Adam is dead, long live Lucas. Anyone who was still debating whether Adam Carter would indeed be killed off in this opening episode now has their answer, and with a story that never let up its blistering pace from start to finish any debate about whether Spooks could maintain its legendary quality as it drove manically into its seventh series has been put to bed too.

I don’t know what the real casualty count is in the real MI5, but as we’ve said before one of Spooks strengths is that it’s never been frightened of killing off its key characters in the name of realism. Something that, as Paul wrote yesterday, perhaps Heroes could take a lesson from. Secrecy around the series has been fairly well kept up though, so as Adam drove the bomb away from the memorial ceremony most of us didn’t know whether he was going to make it or not.

But as usual I’m getting ahead of myself. The story opened with the abduction of Andy Sullivan. Just a normal Army private home on leave from Afghanistan and looking forward to seeing his new daughter for the first time. He must have bitterly regretted stopping off for a pint with his mates on the way home, because before he knew what was happening he had a bag over his head, a rope around his wrists, and was being asked to spout Taliban propaganda into a video camera. We’ve seen scenes like this before on the 10 o’clock news, but never when it’s taking place in London.

Meanwhile Harry and Adam were making a prisoner exchange to secure the freedom of an old colleague. Well, an old colleague of Harry’s anyway. Adam knew nothing about Lucas North, not even by reputation, which seemed strange as he was clearly very familiar to the other Grid members, and remembered to ask after Ruth. (Bring her back! Bring her back, damn you!)

Our new Russian – Arkady Kachimov – seems suitable two- or three-faced already and has a face for danger if you know what I mean. I had the distinct impression that he knew all about “Rangefinder” (Ros) and her mission to retrieve some information from a newly-dead contact despite Connie’s insistance that she abort the mission.

Adam seemed to be functioning OK, but the same couldn’t be said of Jo, who was using jogging therapy to try to run away from her memories of what happened at the end of series six. It wasn’t working, which gave her lots of opportunity to look scared, bug her eyes out, and sweat.

The Afghans’ demands were simple: stop the Remembrance Day ceremony. Our spineless PM was immediately ready to concede their request but MI5 weren’t having any. With some super whizzo technology they defeated a home burglar alarm, copied some mobile phone records, intercepted a call or two and tracked down the location of Andy Sullivan and his captors, securing his release in double-quick time with the aid of some fast Russian talking from Lucas. Quite why the Taliban would take any notice of someone talking Russian was never explained, but let’s not quibble. It sounded good.

Sadly for our intrepid spooks, Andy was merely a diversion from the main event, which turned out to be a sultry Russian spy ironically codenamed Tranquillity parking a car bomb outside a Remembrance Day service attended by wives and children of fallen servicemen. She was intercepted by Ros and Lucas but bit down on her cyanide tooth before they had chance to extract the digital code from her, leaving Adam with no option but to drive the car to a handy open quadrangle which Malcolm managed to find.

Last time I saw the unfortunate effects of a large car bomb on the news, the crater it left was about twenty feet deep. This would have been in keeping with Adam’s statement, before he drove off, that if the bomb exploded where it was it would take out everyone at the service, even though they were all at the back of the building.

When the car eventually did explode it was barely louder than the sort of expensive firework I can buy from my newsagent. Lots of flames and noise and virtually no damage, except to Adam who should have spent less time spinning around on the grass and more time running away.

Cue long faces on the Grid and the return of Jo, who belatedly decided the only way to avenge Adam’s death was to get back to work.

The two dodgy moments didn’t mar what was otherwise an excellent opener to the new series. Clearly there is going to be some debate about whether Lucas can be trusted, or more subtly *how far* he can be trusted. I’ve always had my doubts about Ros, too. Just back from six months in Russia and with a dead colleague in her wake, there’ll be an added complication there I fear. But overall, welcome back Spooks. The second half of the opening double-hander, if you didn’t catch it on BBC Three last night, is on BBC One tonight at 9pm.

Spooks: BBC One, Tuesday 28 October, 9pm