Summary
The Agency reaches a high point in Episode 6, where Martians lies begin to catch up with him and the tradecraft is at a premium.
“Spy For Sale” feels like The Agency operating at its peak. It hasn’t been a smooth ride to get to this point, and Episode 6 isn’t perfect either, but the interplay between compelling tradecraft and spiraling personal dilemmas is very good here, like it has been before.
This is all especially refreshing since the previous episode wasn’t all that great. That feeling of the narrative being spread a little thin is still present here, admittedly, but Danny gets a smaller role, and the focus narrows in on the search for Coyote and Martian’s lies catching up to him, with Osman getting a little too close for comfort.
The Highest Bidder
One of the most riveting angles of this episode is a very clandestine effort to track Coyote through an auction for a moped which is actually an auction for Coyote himself, hence the episode’s title, “Spy For Sale”. This all ties back to Martian’s earlier interactions with the mysterious figure known as Cossack, to whom Martian had described the missing agent as a stolen bike he’d be willing to pay to get back.
The auction is a ruse that leads in a roundabout way back to Cossack himself. The scheme isn’t out of the Russian intelligence playbook, and it feels like bad etiquette for any established espionage agency, which leads the CIA to deduce that Cossack is operating independently. He must, though, have a strong history in tradecraft, since he’s a real pro.
This becomes more obvious as the bidding war for the moped intensifies and Martian has to deduce its implications, eventually narrowing Cossack’s identity down to a retired KGB operative named Novikov who still favors the old-school methods and is trying to prove he can still hang with the cool kids. Bosko is heavily reluctant to pay the steep price for the moped – which has grown to over a million dollars in the meantime – but it’s refunded immediately once contact is made, and Cossack clandestinely arranges a meet with Martian.
Everything’s Going Wrong for Martian
Martian does not have a good time of things in The Agency Episode 6. It starts with his British intelligence mate, James Richardson, stabbing him in the back by revealing a turn in the Sudanese negotiations that Martian wasn’t privy to. Martian’s fuming, but there’s nothing he can do. Richardson is vying for the top job at MI6, and this is the game.
Martian also continues to be tracked everywhere by agents of various governments, but while he’s able to give Chinese intelligence the slip, Osman is able to waltz right up to Poppy and start some very loaded small talk. Martian also knows that Sami is in quite a predicament – essentially under house arrest – but can’t do much for her beyond reminding her to do as she’s instructed and play things as safe as possible.
Martian can feel all of this getting on top of him. It makes him late for the meeting with Novikov, and Poppy’s revelation startles him. And what’s worse is that immediately afterward he has to have a pretty serious chat about Coyote.
All hands on deck in The Agency | Image via Paramount+
The Coyote Conundrum
Novikov doesn’t have Coyote, but he knows who does – a “diabolical” mercenary outfit called Valhalla who’re holding Coyote behind enemy lines in Ukraine. They’re due to hand him over to the Russian FSB who’ll leverage him against the U.S. and cause all kinds of geopolitical issues.
Coyote has been done up good and proper. Through his psychiatrist, his pills were swapped with drugs that allowed him to be snatched and sold to mercenaries. He has already given up his codename and if he isn’t rescued in short order the political ramifications of his capture will be untenable. All Novikov wants in return is the recording of a conversation that occurred in 1989.
Martian thinks this is all good news and the CIA can snatch Coyote before anything drastic occurs, but this, like so much of his personality, is a front. Martian is well and truly fraying at the edges, which is only worsened at the end of The Agency Episode 6 when Osman calls to taunt him about Poppy. “I’m very, very close,” Osman says. And Martian knows he’s right.
