Oh my God. Lucas is a baddie. A cold-blooded killer who blew up the British Embassy in Dakar and murdered his mate to steal his identity. And not just because he was forced into it by Vaughn/Michael, the man who has been blackmailing him for the entire series.

Lucas (or should we now call him John ?) was behind it all.

Phew.

I'd better stop to take a breath here, as I haven't really had a chance during the last 60 minutes of Spooks (BBC1, 9pm).

Let's start from the beginning.

There's certainly no gentle easing into the plot with Spooks, is there? Harry and Lucas are meeting a source who's promising to spill all about Dakar.

And guess who it is? Yep, it's Vaughn, who hints Harry should be looking closer to home.

Last week, Ruth was on to him and now this? It seems the net is closing in on Lucas.

There's also a subplot – council worker/wannabe spook Keith Deery has intercepted a suspicious "dead-drop" and wants the security services to look into it. He's dismissed.

There'll definitely be more to this, but no time to think about that now, as we're back to Vaughn, who's being held at gunpoint by Chinese gangster bosses.

Are you keeping up?

These are the men desperate to get their hands on the mysterious Albany file, and the reason why Vaughn has been blackmailing Lucas. And they're not messing about either. They've just threatened to cut Maya's head off.

So Vaughn kidnaps Maya and uses her as bait for Lucas, who's still not managed to get his hands on Albany and is definitely unraveling.

They meet in a park, but Beth is watching.

Lucas stabs Vaughn in the leg, Vaughn pulls out a gun, all hell breaks loose and Beth is "going in".

Vaughn escapes and Lucas has some explaining to do. It's edge-of-the-seat stuff.

We'll try and keep this quick – Lucas, or John as he was in 1995, found himself stranded in Dakar, ended up running errands of the drop-this-package-off-and-ask-no-questions variety for Vaughn to earn the cash to get himself home.

His last job was to deliver a package to the British Embassy. The bomb went off, Vaughn killed the real Lucas North for a passport for John and they came back.

At least, that's what Lucas tells Harry.

Back to Ruth, who, after deciding Mr Deery might be on to something, is now tied up alongside him in his flat. There's a French assassin with a gun, but don't worry, canny Ruth manages to turn it on him and the day is saved.

Knowing Spooks, there'll probably be another twist next week. We'll find out it was all for the greater good and Lucas is actually a hero. Possibly.