‘The Agency’ Continues To Be A Drag In Episode 3

I’m still not convinced by The Agency. In Episode 3, “Hawk From A Handsaw”, it gets so gratingly serious and so obvious and reiterative about that seriousness that it genuinely started to annoy me. The weird element is that the performances are excellent, and in any other show, they’d be enough to warrant a recommendation. But there’s something about the specific composition of this one that undermines even the stuff that’s great on paper, like Michael Fassbender’s (Eden Lake, The Killer) demented rant to Dr. Blake towards the end.

I’m glad the third episode didn’t air as part of the premiere; it would have been too much too soon. Not too much plot, you understand, since there’s arguably a clearer dramatic throughline here than there was in the first two episodes. But too much bellyaching, for sure. Too much circling the same drain, going over the same points. Has Martian lost it? Have all deep-cover CIA agents lost it by definition? Are these even two separate questions?

Maybe the problem is that I don’t like anybody. Maybe another problem is that I’m not supposed to. But it’s pretty hard for me to buy into Martian’s plight when he keeps making aggressively dumb choices, like slipping his tail to meet Sami in a hotel, despite the fact he knows that she’s been lying about why she’s in London anyway, and then acting really off with her. What’s the point? By the time Henry had summoned him downstairs, I was firmly on the CIA’s side, which I don’t think is the intention.

But I’m not keen on Henry either. He’s right about how aggressively dopey it is for Martian to be using a defunct CIA identity to meet his mistress, but he’s a hypocrite given that a big part of the episode involves Operation Felix, which his brother-in-law Charlie is a part of. He does kind of acknowledge later that he’s as prone to making personal mistakes as anyone else, but it’s hard not to greet the whole thing with a bit of a shrug, despite Charlie’s potential capture being, in Bosko’s words, an “immediate strategic geopolitical disaster.”

I’m still a bit unclear about Felix. Again, I get the sense this is intentional; the CIA Director (played by a long-distance Dominic West in a cast so stacked that his infrequent Zoom appearances barely register) will only talk about it in a highly secure room only used in the event of WWIII (possible) or an alien invasion (maybe underway already given the personalities of some of these agents.)

Charlie is on the move behind enemy lines, but as per protocol he’s in a two-day comms blackout, so the CIA is trying to track him without clear information of where he is, which is probably just as well since I’m not sure he could provide it even if he wanted to. To get out of the way of infrared drones and such he’s ducking and diving into the woods and staying off the grid. Henry’s in a flap, but he can’t exactly ask Bosko how Charlie’s getting on after the dressing down he gave Martian earlier.

Luckily, the Agency knows how Charlie will act, so Martian helps them to narrow the search to find him. Eventually, he and his two colleagues in the field are met by some American agents who tell them that Felix is still underway. More on this in the next episode, I guess.

Harriet Sansom Harris in The Agency | Image via Paramount+

As if The Agency hadn’t provided me with enough people to hate, Episode 3 adds Martian’s daughter Poppy to the mix. She was in the first two episodes as well but despite being a typically recalcitrant teenager I didn’t pay much attention to her. Here, though, Martian gets home to discover that not only has she gone snooping through his hidden belongings – she calls him Paul in the bugged apartment! – but she has hung around all day smoking weed and watching Spongebob before launching into a lashing tirade about how rubbish of a spy he is. And while she kind of has a point, I wasn’t upset when Martian walled her up in the bathroom. This is, after all, a matter of life and death.

The best scene of “Hawk from a Handsaw” is between Martian and Dr. Blake. You’ll recall that this is the lady who has been brought in to evaluate the CIA’s approach to mental health, but if it wasn’t clear before that Martian thought Blake’s job was specifically to evaluate him, it certainly is now. He’s supremely hostile to the whole process because he’s appalled by the CIA pretending to care about his wellbeing. Why would they? They train him to disappear into highly dangerous situations and invent fictional identities for himself. If he was mentally well, he wouldn’t be able to do his job.

I think Martian’s right here, for what it’s worth. The evaluation isn’t about determining whether or not he’s well, but whether he’s still ill enough to keep working in the field. Too nuts and he might divulge a state secret or shoot up the office, but too even keel and he’s no good to anyone. Martian reassures Blake that he’s still nuts, and is likely to remain so indefinitely.

This is The Agency’s best idea, and I do like it whenever it plays up this angle. I’m certainly more interested in Martian’s relationship with Blake than I am in his relationship with Sami, which to be fair they both seem to call off in Episode 3. Sami didn’t attend the academic conference because she doesn’t need to be lectured about her specialist subject by a European; she just needed a grant. But this isn’t the extent of Sami’s deception, whether Martian knows it or not. She’s also being followed by persons unknown, and when she and Martian part ways, the voyeur tells her to get in his car.

Everyone’s lying, basically. In a show about the CIA. Who’d have thought it?