You might think the spy thriller is a genre which has been worn out and abused to death, but this second series of The Agency is here to tell you otherwise. Once again penned by the prolific Butterworth brothers Jez and John-Henry, it brings us back to the CIA London station helmed by the laconic Bosko (Richard Gere) and his morose and curmudgeonly deputy Henry Ogletree (Jeffrey Wright).
The star turn among their agents is the man codenamed Martian (Michael Fassbender), who remains haunted by his love affair with Sudanese anthropologist Sami Zahir (Jodie Turner-Swift, pictured below with Fassbender). As the action commences, Sami has been imprisoned in Khartoum, but Martian is planning to get her out. However, his unorthodox, rule-bending methods will need to be concealed from his superiors.
But beyond Martian’s personal concerns, we’re back in a sinister world of subterfuge, sudden death and multiple identities as assorted nations and their agencies struggle for influence and resources. Although dubious schemes are afoot in London, some of them involving the urbane but slippery British SIS chief Jim Richardson (Hugh Bonneville, pictured below with Fassbender), the headline battleground is the Central African Republic, where the Russians and the Chinese are hell-bent on getting control of rare earth minerals.
Meanwhile, concerns are mounting over the Iranian nuclear programme, which is seemingly speeding towards the creation of an atomic bomb. Gamine CIA agent Danny (Saura Lightfoot-Leon), codenamed Gremlin, has boldly taken up the challenge of seducing brattish playboy Hassan Zamani, whose father is a key player in Iran’s nuclear project. This takes her into the belly of the beast, and the clutches of the dreaded Revolutionary Guard.
These plot strands are fiendishly complicated and might almost have been designed to leave the viewer in a state of befuddlement, too punch-drunk to query the more far-fetched implausibilities, but all this is balanced by the show’s skilfully-drawn array of characters. Fassbender delivers a masterclass in steely determination and instinctive duplicity, offering moments of light relief in scenes where he interacts with his young daughter Poppy (India Fowler). Gere’s Bosko is a man of few words, but each one of them counts and helps to create his aura of cold-blooded command.
There’s a skilful turn from Harriet Sansom Harris – who used to play Frasier Crane’s shameless agent Bebe Glazer back in the day – as the in-house CIA shrink Dr Blake, trying to wheedle out the innermost secrets of a bunch of professional liars, while John Magaro brings some simpatico soulfulness to his portrayal of Owen, who seems too nice a guy to get embroiled in this frequently horrific hall of mirrors. He falls foul of the man known as Viking (Clayne Crawford), a former US Marine who’s now joined the Russian mercenary group Valhalla. Viking enjoys crushing people’s skulls, and other parts of their body, with a sledgehammer.
All of this makes for some gruelling viewing as it picks apart a milieu in which all relationships are transactional and lies and subterfuge are the accepted forms of communication. It’s a chillingly negative view of human nature going rotten at the core, but weirdly compelling nonetheless.
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