Spooks (or MI5 as it's known in America) has quite a few of these, but few are quite as awesome as Malcolm's in the first episode of series five. Colin, a member of the cast since series one, is executed by two rogue MI-6 agents. When Harry states that Section D will have to let them get away with it for now to uncover the larger plot, Malcolm bursts out with, "Shut up, you pompous fool! He wasn't just some geek who did crossword puzzles! He was my bloody best friend!
"I've got a terrible crick in the neck, y'see."
Malcolm's true moment of awesome comes in the first episode of season eight. He realizes that the child of a former MI-5 employee is in danger, but the agency decides it can't intervene lest it blow a sensitive operation by taking any action. So Malcolm goes off the grid, and walks to the house where the child is being held. Malcolm offers himself in exchange to the child. When that offer fails and Malcolm is taken hostage, he then proceeds to talk the gunman guarding the child out of killing him. The gunman walks away, probably to go work in a soup kitchen somewhere. Malcolm then retires from the secret service — the first character in eight seasons to do so of his own volition, on his own terms — to go read books by the sea. Oh, and he's a desk jockey, not a field agent.
The "Fuck you, you death-worshipping fascist!" speech in the Series 3 finale, which is also a Tear Jerker.
Most of the main characters are Combat Pragmatists and are not shy about showing the viewers how awesome they can be without using a gun or knife. Some examples include:
Ros stabbing a Russian hitman to death with a fork.
Ros threatening another Russian hitman by knocking him down and pointing a measly pen at his eye.
Harry garroting a Russian hitman following him with his tie. In the middle of a busy subway. And not a single person saw him kill the man.
Lucas using a thick cable he found as a clothesline to knock a Russian tracker down. And then he steals the tracker's own gun and kills him.
Ruth and another man named Deery subduing a French hitman by using quite literally everything around them (an iron, a wooden shelf, a plate shard, squirting a bottle of soap into his eyes...)
