There’s a great line toward the end of John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, in which a slow-burning double cross is explained like this: “And suddenly, with terrible clarity of a man too long deceived, Leamas understood the whole ghastly trick.” There’s not really a comparable character to le Carré’s titular spy in the spy drama The Agency, but this line perfectly describes all the best moments in the show, especially in the impending second season. Debuting in late 2024, The Agency Season 1 was a slow-burning spy drama that took the best of prestige TV and combined it with the spirit of le Carré, and a touch of something else: A deeply human workplace drama. In Season 2, The Agency is not only better than ever, but it also makes a lot of other spy dramas look juvenile. And that’s because this show turns the mundane amazing and the amazing commonplace.
Some of the best scenes in The Agency involve people bringing important file folders to other people, or standing outside of office doors demanding to be let in, or, even better, my favorite trope in the show: when someone goes to leave an office, then hesitates, and says something awesome, and plot-alerting, right before walking out. The Agency is empowering, because if you’ve ever worked at an office, it transforms that humdrum world of reports and swipe cards and lanyards into a battlefield. Is this realistic in terms of how the London branch of the CIA actually works? I don’t care, because the office drama of the show creates enough verisimilitude to make me feel like I could be a spy, too.
