{"id":75,"date":"2025-10-17T14:55:38","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T13:55:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/?p=75"},"modified":"2025-10-17T16:07:02","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T15:07:02","slug":"atomic-the-ironic-likability-of-a-jihadi-and-a-drug-smuggler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/?p=75","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Atomic\u2019 \u2013 the ironic likability of a jihadi and a drug smuggler"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>One evening, and for no particular reason \u2013 an absence of anything fresh-sounding in the streaming services, perhaps? \u2013 we dipped into an unlikely looking thriller series: \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Atomic_(TV_series)\">Atomic<\/a>,\u201d produced for Sky Studios. At least it was something we hadn\u2019t dipped into before and rejected. It promised a story of drug smuggler in North Africa who meets a jihadi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Soon I found myself asking a question:\u00a0<strong>What turns the unlikely, implausible and frankly repugnant into something that\u2019s, well, fun \u2013 sort of?\u00a0<\/strong>How do the writers, or the director, or the actors pull this off? &#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read the rest of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/wp-admin\/post-new.php\"><a href=\"https:\/\/donnordbergwriting.substack.com\/p\/atomic-the-ironic-likability-of-a\">\u2018Atomic\u2019 \u2013 the ironic likability of a jihadi and a drug smuggler<\/a><\/a> on Substack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"179\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/DNwriting-banner-large-1024x179.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-60\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/DNwriting-banner-large-1024x179.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/DNwriting-banner-large-300x53.png 300w, https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/DNwriting-banner-large-768x135.png 768w, https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/DNwriting-banner-large.png 1204w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One evening, and for no particular reason \u2013 an absence of anything fresh-sounding in the streaming services, perhaps? \u2013 we dipped into an unlikely looking thriller series: \u201cAtomic,\u201d produced for Sky Studios. At least it was something we hadn\u2019t dipped into before and rejected. It promised a story of drug smuggler in North Africa who &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/?p=75\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">\u2018Atomic\u2019 \u2013 the ironic likability of a jihadi and a drug smuggler<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criticism","category-don-nordberg-is-on-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76,"href":"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions\/76"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}