Contributor: John Keegan
Written by Tamara Becher
Directed by Emile Levisetti
If there is a running theme when it comes to Annie and her career with the CIA, it’s her naïve approach to dealing with certain situations. In the past, this was portrayed in such a way that it undermined the notion of her skills as an agent. But since then, the writers have given her enough strong moments to make it believable.
Still, this is her weakness, and it comes front and center as she tries to negotiate her way through the mess that Mossad has placed her in. Eyal has been complicit in weaving that web, and now Annie has to face the uncomfortable realization that even her allies cannot always be trusted. Eyal takes her to task for it, and with good reason: there comes a point when one is simply not learning a valuable lesson.
Eyal definitely played Annie, and even if they weren’t looking to recruit her as a double agent, they needed her to trust Eyal enough to implement the disinformation that Arthur continues to uncover. Meanwhile, Joan is finding more and more reason not to trust Annie, because even as Annie goes to great and foolish lengths to trust her allies, she betrays the trust that her superiors place in her.
I’m sure that the writers chose to give Joan her issues with addiction and all the ongoing tensions with Arthur as a means of mitigating the criticisms of Annie. Joan owns up to her role in Annie’s maverick ways, and I love it when characters are that self-aware, yet vulnerable. Joan is a character that could use more depth, so this is a step in the right direction.
As much as I tend to agree with Joan’s reasoning, especially in light of Annie not getting the message or communicating her status so her actions can be sanctioned, Auggie continues to deliver great points in her defense. If only she could be around when he did so; I’m not sure how much longer he’s going to be able to wait before he rethinks that little talk he wants to have with Annie.
And now that Eyal has resigned over his personal conflict between duty to Mossad’s grand scheme and his friendship with Annie, I have to wonder if the writers are going to find a reason to either push him together with Annie or kill him off entirely. Now that the writers have gotten me to like Eyal, it would be ironic for this story arc to be his swan song.
The only thing that held this episode back a bit was the re-insertion of Henry Wilcox into the story. Frankly, with Jai gone, what is the point of dragging him back in? They did a nice job of wrapping up his story by the end of the second season, so this feels like an unnecessary backslide. Unless, of course, he turns out to be involved in some meaningful way with the Mossad operation, which could in turn tie all the events of the third season into a single narrative.
Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4
Final Score: 7/10
