(Or should that be:
THIS! IS!! SKYFAALLL!!![1])
I can give a corollary to that, which in itself may give new nitpicks, depending on which conclusions you believe:
Dench (ahem) wants to leave the service in better shape than when she left. (Certainly no worse, like she said.)
Arguably that
happened when the need to have the service do its 'thang' raised its ugly head during the official 'inquisition' event. She could have bailed, made her excuses or otherwise (doubtless Silva would have attacked her out of the public eye, if she had left, assuming she didn't have an
actual impregnable bunker that she could have trusted to for the rest of her natural life), but she wouldn't have made the point she wanted
verbally, and I'm thinking[2] that Silva's (high-risk[2]) intervention probably helped the cause, in the end. And a dangerous threat died (without knowing he had 'succeeded' in his rather more limited plan), so
But in today's society (c.f. the various
Enquiries Saville, numbering eight at the last count) I can't see heads not rolling. It
could be a post-mortem head (publicly at least), which I suspect Emma wouldn't mind about at all if it helped her legacy-by-proxy. But, more than that, with information concealed from the public (as it would have to be), there'll be the Conspiracy Nut thing (as with 911, 7/7, JFK, etc, etc, etc...), and the more the spin/counter-spin machines get used the more fuzzy that'll get.
OTOH, people at the top (Downing Street, or our Evil Lizard Overlords at least) are going to be told enough. Ach... put it this way, the next film could start from the conclusion of Skyfall[5] having gone in either direction. But I think it'll be a solider secret service.
[1] Don't worry, it's a non-linking page... I didn't send you to any dangerously addictive jumping-off point if you don't seek them out yourself
![2] Depends on how it gets handled 'later', regarding who fell down on whose job, but something tells me that Mallory is more than capable (and willing) of making sure it's political capital more in MI6's credit than otherwise.
[3] Obviously he
really can't shoot for toffee, even before the extinguishers get blown out[4]. The collateral damage does not further his plan at all and he misses his chance of doing what he wants. Which, as with how events actually went, might have still
help Emma's legacy (
including reputation... She'd be MI6's JFK, quite publicly, however little her fate got publicised by the actual film conclusion.
[4] A torso shot on a bound woman a short distance away is not impressive. Ok, so it's an unrifled short barrel with a rattly-around ball, but he's undoubtedly already used the weapon and knows its limitations. Bond comes to it fresh (certainly not been
recently training with it) and Silva probably imagines that Bond is likely to aim off first
anyway, to get used to it, so if Silva misses (already considering what Bond would consider a bad miss as success) he gets another go. And even if Bond
does best him, who still (at that moment in time) has the hired guns? (Of course, we now know that being captured in return
at some point was in his plans, but I don't see him going totally Batman Gambit on us (won't link, it's also on TVTropes if you're looking for it, though), because that was probably just an acceptable outcome and he'd find
another way to 'fall into a trap', or even accomplish his goals from an uncaptured position, i.e. the boring old Xanatos Gambit.)
[5] Nearly called it "Downfall", just then...