Treason – Season 1 Episode 5 Recap, Review & Ending Explained

Episode 5

Adam calls Malik to meet with him at the start of Treason episode 5. Kara meets him instead. Mads drops a note and phone in Audrey’s helper’s bag. She calls him and tells her about the situation.

When she mentions Kirby, Audrey’s mind is changed and she agrees to meet her. Mads tells Audrey that it was Adam who gave the intel on her, but even if Audrey had won, Martin would have used it as leverage against her. Audrey decides to help Adam, even if it goes against her morality. Malik meets Adam, who tells him the entire truth about Martin and his devious plans.

Adam believes Malik is a responsible man who can run the service the best among the present agents. He gives Adam the location of Olamide in Silvertown. Mads stays with the kids while Kara and Adam go to get the files. While waiting, Adam apologizes to Kara for abandoning her in Baku and not keeping up his promise. Kara sees Zoe starting to shred the files as Adam goes with a gun to inspect the rest of the yard.

Adam finds Mads hiding near the containers. Apparently she came to see if Adam needed help. Kara slips inside and reads the file. She perhaps knows who “Dorian”, the double agent in the MI6, is. Before Kara can leave, Zoe and Olamide attack her and take the hard drive. She kills Olamide in the ensuing fight and Mads retires the drive.

Adam handles the team of CIA agents who arrive in the yard. Dede takes Adam at gunpoint and threatens to kill him. She once again propositions Mads to make a deal. Adam tries convincing Dede about Martin but she doesn’t listen. Maddy runs towards Dede to give her the drive and Adam tries to take her gun but she shoots him dead. Adam has been eliminated…

Martin informs Patrick and Malik about Adam. He sees them as “contenders” for the role of deputy and asks them to accompany him to the Intelligence Committee’s meeting the next day. Mads informs Audrey of Adam’s death but now the minister backs away from the deal. She asks Mads to give the drive back to Martin and advises Mads to save her family now. Kara asks Mads to stay back, expose Martin, and protect her family when Mads says she will take the kids to Madrid where her family is. Kara says to Mads that Adam couldn’t have been Dorian as he was with her the night the men were killed by Dorian.

Kara tries to make a deal with Belova in exchange for the files. But as it turns out, it is bait for Martin. At the committee’s meeting, Martin begins with his statement. Mads is inside the building and makes her way to the chamber where it is being held. She meets Patrick outside the doors, who sees the files and lies that Adam promised to give to them. He is Dorian. She goes inside and Audrey sees her come in with the files. She takes the dice and keeps up her end of the deal. She exposes Martin’s cache of intel in front of everyone. Audrey credits Adam for being a hero of the nation to root the treachery that was poisoning the UK.

Mads confronts Martin and informs her that Patrick is Dorian, not Adam. In his greed for power, he let the real enemy get away. On his way out, Kara bumps into Patrick, who calls the Russian operator and tells them the situation. He finds a photo of Kara and her men in Baku and realizes he has been poisoned.

A news flash informs us that Martin is arrested. Mads calls Dede and threatens to make public what she tried to pull in cahoots with Martin. Kara bids farewell to Mads, who now has the daunting task of telling her kids what happened to their father and raising them on her own. Ella and Callum fall into her arms when they see her coming alone towards them.

The Episode Review

Why did the writers have to spoil everything at the very end? Treason was going so well before episode 5. But the finale certainly splashed water on all the good work done until then. The revelation of Patrick being Dorian was dull. There was no backstory as to how it happened and why he was motivated to do so. No flashbacks to show how he actually betrayed the country either.

Even though they killed Ada, which was a bold touch, they did not give us sufficient closure as to his family’s grieving. It all felt very unemotional in the end. Malik felt completely wasted and he was just one of the unintentional red herrings that the writers grasped at in the end. Everything felt in its place rather too conveniently and the fears that were raised after the first half of episode 4 came true: Treason is mediocre at best.