Hey now, take the U-Bahn, five stops, change the station…
Quite honestly, Covert Affairs tends to work better when the characters are abroad. While this episode didn’t particularly jump out at me, I liked it quite a bit more than last week’s lackluster mid-season premiere. In fact, if the powers that be had thought to maybe switch the order of these two episodes, I’d have probably been a little kinder to both of them.
As it stands, Annie is sent to Belgium to turn a former Stasi agent, Elsa, into a CIA asset. Arthur decides to jump on the mission (yes, that Arthur, as in Annie’s boss Arthur) and Joan is less than thrilled. She and Arthur are set to celebrate their anniversary and apparently Elsa was a sorta-almost-maybe-probably-Arthur-would-rather-not-talk-about-it fling back in the day.
Annie tries to keep tabs on her boss without being too obvious about it (spoiler alert: she’s pretty obvious about it) and eventually, she just asks Arthur what his intentions with Elsa are. They’re not what I thought they would be which is great because I like Arthur a lot.
Meanwhile, back in the states, Annie is in the doghouse with Danielle. Again. She had some of her niece’s artwork framed for an upcoming art show at school but didn’t account for being overseas on a mission on the night of the show. The pictures are in her super-secret spy apartment and no, Danielle can’t just go get them. No, Annie can’t call someone at the CIA to go get them either. That’s why it’s a super-secret spy apartment, Danielle. Duh.
But it’s okay, nothing a stack of chocolate chip pancakes can’t fix.
You think I’m kidding, but I’m not. Sometimes I have a hard time swallowing that Danielle is the older and more mature sister.
Overall, the dynamic between Annie and Arthur was a fun change of pace. It was nice to see the big boss out in the field reminding us all in a truly badass fashion of just why he’s the boss. Also? That car chase at the end was pretty sweet.
Some stats and info about How to Covert Affairs, “Uberlin”
TV SHOW – Covert Affairs
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 2, Episode 12
AIRED ON – November 8th, 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.