Helen Flynn

Helen Flynn, played by Lisa Faulkner, is a fictional administrative officer appearing in the first two episodes of the BBC spy drama Spooks, known in the United States as MI-5. The violent death of the character in the second episode sparked a record number of complaints.

The Flynn character is a relatively new MI5 recruit; according to the fictional Spooks: Harry's Diary, she joined Section D (devoted to counter-terrorism) not long before January 2002. She is the flatmate of junior officer Danny Hunter.

In the second episode of the first series, "Looking After Our Own," Section D is investigating Robert Osborne, believed to be responsible for inciting race riots. Section chief Tom Quinn and junior officer Zoe Reynolds are to go undercover and befriend Osborne's wife. When Zoe is called away to work on another assignment, Helen is asked to take her place. Keen to move up through the ranks of the service and possibly attracted to Tom Quinn as well, she is eager to participate in the operation. She and Tom pose as man-and-wife teachers of a computer course in which Mrs. Osborne has enrolled. Tom and Helen succeed in winning her over, but the deeply suspicious Osborne discovers that they are spies, and they are taken to the kitchen of his plant for interrogation. To force information from Tom, Osborne tortures Helen by dipping her hand into a deep fat fryer. When Tom will not comply, Osborne forces her head in, then shoots her.

Although the immersion of Helen's face in hot oil and her being shot occur off screen, her violent death "still caused many viewers to register complaints and believe the incident was actually shown in graphic detail." The killing of Helen drew 154 complaints to the Broadcasting Standards Commission in 2002, the highest number that year. The series creator and writer of the episode, David Wolstencroft, has said that he wrote the scene to convey to the Spooks audience that every character in the series would be at risk. By the end of the third series of Spooks, none of the initial main trio of spies were left, and the show became notorious for the frequency with which main characters are killed or forced to leave MI5. A LastBroadcast poll issued in January 2010 asked viewers to vote for the Spooks character with "the most shocking death scene," and Helen Flynn came in first, with 49% of the votes.