Adapted by Jez and John-Henry Butterworth from the popular French series Le Bureau des Legende, The Agency Season 1 delivers a less glamorous, more grounded version of the typical Hollywood blockbuster. It focuses not on James Bond-style spy adventures but on middle-aged bureaucrats in dreary offices in London, who, as they sip cold coffee from a styrofoam cup, make life-altering decisions that affect the lives of people a world away.
The series follows the life of Brandon Colby, a CIA operative known as “Martian” to his colleagues. Michael Fassbender portrays the tormented double agent who has spent six years in deep cover in Ethiopia. After he is recalled to London, he is forced to shed his false identity as Paul Lewis, toss away his burner phone, and return to his old office in the heart of England. The problem with undercover assignments, as Martian discovers too late, is not the assumed identity but the fact that, after living a lie for so long, the lie starts to feel like the truth. Martian has shared his life, and bed, with Dr. Samia Zahir, a married Sudanese anthropologist, played by Jodie Turner-Smith. When Samia turns up in London unexpectedly, Martian decides to continue his charade rather than report her to his handler, Bosko (Richard Gere) and London Station’s chief spymaster, Henry Ogletree (Jeffrey Wright). The rest, as they say, is history.
While Fassbender is the magnetic center of this character study, his performance as the cold and unfeeling Martian is all the more remarkable for the way he doesn’t let us inside his character’s head. We are not meant to root for Martian, despite his best (and worst) efforts to keep his two identities, and lives, separate. We do not want to see Samia, an innocent bystander, get hurt, but we also realize, as she gets caught up in the machinations of spymasters on both sides of the pond, that she is merely a pawn in a much bigger game. Watching Martian’s carefully constructed world unravel is like watching a car crash in slow motion.
Meanwhile, back in London, things are not going well for the CIA. Beyond Martian’s indiscretions, a deep-cover CIA asset known as Coyote is in trouble. The hapless Coyote has been arrested in Belarus after a routine traffic stop turned into a gunfight that left several innocent people dead. Now, the Agency finds itself in the impossible position of having to rescue Coyote, who possesses vital intelligence on its regional operations, from the clutches of a ruthless Russian mercenary group. In the meantime, the agency has launched Operation Felix, a high-stakes, multimillion-dollar rescue mission, to extract Coyote from certain death in Minsk. Tensions also mount as the agency scrambles to train rookie operative Danny (India Fowler) for a clandestine assignment in Iran.
The juxtaposition of the Coyote and Danny storylines is what makes The Agency such enthralling viewing. While the former involves tense standoffs in the Ukrainian hinterlands, the latter focuses more on spymaster tradecraft. Danny is being prepped for a high-risk undercover assignment in Iran. Her handler, Naomi (Katherine Waterston), subjects her to relentless psychological and physical probing to ferret out any information that might jeopardize her mission. When Danny finally arrives in Tehran, she finds herself grilled by Iranian security officials after an unscheduled stop at the airport. At various points during her mission, Danny has the look of a woman who can barely remember who she is supposed to be.
What makes The Agency such a compelling drama is its willingness to depict the spy trade for what it really is, a cutthroat business populated by amoral corporate types more interested in self-enrichment than national security. This is especially true of Henry Ogletree, portrayed brilliantly by Jeffrey Wright. Ogletree is an opportunist who sees people as means to an end. He cares little for the lives of the people he sends halfway around the world on dangerous intelligence-gathering missions. Even as he grows increasingly suspicious of Martian, Ogletree continues to exploit him, dangling the prospect of a promotion in front of him while quietly gathering evidence of his misconduct.
As events spiral out of control, it turns out that Samia’s fateful trip to London has far-reaching repercussions. In addition to sparking a CIA investigation into her possible ties to terrorist groups, Samia has unwittingly become a pawn in a high-stakes diplomatic game. A Sudanese intelligence officer, Osman, has discovered that Samia’s lover, Paul Lewis, does not exist. Believing that the hapless Martian has compromised Sudan’s national security, Osman arranges for Samia to be deported back to Khartoum. Once there, she is imprisoned in Kober Prison, where she is subjected to brutal interrogations.
The revelation that Samia has been arrested takes its toll on Martian, who begins to see his life crumble around him. Obsessed with rescuing Samia, he begins to use CIA resources to effect her release. This places him at odds with both Bosko and Ogletree, who are determined to bring him in for questioning. Enter James Richardson (a.k.a. James Bond), a shadowy MI6 operative who sees an opportunity to entrap Martian. Richardson approaches Martian with an offer he cannot refuse, if he agrees to serve as a double agent for MI6, he will be able to secure Samia’s release.
By the time we get to the season finale, it is clear that things have gone from bad to worse. The CIA has succeeded in its mission to extract Coyote from hostile territory. Back in London, the success is celebrated, with Martian quietly watching from the sidelines. In Iran, Danny has survived her ordeal and managed to establish her cover in Tehran. Yet, for all the victories on the surface, everything is falling apart in the shadows. Martian has accepted Richardson’s offer, and he is now a double agent for MI6. He has saved Samia, but his life, and career, will never be the same again.
If you are looking for an escapist summer blockbuster, The Agency is definitely not for you. It is a bleak look at spymasters who serve at the pleasure of faceless bureaucracies. As a portrait of a man who has committed so many sins that he can no longer distinguish right from wrong, it is hard to beat Season 1 of The Agency.
However, if you are buying the physical media disc set for The Agency Season 1 today, you should know what you are getting into. While the show itself is excellent, the technical production values are only adequate for an SD TV show. The washed-out palette of grays, greens, and sickly yellows comes across well enough on the DVD release. The 5.1 mix also does the show’s atmosphere of claustrophobic office politics justice, with all the muffled conversations and sudden bursts of gunfire during the Operation Felix sequences.
Paramount Pictures has given us a largely barebones disc set, with no special features to speak of. It would have been nice if there was something that featured the Butterworth brothers discussing how they translated the original French material into English. The Agency Season 1 DVD delivers ten hours of taut, well-written drama and nothing else, and for me that's enough.
The Agency Season 1 is available to own today!
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