Yahoo Lifestyle The Agency Premiere Recap: Michael Fassbender Leads Paramount+ With Showtime’s Bureau Remake — Grade It!
In The Agency‘s opening moments, we watch as a CIA agent codenamed Martian (played by Steve Jobs‘ Michael Fassbender) returns to his regular life in London after an extended undercover operation in Ethiopia. “So,” his handler asks him in a video call that plays out alongside scenes of his reentry, “how did it go?” He scoffs, relating the breakup of his relationship with a local historian as though it were just another item on his exfiltration checklist and reporting that the woman now thinks he’s a giant jerk.
But when we watch a flashback to the moment that Martian ends the relationship, it’s actually a tender, painful, loving thing. As “Paul,” he was seeing Samia Zahir (Bad Monkey‘s Jodie Turner-Smith), who is married to another man. Both of them are tearful as he tells her he suddenly has to leave to take a teaching job in Jordan (she thinks he’s a writer). “Are you sad?” she asks, just before they make love for what seems like the last time. “Me, too. It was good. Really good.”
More from TVLine
Martian is lying to his handler about how things went. He’s lying to Samia about who he truly is. And as the series — Paramount+ With Showtime’s remake of France’s The Bureau — gets underway, the game becomes: When is Martian telling the truth… if ever?
We watch as Martian gets settled in his new apartment and has dinner with his teen daughter, Poppy (The Nevers‘ India Fowler), whom he hasn’t seen in years. We see him chafe against CIA protocol, which has his house bugged and his movements followed. And we watch him return to London Station, which is overseen by his bosses Bosko (Pretty Woman‘s Richard Gere) and Henry (Westworld‘s Jeffrey Wright). Henry asks Martian to train a new agent who’s about to leave for Iran, which he does reluctantly, but the big drama happens when an agent in Belarus (codename: Coyote) hastily leaves a club and seemingly drunk-drives his way into police custody.
Several troubling questions arise when Coyote then goes missing from lockup. First, he refused to be trained on how to maintain his cover while under the influence; he’s an alcoholic in recovery, and didn’t want to lose his sobriety, though he looked very inebriated in surveillance footage of the incident. Second, the knowledge he possesses means that roughly 60 percent of the CIA’s covert operations in Russia and the Ukraine — including a major one that involves Henry’s brother-in-law — may be compromised if he’s fallen into the wrong hands. Third, did he… maybe become a double agent and make himself disappear?
Martian is distracted, though, by news of violence at the university in Khartoum, Sudan, where Samia was planning to go after they parted ways. He’s so consumed with thoughts of her fate that he sneakily buys a burner phone and calls her. He’s relieved when she picks up the phone and says she’s fine. He’s gobsmacked when she announces that she’s actually in London for a training course.
The temptation is too great, and Martian ditches the tracker in his car so he can drive to a hotel and meet up with her. (Too bad he doesn’t know about the agency’s backup tracker in his vehicle.) Martian tells Samia that his plans changed, and he’s writing a novel about a man who risks everything to get what he wants. “Well, at least he knows what he wants. Isn’t that the real problem?” she asks. “Not anymore,” he says, touching her hand.
The hour ends with a flashback of Martian telling his handler, Naomi (Perry Mason‘s Katherine Waterston), that he’s seeing Samia. After a quick background check, Naomi says their relationship would only become a problem under two circumstances: 1) if Samia turned out to be a spy, as well; 2) if Martian fell in love with her, because “love is blind.”
Now it’s your turn. What did you think of the episode? Grade the premiere via the poll below, then hit the comments with your thoughts!
Best of TVLine
Sign up for TVLine's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
