he “left it so late.” He says he decided he didn't need or want anyone and that was alright, he had more important things to do, like pursuing his education. All of this describes the sort of person who has entered a state of false contentedness, tricking himself into believing he wasn't someone who was ever going to have friends or romantic or sexual relationships and that's alright, even if deep down he wasn't really okay with it.
Alex has problems with self-sabotage and avoidance as well. He's convinced himself people think he's odd, and thus never looked for social attachment because he feared rejection. Similarly, throughout his relationship with Danny he seems constantly certain Danny will want to leave for one reason or another, first because Alex hasn't come out as gay (or bisexual, I don't think he even knows which label applies to him, my headcanon is that he is primarily attracted to men since the show gives us no indication otherwise) and then later because he's never been in a relationship. In fact this second, self-defeating attitude is the sticking point for why he hasn't pursued relationships at all, as he tells Danny: “How do you tell someone you've never been in a relationship? Who wants to hear, and when they do who wants to stay?” Alex must be surprised when Danny responds that he does, just as he is similarly surprised when Danny continues to defy his expectations and is always patient and understanding with him.
Alex's career is further example of his avoidance. Frances groomed him to be a spy, expected he would go and work for British intelligence and make use of his brilliance with numbers to serve his country. Alex clearly resents Frances for how hard she pushed him and the loneliness she forced on him, and yet he never pursues any other jobs or professions, at least not that we are told about, instead taking the one he'd been groomed for, doing what is expected of him. He may have considered other things, but ultimately I think it once more came back to his low self esteem in the social sphere that caused him to accept his fate: He didn't know how to exist in any other professions besides the one Frances had prepared him for and he was sure he would fail if he tried.
Another example of Alex pushing aside his problems comes in his lying to Danny about his job. He must have justified it as a means to keep Danny safe and also because, again with his fear of rejection, he would've been afraid Danny would leave if he found out about the lies. It's made clear that Alex feels terrible for lying. This guilt and possibly, his newfound desire to escape from his job, become his motivators for his creation of the lie detector that gets him killed, but more on this later.
Of course, Alex may have also told himself that working for MI6 allowed him to help people, even if not directly, and that was another reason to keep doing it. I've come to this conclusion because the series does show him to be a kind person; he meets Danny, then a complete stranger, because he stops in the middle of his morning run to help him, to ask if he's alright. He seems genuinely concerned, and well aware that Danny isn't actually okay despite saying otherwise. We also never see him lash out or get angry with anyone, and it's hard for me to imagine him doing either easily. Further, Alex clearly keeps many of his thoughts to himself (Danny sometimes asks him what he's thinking to get him to talk), particularly anything that might be unkind. For example he is clearly very tidy, judging by the state of his apartment, but he never says anything about how messy Danny's is in contrast, never really gives any indication that it bothers him if it does. Alex isn't very critical, in other words, though he'll give his honest opinion if asked.
It is also unlikely Alex genuinely hated his job. He seems to have enjoyed working with numbers; he tells Danny he has no trouble with them, implying a comfort in something familiar that he understands. Considering how the other characters, from Frances to his professors (including one who was, for a time, probably the closest thing he had to a friend) to Danny all consider Alex a genius, or at the very least incredibly intelligent, as well as how he dedicates himself to intellectual pursuits (they are essentially his life before he meets Danny), he seems very confident in his own abilities, perhaps even to the point of hubris. Indeed the line “Numbers, Danny, I have no problem with” seems to indicate that his low self esteem revolves around his social awkwardness, but does not extend to his intellectual abilities.
Alex's hubris leads him to do something that is either very brave or very stupid: He defies his employers in the creation of his lie detector algorithm. He does this despite likely knowing the considerable risk it poses to himself, all because of the guilt he feels for lying to Danny. He likely also saw it as his way out. Again, this is either very brave or very stupid, depending on one's point of view, since Alex also knew Danny was under surveillance as well and that this entire endeavour endangered both of them. While he may have started out thinking he wouldn't get caught (why do it otherwise?), towards the end of episode one his behaviour indicates that he may have known they were closing in (he turns up the radio before dropping the hint to Danny about his laptop battery so any bugs in the apartment can't hear him) and after he disappears we see he has left hints that allow Danny to find the memory stick with his algorithm on it.
The above example also shows that Alex is a cautious person. As an intelligence officer, it makes sense that would plan ahead and consider various possibilities and have contingencies for each. He is also shown not to trust easily or to be open about his life or himself, he keeps things fairly private. For example, the unusual nature of his meeting with Danny prompts him to lie about his name and he winds up conducting a background check on Danny before he decides to go on a second date with him. He is clearly uncertain of Danny at first, and he admits to him that security within his job is a concern (he claims to work for an investment bank) and suspects Danny may have been sent to entrap him. He does later get seduced by the escort, who was sent to entrap him, but he ends this almost immediately.
When we meet him, Alex is very much a realist whose beliefs are defined by what is logical and scientific; he is, appropriately, very mathematical. He tells Danny he doesn't believe in soul mates, even shoots down the notion, thinking it not a nice idea because what are the odds that everyone would meet the one person out there for them? Danny, who believes he and Alex are something special, is hurt by the idea that Alex puts forward there are better people out there for both of them. Danny's exasperation with it, too, sounds like it isn't the first time some romantic notion he has has been shot down; Alex undoubtedly doesn't believe in the afterlife, or god, or magic, or anything that science cannot prove exists.
Alex and Danny come from two very different worlds and social backgrounds, they may be the very embodiment of '”opposites attract.” Alex's initial attraction to Danny, though not outright stated, very likely has something to do with this, along with the fact that Danny was the first person to actually take notice of him without any judgment, as I explained above. And Danny is easy to read compared to Alex's colleagues, he may be the most innocent person Alex knows, he never wants to have any secrets. There is no indication that he ever lies to Alex about anything. For Alex, who comes from a world where deception and lying are as easy and as necessary as breathing, this must make him feel safer than he ever has and, eventually, more loved than he ever has.
Danny manages to expand Alex's horizons, changing things he had long believed, such as that he'd always be alone, or his refusal to accept things like soul mates. Indeed, Alex's lie detector and desire to live in a world without lies is itself described by Frances as foolish and it's not not likely something Alex would've ever undertaken without having met Danny. They are only together for eight months before everything comes crashing down, and yet in that time Alex finds the motivation he'd been lacking to overcome his avoidance and actually fight to change his life.
ABILITIES:
- Math genius: We are both told and shown that Alex is amazingly good at math and with numbers in general. Danny once comments it seemed like Alex could remember any number in the whole world. Alex also creates the lie detector algorithm from scratch, though as it was undoubtedly incredibly complex, too much even for his brain, it probably wouldn't work without him being able to recreate it as a computer program.
- Good with computers/Hacking: This isn't explicitly confirmed on screen, it's heavily implied that before his death Alex arranged for Danny to get the keys to his flat so he could find the memory stick. To make the key delivery, Alex somehow sets something up that hacks the small handheld device Danny uses at his warehouse shipping job so he'll be directed to a box with the keys.
- Good at reading people: Although not actually good around people himself, from the outside looking in Alex is exceptionally observant and good at discerning people's emotions. He is able to tell Danny is lying when he says he's okay, and then later correctly guesses that Danny is uncomfortable about the high prices of the food at the cafe they go to on their first date, he even figures out Danny looked through his clothes when they were at Alex's flat.
However Alex seems to have more trouble with the people he works with, describing them as “inscrutable,” so he can't do it with everyone, it's not a Sherlock Holmesian level ability. I will put up a permissions post, though. - Survival skills: This is more head canon-ish than the above. One of Alex's hobbies (outside of work things) was going on nature walks and we see he introduces Danny to this, that they spent time late at night by a camp fire and as such I've extrapolated that Alex must have at least some basic outdoor survival skills, particularly considering he used to go on those walks alone to rather remote places.
- Sloth – Here interrupted as emotionally apathy and sadness. Also because he never, before meeting Danny, makes an attempt to escape the fate his mother has planned for him and too easily accepts that he must be strange and that's why he had no friends, as well as giving up on relationships, too.
- Pride – His lie detector invention comes with some hubris because, despite the dangers, he undertakes it anyway. He's insecure about many things, but he has a lot of certainty in his intellect. He coulld've tried to find some other way out, but instead his actions get him killed and cause Danny a lot of suffering.
- Diligence – He seems disciplined, focused, and therefore has a strong work ethic. He refuses to give up on his creation, even lies about destroying it and never seeing Danny again. He is also brave enough to undertake it in the first place. He is careful at first about seeing Danny as well and carries out a background check on him.
- Kindness – In episode one, he stops to help a random stranger (Danny) who is clearly in distress, even though he didn't have to. He expresses genuine concern for Danny's well being at this point, too. Additionally, he may have thought his lie detector creation would've made the world a better place for everyone.
SINS & VIRTUES:
Sins:
Virtues:
SAMPLES
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