“No Quarter.” Again.
When Covert Affairs premiered last summer, I was pretty excited to see Piper Perabo (Hugh Jackman’s waterlogged wife from The Prestige) picking up what I assumed would be a butt-kicking girl power role.
I made it halfway through the first season before I conceded that Annie Walker would not be replacing the void left in my life by the cancellation of Xena: Warrior Princess when I was thirteen, but the recent commercials shoved down my throat during White Collar convinced me to give the Annie and Auggie Show another chance. As of this writing, Covert Affairs is in the running to replace the dearly departed Jon & Kate Plus 8 as that-show-I-watch-just-to-remind-myself-why-I-quit-the-first-time.
Recycling most of the plot of an episode that aired less than a year ago is not the way to my heart.
I want to like Covert Affairs. Annie Walker is a very likable character and liking the main character is half the battle. In fact, I liked Annie so much that the deathblow that did the first season in for me was the overrated return of the tall, dark, and mysterious love interest, also known as Ben. The entire Annie/Ben storyline was a blatant attempt to convince female viewers that this is their show… when it’s very clearly intended for the hetero-dudes in the audience.
Yes, yes, Xena’s exes showed up all the time too, but do you remember what she did when that happened? She usually punched them. Or stabbed them. Or something equally awesome. She did not go all gooey-eyed and mopey. It was like ordering Princess Leia circa A New Hope and getting the swooning, sedated mess from Return of the Jedi instead.
I should have walked away when I realized that the title Covert Affairs is the same almost-sexy play on words as Grey’s Anatomy, another series that roped me in until the exes showed up.
Still, I feel like Covert Affairs has its heart in the right place. It wants to be the girl power spy show that the boys can enjoy too and there’s nothing wrong with that. I just wish Annie’s femininity could be illustrated in a manner that doesn’t have her gazing wistfully at pictures of Mr. Tall, Dark, and Mysterious. The writers do a great job with Auggie, Annie’s right-hand man and invaluable guide in her field operative work. My old gender studies professor would have a field day with the implications of Auggie Anderson’s blindness in regard to his status as leading man in this dynamic duo. It’s a clever way to transfer some of his inherent power to Annie and give her a level of control on her missions that wouldn’t be present if Auggie could just come along and shoot the bad guys himself.
Which isn’t to say that Christopher Gorman’s August “Auggie” Anderson is some sad blind guy stuck behind a desk all day while the sassy blonde gets to go play superhero. If Annie is a lackluster female hero, Auggie picks up the slack as a totally hot character who just happens to have a disability. It’s my sincere hope that someday, Annie will be a totally hot character who just happens to be a woman.
With all of this in mind, I sat down to give Covert Affairs another opportunity to impress me.
It didn’t.
“All the Right Friends” finds Annie stranded in Argentina with a tall, dark, and mysterious man-who-is-not-Ben after a rendezvous with local agents goes awry. She’s in too deep for the good ol’ US of A to come get her and the Argentineans are mortified by the whole thing and decide to arrest Annie so that they can pretend that they aren’t collaborating with the CIA. Or something.
I started getting bored at this point. I don’t know what it is with Covert Affairs, but if Annie Walker isn’t stomping on someone’s face with her stiletto, I just start to tune out. I mean, if I want to watch a show about otherwise-awesome-girls chasing boys-who-aren’t-worth-their-time, I’ll pop in my Gilmore Girls DVDs because at least there, the dialogue is witty.
So, Annie and Not-Ben spend the next hour trying to get out of the country. It was actually a fun story the first time we saw it, last season, when it was called “No Quarter” and took place in Switzerland. “I started folding laundry at the half. Do you have any idea how much I despise folding laundry? Do you understand what excruciating boredom I have to be experiencing so that laundry looks like the better alternative?
I’m giving you a second chance, Covert Affairs, the least you can do is not waste my time with recycled storylines before I’ve had the chance to forget what happened the first time around. If you need any pointers on how best to do this, go talk to Supernatural. And if you can’t do it for me, do it for the people who tune in faithfully each week and don’t have to make a list of your positive points in an attempt to convince themselves not to change the channel.
Or fold laundry instead.
Some stats and info about Covert Affairs, “All the Right Friends”
TV SHOW – Covert Affairs
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 2, Episode 4
AIRED ON – June 28th, 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.