"The Agency," Year Two

Spoilers for the first season ahead.

I complained last year that Paramount's "The Agency" was a slow burn spy series that was burning too slowly for me, and needed to pick up the pace.  Well, the second season has definitely picked up the pace.  The newest batch of ten hour-long episodes positively flew by, and I'm hoping we get a lot more to come.  Everything that the first season of "The Agency" set up pays off in the second, as the scope of the show expands.  

So, when last we left CIA operative Martian, he'd become a double agent, while Danny was just getting settled in Iran.  Martian is still working various angles to rescue Samia, getting himself more entangled with the Brits.  Meanwhile, Danny attempts to recruit a new asset, Hassan Zamani (Keanush Tafreshi).  We also follow another case officer, Owen Lublin (John Magaro), trying to track down a mercenary leader code named Viking (Clayne Crawford), based in the Central African Republic.  Meanwhile, the situation is heating up for Martian at London Station, with both Naomi and Henry Ogletree suspicious of his actions.  This year, the focus shifts so that "The Agency" makes much more use of its ensemble, and more characters are carrying storylines individually.  We still get plenty of Martian and Samia, but I found many of the other stories and relationships just as compelling, and it was great to see actors like Jeffrey Wright and Richard Gere, as the London Station Chief, Bosko, really get to sink their teeth into some of this juicy material.    

As much as I like Michael Fassbender in spy mode, and think he's fantastic in this series, "The Agency" works better when it's showing us more POVs and not just relying on Martian as a focal point.  Samia spends the bulk of the season trapped in the custody of ne'er-do-wells in Khartoum, and the isolation from the rest of the characters allows Jodie Turner-Smith's performance to have much more interiority and resonance.  It's the same with Saura Lightfoot-Leon as Danny, who is often left to navigate complicated situations on her own as her mission progresses.  A lot of the minor characters who were only fleeting presences in the first season are a lot more well-defined now, like Blair (Ambreen Razia), Simon (Bilal Hasna), and Craig (Raza Jeffrey).  Katherine Waterston's Naomi is still playing second fiddle, but you can tell that she's being set up for bigger things down the line.  Even Poppy, who came off as a tiresome distraction in the first season, is a lot more nuanced and sympathetic in the second.

Another major improvement is that the characters in the field this time are a lot easier to identify with than the passel of similar-looking agents and operatives that were involved in the Coyote mission in the first season.  Dangerous situations feel much more visceral and impactful when they're happening to Danny or Owen, who we get to know before they're sent in harm's way.  As impatient as I was with the first season, I'm grateful that "The Agency" took the trouble to lay out all that groundwork, because it's so invaluable in the second.  Fans of spy media will probably see all the twists and turns coming long before they occur, but the high quality of the production and the accomplished cast really make a difference this time out.  "The Agency" isn't an action show primarily, but when the action scenes do come around, they're terrifically violent and unnerving.

Most of the comparable spy shows running now are much broader genre programs, some leaning toward action-adventure or comedy.  "The Agency" certainly takes the usual liberties to be more entertaining, but the level of the writing and intrigue help to distinguish this as probably the best straightforward espionage thriller out there right now, along with "Slow Horses."  Plenty won't have the patience for it, but those who stick it out will be well rewarded.  The French series "Le Bureau," which "The Agency" was based on, ran for five seasons.  I hope we're lucky enough that "The Agency" will follow suit.

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