The Agency review: Showtime's mature espionage drama

Plot: Follows Martian, a covert CIA agent, ordered to abandon his undercover life and return to London Station. When the love he left behind reappears, romance reignites. His career, his real identity and his mission are pitted against his heart; hurling them both into a deadly game of international intrigue and espionage.

Review: While you may love a good action spy movie, give me a mature, calculated drama about espionage any day. While there is a time and a place for James Bond, Ethan Hunt, or Jason Bourne, the psychological intensity of a well-crafted thriller does not come along every day. The Agency, based on the French series Le Bureau des Legendes, is a solid showcase of deliberate and complex tension done right. With a masterful cast led by Michael Fassbender and Jodie Turner-Smith, The Agency certainly showcases some intense action. Still, it thrives on solid performances from the rock-solid ensemble of acting talent. Few series can match The Agency‘s accomplished writing and directing, which will surely blow a lot of viewers away while the deliberate pace frustrates others.

The ten-episode first season of The Agency opens with Michael Fassbender’s embedded agent, codenamed Martian, as he breaks off a romance with Sami Zahir (Jodie Turner-Smith), with whom he has developed real feelings. Returning back to London, Martian must contend with the psychological toll of re-assuming his real identity while reconnecting with his daughter and coworkers at the CIA. Martian is almost immediately pulled into a storm involving an asset that may have become a double agent and risks exposing countless spies working undercover across the globe. Under the leadership of his boss, Henry (Jeffrey Wright), and their station chief, Bosko (Richard Gere), Martian must help figure out their next steps before an international incident occurs. He must also do this while reuniting with Sami, who is also now in London. The complications of balancing a romance conducted while undercover while eluding your employers and trying to do your job extract a psychological toll on Martian, one of many displayed throughout the series.

The first three episodes were made available for this review, which may be more than enough for some viewers. When I said this series is unlike James Bond, I meant it in many ways. There are a lot of quiet moments in The Agency, including a long, dialogue-free sequence in which Martian meticulously sweeps his London apartment to look for tracking devices and bugs. The deliberate pacing of scenes like this may be boring to some, even though I found them fascinating. The first episode features a car chase through Ukraine, an asset trying to escape. At the same time, London-based operatives pool their skills to try and extract him before he lands in a foreign nation, and some intense arguments in person and across virtual screens. Between those scenes, there are a lot of moments of spies watching other spies, making sure they are not spies for the other spy agency but actually good spies working for our spies. If that sentence was hard to follow, some of The Agency may pose a challenge for you.

The stellar cast helps this series rise above a lack of momentum. Michael Fassbender is as quiet and virtually emotionless as Martian. Using an American accent, Fassbender plays this role similarly to his turn in David Fincher’s The Killer. Both are calculating and of few words but physically embody a sense of experience and a slightly off-balance mental state. Luckily, Fassbender’s stoic approach is offset by a sultry turn by Jodie Turner-Smith. Jeffrey Wright gets the next largest role as Martian’s supervisor and seems to have the most balanced screen time at work and at home. Richard Gere is good in a supporting turn as the hard-nosed station chief, Bosko. Katherine Waterston and John Magaro appear in smaller roles as analysts supporting field agents, with the great Harriet Sansom Harris bringing great presence to her turn as psychologist Dr. Blake, who serves as both a resource and a source of accountability for the agents.

Produced by George Clooney, the whole first season of The Agency was written by Jez and John-Henry Butterworth (Edge of Tomorrow, Ford v. Ferrari). The series’ first two episodes were directed by Joe Wright (Atonement, Cyrano), who also serves as an executive producer. The remaining eight episodes were helmed by Zetna Fuentes (The Nevers), Grant Heslov (Catch-22), and Philip Martin (The Crown). The Agency boasts a muted color palette and intense moments of quiet interspersed with bursts of violence and whipsmart dialogue exchanges. There are so many moments in this series that need little to no dialogue to convey the overwhelming weight of what is going on in the lives of these characters. There are plot threads involving characters in countries around the globe happening simultaneously, pulled together into a balanced story that you need to pay attention to to follow appropriately.

I would not be shocked if The Agency divides critics as much as general audiences. This is a series that does not pick up consistent momentum until well into the third season and, even at that point, leaves so many questions as to what exactly is going on that it will leave many scratching their heads. Michael Fassbender is a great lead but is more of an ensemble player in this series that picks and chooses who you are supposed to focus on without giving you much to orient yourself. The Agency is a drama about the emotional and psychological strain of being an undercover agent. It delivers one of the most blunt and realistic looks at how an intelligence series operates. Do not expect this series to feature a supervillain with a master plan, but you will find yourself wondering how sexy the life of a spy may actually be after you see what it can do to a person. The Agency is an interesting premise with a solid cast that may be a bit too languid for its own good but still manages to be a pretty intriguing series.

The Agency premieres on November 29th on Paramount+ with Showtime.