Amazon's next blockbuster TV show is here: Citadel has finally been released on Prime Video, with Friday, April 28 bringing the first two episodes, and so now you can start the journey of this epic spy series.
Citadel follows the members of a defunct intelligence agency Citadel as they reconnect to save the world from their nemesis, Manticore, which destroyed Citadel eight years before the events of the show.
This globe-trotting spy drama may be starting with a six-episode first season, but Amazon has big plans with it — four spin-off shows have already been announced, and sources say the company has at least 9 seasons planned between this main series and the spin-offs.
And it all starts here, with Citadel episode 1, so it's important you know exactly what's going on. This episode 1 recap will help you ensure you gleaned every nugget of information from the debut episode.
*Spoilers for Citadel episode 1 follow*
How Citadel fell
Our story begins on a train traveling through the Italian Alps, with Nadia Sinh (Priyanka Chopra Jones). She's a secret agent with Citadel there to follow someone, and her handler Bernard Orlick (Stanley Tucci) explains that her target is carrying a briefcase full of uranium, before he runs her through all the gadgets she's carrying.
Sinh is joined by Mason Kane, another agent who wasn't meant to be on this mission. It's clear that they used to be partners but now have bad blood between them, though he's here to help.
The target moves to another train compartment, and Sinh follows him, but Kane distracts the target's bodyguard which ends with a brawl in a train toilet. The target confronts Sinh, and after briefly pretending he thought Citadel was a myth, he admits the truth — there is no uranium, and the information about it was planted as a trap.
This man shows Sinh video footage of many Citadel agents getting murdered and admits that his organization, Manticore, is in the final stages of destroying Citadel. Before he and his agents can kill Sinh, though, Kane returns, and together he and Sinh fight off their rival agents...
... except that one of them was carrying a bomb, which explodes and derails the train. Sometime later Kane wakes up in an Italian hospital, but he doesn't remember anything about who he is, or even what his name is.
Eight years later
The action skips forward eight years. Mason Kane is now living in Oregon with a wife, Abby (Ashleigh Cummings) and their daughter Hendrix (Caoilinn Springall) in an idyllic life. However he keeps getting flashbacks to Sinh and the train, and wants to discover more about who he is.
Kane's therapist recommends that he does a DNA test, because although he did one eight years ago when he first lost his memory, apparently DNA technology has advanced since then.
In Virginia, we meet Dahlia Archer (Lesley Manville), who's the UK ambassador to the US, but also a current Manticore agent. She speaks to the US Secretary of Defense, an ex-Manticore member, as she knows that his CIA has finally recovered Citadel's lost treasure trove of important intelligence, and she wants to know where it's being kept.
She calls Anders Silje (Roland Møller) and instructs him to take his brother and go to Miami, where the data is hidden in a CIA black site. They retrieve it, and then take it to New York where it needs to be decrypted.
We also catch back up with Bernard Orlick, who's torturing a trio of Manticore agents. He finally gets one to reveal that Manticore has acquired Citadel's intel from the CIA, when a notification appears on his phone — Mason Kane's DNA test has triggered a ping.
Mason Kane comes in from the cold
While Kane is rummaging through the few belongings he had when he regained his memory, his wife calls him to inform him that someone has broken into their home. This someone is Orlick, who kidnaps Kane along with his wife and child, and takes them to his secret hideout.
Here Orlick introduces the family to his ex-wife and ex-wife's current wife, who he's hiding out with. More importantly, Orlick tells Kane who they both are, what Citadel was, who his former partner was (that's Sinh) and admits that he abducted Kane to hide him from Manticore.
We learn that Citadel was set up during the 20th century as an intelligence agency to be a force of good, a spy network that's the last line of defense against evil... until one of their agents handed over important information to Manticore.
We're also told that Manticore is an evil spy agency, set up by the heads of eight important families, with the purpose of spreading discontent and terror as a way to solidify their power, and since they wiped out Citadel their efforts have been going to plan.
Orlick admits that he thought he was the only survivor of the attack which we witnessed in the first scene of the show, but now that Kane is back, he needs help with something. He's learned that the information stolen by the Silje brothers includes nuclear codes, and if Kane helps him retrieve it, in return he'll not only help protect Kane's family but also help the amnesiac in his quest to remember who he is.
In the last scene, we find out what happened to Sinh — in a flashback to the train scene, we see her emerge from a lake amidst the burning wreckage of the train, as she reaches dry land.
