Annie pulls the trigger and crawls into a carton of ice cream.
Normally, it takes a great deal of effort for me to enjoy an episode of Covert Affairs. In the early going, I liked it well enough, and then the slow descent into mediocrity (more like a freefall) hit around the middle of the first season. My biggest complaint is the routine insistence that Annie Walker is perfect and interesting because in my world, perfect is a synonym for cardboard.
When the supporting characters are routinely more interesting than the main character, something is off.
“Letter Never Sent,” the second season finale, doesn’t do much to fix this problem. Oh, it tries but it’s at least entertaining enough to make me forget about how Annie bores me to tears almost every week.
The skinny: Annie is supposed to go on vacation-for-real-you-guys when Danielle tells her that her husband is cheating on her. There are tears and woman-bonding. Annie invites Danielle on her vacation-for-real-you-guys-seriously-no-spy-stuff.
There is spy stuff. It’s supposed to be a simple courier mission, which Danielle screws up just by being there. This is actually a good thing, since the mission is compromised long before Annie arrives when her contact is wacked by an assassin. Unfortunately, that assassin is now after Annie and Danielle and trying to coordinate a complicated CIA rescue with Danielle in tow is like trying to swim across the Thames with a brick tied to your ankle.
The Big Dramatic Moment comes about when Mr. Assassin crashes the tea party Danielle and Annie were having at an ally’s remote seaside cottage (no, really, they’re drinking tea and waiting for the weather to clear so that they can rendezvous with their rescuers) and Annie tells Danielle to make a run for the waiting boat and “don’t look back, no matter what happens.”
Okay, I was a little nervous. It is the season finale, after all.
Danielle takes off at a fumbling attempt at jogging when the assassin spots her. For a moment, there is the brief thought, “OH MY GOD THEY’RE GOING TO SHOOT DANIELLE” because this is the season finale and that would be a suitably game-changing cliffhanger.
Instead, Annie caps the would-be slayer-of-irritating-characters, and apparently this is the event that follows Annie into season three sometime next summer. In a textbook case of Your Mileage May Vary, I guess Annie’s new status as Annie Walker: Taker of (Evil) Life could add some flavor to her painfully vanilla palate, but I doubt it. In the last ten minutes of the finale, we are given one pained look and one heart-to-heart with Auggie in his classic Mustang, which he bequeaths to Annie before running off to Africa to take care of some personal business.
Or, you know, throw a wrench in the Annie/Auggie romance that Covert Affairs has flirted with since the pilot and slid into first gear before end-credits rolled. Annie also crawls into a carton of Breyers after her big spy moment, which initially made me groan, but is also kind of hilarious if you think about it. You know, in a completely twisted way.
I was pleasantly surprised by the whole outing. Also, there is Florence + the Machine music while Annie breaks the Mustang in, and the Machine is always a good thing.
Some stats and info about How to Covert Affairs, “Sad professor”
TV SHOW – Covert Affairs
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 2, Episode 16
AIRED ON – December 7th, 2011
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – USA/Peacock
GENRE – Drama, Crime Dramas, Action Shows, Spy Shows
CREATED BY – Matt Corman, Chris Ord
CAST – Piper Perabo, Christpher Gorham, Kari Matchett, Pete Gallagher
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.