Undercover – Season 2 Episode 1 Recap & Review

El Dorado

Following the dramatic end to the previous episode, episode 1 of Undercover Season 2 begins with Kim meeting Bob in a restaurant where they discuss their changed fortunes.

Kim is now an investigative journalist and she asks him for a favour. She wants him to look up a tractor serial number to the case she’s currently working on. Begrudgingly, he agrees to help her.

It turns out this registration is linked to a horse ranch called El Dorado – sending her off to follow-up this lead in person.

When she gets there though, Kim finds the whole place shut and eerily quiet…but for a strange man that shows up behind her. His name is Laurent Berger – and Kim tellingly uses a fake alias while talking to him.

She feigns ignorance and tells him she’s scouting places for a company dinner. Something is clearly not quite right about this place – especially when the man gives her a suspicious stare as she drives off. This leads to disaster as a motorcyclist shoots Kim down as she gets out the car.

After a brief stint in the police safe house, Bob hands Polly and David over to Liesbeth, who’s none too happy with the current police escort and issues befalling the family.

In the midst of all this, Nick speaks privately to Bob (or at least he believes it’s private, Polly overhears) and tells him Kim has been shot. Even worse, they suspect that Bouman is the one involved. Polly learns more about this on her own too, looking online at the news reports surrounding Ferry and the camp-site.

Marc Gevers arrives to see Bouman in prison, who’s forced to see his cell sacked. Gevers tries to make a deal with him, believing Bouman is involved in all this, but he denies any involvement in what happened to Kim.

Bob suspects as much too, speaking to Matijn (Kim’s new boyfriend) and learning she received a threatening phone call but thought nothing of it. All of this seemed to begin following an incriminating video of Ukraine.

As Bob talks to Kim’s colleague Alex about this, they share their own fragments of knowledge, with the subject of El Dorado brought up once more.

Bob inevitably returns to El Dorado where he speaks to Laurent who’s currently dressed up as Santa Claus. It turns out the ranch is just a hobby of sorts, Laurent’s real job is in the import/export market. More specifically, he exports to Ukraine. Now things are starting to come into focus a bit more.

Bob watches from afar as Laurent slots into the role of Saint Nick – a pretty sleazy one at that. Talk of beer and “big kids” sitting on his lap is enough for Bob to start suspecting there’s more to him than meets the eye.

In Ukraine, Jean-Pierre Berger is not happy with his workers. There’s a leak in their ranks and despite moving all their gear, know that Kim showed up a month prior, claiming to be a tourist. With the place emptied out, Ratco is shot dead – these guys are not taking any chances.

Bob rings his family and tells Liesbeth that Bouman isn’t involved and they can head home safely now. Kim also stirs in hospital too, taking a turn for the worst.

As we cut across and see, Jean-Pierre and Laurent are brothers and the former paid this motorcyclist to kill Kim. As he hands over an envelope of money, he gets back in his car and drives off.

Bob receives the dreaded call from Nick – Kim has passed away. While they wrestle with this news, Jean-Pierre confronts his brother over his sloppiness, especially given the ranch tractor left in Ukraine. The cat and mouse game looks like it’s on, especially given Bob has uncovered the truth and suspects it’s these two who have killed Kim.

While Laurent supplies the weapons, Jean-Pierre is involved in using an NGO as a front for expanding this company into different areas like Chad and the Congo. Realizing they need to infiltrate the business, Bob circles back on the idea of going undercover.

Unbeknownst to him though, Bouman is not finished with them yet. With Kim dead, he wants to go after Peter which, of course, is actually Bob’s old alias at the camp site.

The Episode Review

Season 2 wastes absolutely no time getting right to the heart of the drama. There’s a consistent tension hanging over this one and seeing Kim killed in the first episode really sets the stakes sky high for the rest of the show.

It’s actually quite a smart move, narratively speaking, and builds the foundations nicely for another cat and mouse game. This one though, is made even more complicated by the inclusion of a wild dog.

That dog of course, coming in the form of Bouman and his goons. So far this second season has got off to a decent start and it’ll be interesting to see what direction this one goes next.