The Agency – Episode 1 “The Bends” Recap & Review

The Bends

Episode 1 of The Agency begins in England with our protagonist, Martian, leaving an airfield and ringing back to base. He’s just left Ethiopia, where he’s been working undercover to glean information from an (as yet) unnamed target. Part of this separation includes telling his current affair partner, Samia Zahir, that he’s leaving for Jordan to teach. He lays it on thick that he’s pathetic and directionless, before kissing goodbye.

He claims to his handler, Naomi, that they didn’t get physical or intimate but brief flashes to their last night together leads us to believe that they absolutely did.

For now though, Martian has a job to do. After spending a while in a safehouse in Jordan, he’s bac in London. His apartment is completely bugged though, and in silence, he burns the business card he has with a note written from Sami on.

Martian is soon reunited with his daughter. Through her, we gain more information over exactly what Martian’s role is in this show – and what he does for a job. He’s a man that’s used to get information and identify relevant people. He’s been gone for 6 years, over in Ethiopia with this other life, and things are rather estranged with his daughter as a result, despite their obvious banter with one another.

In Belarus, a car chase ensues through the streets before the manic driver is caught. This is Agent name Coyote, Vulica Lienina, who’s over in Minsk.

The agency in London pick up on this and the place is abuzz given how prolific this agent is. Henry is the one overseeing everything here, and he’s reprimanded by the authorities over the handling of the Belarus situation.

While he pedals the story that there’s “nothing special” going on with the case, in reality, there’s a lot happening. Henry’s subordinate, Frank, checks over the training tapes for Coyote and notices that some of them are corrupted. Even worse, there’s no back-up here either.

The only thing we glean from this footage is that Coyote is vehemently against drinking so he didn’t undergo the usual training. But what happened to him? Well, I’m sure we’ll find out soon.

Henry shows up to see Martian and it seems something is brewing. The Russians are up to something, and Martian has noticed their embassy now has 30 satellite dishes up on the rooftop. Henry believes the Cold War is back and this drama in Belarus has called for drastic measures. Martian is needed back in the field and he’s going to be joined by a promising new agent whom he needs to oversee -Daniela Ruiz Morata.

Before we get there though, Martian returns to the office and smiles thinly through the applause and warm welcome from everyone. However, news breaking of an explosion over in Khartoum sends him reeling. This happens to be where Samia is posted. Unfortunately, this isn’t helped by a message from Samia on his old email address, telling him that she’s not over him.

Through Daniela, we get a glimpse of exactly how life is going to operate within the agency as one of these agents. Martian drives a hard bargain when he meets her, and he works her hard to get intel from individuals in the bar as a test. It’s a simple mission but a lesson to reinforce that she needs to rely on herself, not the mission, from here on out.

It’s a clever ploy and something that directly ties to his own job over in Ethiopia. Martian is not particularly happy as he was pulled out of the capital quickly and he brings his concerns to Frank at the agency. He also sees it as pretty disrespectful that he was just left in a safe house for months in Jordan. There are concerns, especially from those at the top, that he may be a little too emotionally invested, and as a result, he now has a tail on him at all times. 

Martian picks up a burner and decides to ring Samia. She’s still alive, thankfully, and it turns out she’s also in London. This definitely complicates matters, and it becomes clear too that he’s not going to shake his tail any time soon. Apparently all of this is just standard procedure until the agency are happy that he’s not been compromised.

Speaking of compromised, the earlier drama involving Coyote becomes popular knowledge around the agency, as he’s gone AWOL. The meeting with the big figureheads here – including Owen (for the sole purpose of being chewed out by his superiors) and Martian – takes an uneasy turn when Frank admits that Coyote was a recovering alcoholic and refused training. The worry here is that he may know about various operations, including one in particular called Felix.

Frank is in trouble for hiding this from the agency, although he believes alcoholism is a disease and he’s been trying to help these agents. Henry doesn’t see it that way, pointing out the financial implications around everything that’s transpired. Before he leaves, Frank tells him to watch out for Martian. The same Martian, I may add, who loses his tail and ditches his tracker so he can be reunited with Samia.

It turns out Samia has a husband, who’s back in the capital, but as the pair talk, there’s a further twist here. There’s a backup tracker on Martian and the tails are closing in on him. For Martian though, he’s willing to risk it all for love.

During his next briefing with the agency, he speaks to Naomi and mentions Samia. She’s a historian by trade but Martian does lie and claims that he’s only known her for 24 hours. The thing is though, she could be in on the game and he doesn’t know about it. Naomi brings these concerns to him and points out that if he falls in love, this is going to be a problem… because love is blind.

The Episode Review

The first episode of The Agency gets off to a really enticing start, with plenty of drama and question marks hanging over Martian and Sami’s connection. Whether she could actually be compromised and part of the operation as well, working as an intelligence agent in her own country, is a really intriguing way of sowing seeds of doubts into this ongoing relationship.

As for the drama with Coyote, it seems like he’s gone AWOL for his own sake, but there is a constant reference of alcohol with his story, so it’s not outside the realm of possibility that he got drunk and blurted out everything that could compromise them and unintentionally cause chaos to ensue for the agency.

And what of this Operation Felix too? It seems like this is a big point of contention but nobody seems to know quite how big it is. Could it be relevant to what’s happening right now in Minsk? Either way, with another episode released today, everything is left wide open for where this one may go next!