Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth cook up another season of deadly spy games in which everyone is always under suspicion.
The Agency S2
All 10 episodes of Season 2 are now streaming on Paramount Plus, along with all 10 episodes of Season 1. I've seen all 20 episodes.
Once upon a time, HBO and Showtime were rival giants in the premium cable space of the television business. Those days are long gone, yet echoes of each service's greatest hits keep returning, as if to remind everyone of their salad days.
On Sunday, HBO debuted the giant-sized opening episode of House of Dragons, Season 3, which runs more than an hour, and features more dragons, more action, and more improbably long-haired blonde people than ever. I couldn't make much sense of it all; help youselves, if that's your thing.
Also on Sunday, former premium cable rival Showtime, now known by the moniker Paramount Plus with Showtime, debuted all ten episodes of the second season of The Agency with much less fanfare. Originally announced in February 2023, right after the announcement that Showtime would be absorbed into the Paramount Plus streaming service, the series, based on the long-running French series Le Bureau des Légendes (2015-20) and then known as The Department, was described as a "political thriller," similar in theme to Showtime's Homeland. (The similarity to Homeland felt prophetic, in view of the show's depiction of various torture scenarios in its first two seasons.)
The original, five-season French series followed deep-cover operatives in North Africa and the Middle East whose "missions were to identify and recruit intelligence sources". The first season of The Agency adapts the premise of the original series' first season, in which an agent returns to Paris after six years of undercover service in the Middle East and seeks to reconnect with everyone in his life, only for his undercover lover to surface in Paris.
Similarly, The Agency begins with American Brandon Colby (Michael Fassbender), known by his codename 'Martian,' called back to the CIA's London Station after six years of undercover service in Ethiopia, where he must reconnect with everyone in his life, including his teenage daughter Poppy (India Fowler), with whom he shares custody with his never-seen ex-wife.
Forced to cut ties on short notice, he bristles at all of his CIA colleagues, including his former handler Naomi Ford (Katherine Waterston), as well as his immediate boss, Deputy Station Chief Ogletree (Jeffrey Wright), and London Station Chief James Bradley (Richard Gere). He also bristles at Dr. Rachel Blake (Harriet Sansom Harris), a clinical psychologist who is newly arrived in London Station and is immediately concerned about Martian's combative state of mind.
Also newly arrived to London Station is new agent Daniela 'Danny' Ruiz Morata (Saura Lightfoot-Leon), who begins training as a field agent under the direction of her prospective handler Naomi. Meanwhile, Martian gets along a bit better with CIA case officer Owen Taylor (John Magaro) and nurses a broken heart from his secretive, supposedly discontinued relationship with Ethiopian professor Samia (Jodie Turner-Smith).
Beyond the fleshing out of the characters, the primary narrative thread of the first season was consumed with a search for a field agent who disappeared in the first episode. As the search became progressively more desperate, that narrative thread was matched with a secondary thread revolving around Martian and Samia, who turned up unexpectedly in London and threw his life into turmoil.
Season 1 concluded with the primary thread resolved, but the secondary thread left open. As Season 2 begins, Martian is celebrated by his colleagues for his part in the rescue of the kidnapped field agent, but Samia is now a political prisoner in Sudan. Martian's love for her continues unabated, so the question becomes: What more can he do on her behalf?
Affairs in the London Station are largely unchanged. In the field, however, Danny goes ever forward into perilous territory in Iran. The setup for her narrative thread is similar to the setup for Season 2 of Le Bureau des Légendes but, of necessity, changes all the specifics.
Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth, who wrote all 10 episodes of Season 1, return to write all 10 episodes of Season 2. As a writing team, they received deserved recognition for CIA-themed dramatic thriller Fair Game (2010), and are also credited as co-writers on Edge of Tomorrow and Ford vs. Ferrari, among others.
Thus, it's no wonder that the sharp dialogue in The Agency rings true, even if some of the narrative elements are familiar -- the idea of a female undercover operative in the Middle East, for example, was recently deployed in Taylor Sheridan's Lionness, another Paramount Plus series. (Sheridan's frequent producing partner 101 Studios is a producing partner for both Lionness and The Agency.)
The characterizations also feel authentic to every situation in which they arise. It makes sense that intelligence agencies would cast constant doubt and suspicion upon everyone all the time, including their own workforce. Though some of the twists are easier to anticipate than others, and a couple of the plot developments push too far into the outrageous to be entirely convincing, The Agency usually errs on the side of richly entertaining.
As played by a superb cast of excellent actors, The Agency is easy to binge and welcomes close inspection by attentive viewers. The series makes for compelling viewing; I only intended to sample a single episode on Friday evening, instead filling up every available hour in my weekend to gobble up all 20 episodes.
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