Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (novel, miniseries, and forthcoming film to be directed by Tomas Alfredson)

maybe it shorthands smiley seeing gwilm and changing his plans, gives him an object to explicitly speak to someone about that shows this happening

as i noted in the obit thread, now that Michael Jayston has passed away, all of the main cast of the BBC series is now gone. though we've still got Ann Smiley and Karla.