The second season gave Roy the chance to allow Michael to become more than just a mere foil for Nikita; without ever losing the credibility of Michael the Super Spy, we get to see the conflicts now invading his heart and mind. Secure in his portrayal of Michael, Roy managed to make us feel deprived when he was not given a central role. Amazingly for an actor now into his second run of 22 episodes, Roy’s minimalist style still exerted a powerful hold on the audience. Far from us being bored by this, Roy’s absolute belief in how to play Michael proved to be the ratings puller for the show. And in recognition of this, TPTB threw him some of the best storylines, allowing him to play with the character, and oh so expertly tease the audience.

Director René Bonniere, working with Roy five times this season, appeared to be the key for non-Section Michael characterisation; maybe his Quebecois sensibilities helped Roy in this respect? Whatever, the audience anticipation of the Bonniere episodes proved, with one exception (Open Heart), always to be well rewarded with a satisfyingly refreshing performance.

Season 2 was filmed predominantly in the dark. Apart from the closing arc, with very few exceptions the sets are night-time exteriors, gloomy dens of vice, and Section interiors where the only occupants who get any light at all are Madeline’s orchids. Under these conditions, in several episodes Roy looks a little puffy-eyed and tired. On the other hand, he has an impressive number of action shots, the motor cycle begins to feature as his preferred mode of transport, and he demonstrates ever slicker ways of shooting bad guys. The Michael ‘look’ is now such an integral part of the man that any deviation from it was going to cause shockwaves. The introduction of the mission hairstyle, originally sported in Love but now relaunched with a vengeance in Spec Ops, created an e-world stir and was instantly dubbed ‘Hong Kong Mikey’. The rest of the time, however, Michael’s Section hair was sprayed into an unnatural submission that no-one seemed comfortable with. So when the news broke that rebel Roy had turned up at the Season 2 wrap party with his long locks cut SHORT, a global frenzy erupted, and the fandom mourned the loss of the @@@s.

Originally Season 2 had been meant to end with Michael returning home to wife and child, anticipating the blood cover depicted in the opening arc of Season 3. Fortunately this was judged to be a cliff-hanger too high, and the rumours resulted merely in mass denial, rather than the mass outrage such a stunt would have merited. Michael, a clandestinely happy-family man? No way!

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