“I can’t believe you pulled a Lando Calrissian on me.” – Auggie
It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Annie gets a pep-talk from Auggie during their morning work-out and he slips her a bottle of Patron tequila to be cracked in the aftermath of her big reveal. Covert Affairs built up to this moment in the previous episode with Danielle’s super-silly spy-mom routine, complete with minivan car-chase. Annie has every intention of telling her sister about her real job. She even corners her in the kitchen and opens up with one of those monologues about trust that make you understand that this is a serious discussion about serious things… and then she chokes, retreats to her apartment in the guest house. “Looks like it’s just you and me,” she tells Mr. Patron.
The mission this week pretty blatantly parallels Annie’s predicament. She is tasked with coordinating the extraction of a Chinese scientist to be a CIA asset. That asset is poisoned during the extraction by someone whom he considered to be his closest friend. Annie struggles with her asset’s death, as well as the questions his murder raises regarding trust and friendship, or in her case, trust and family.
On a side note, Auggie also finds himself at the delivering end of an “Et tu?” when one of his oldest and most trustworthy friends turns him into the state department when he attempts to help Annie investigate her assets poisoning under the radar.
You simply can’t trust anyone these days, apparently.
The CIA saves Annie the trouble of working up the courage to tell her sister about her job when Annie’s potential exposure to the same poison that killed her asset leads to a sweep of Danielle’s house. Danielle is getting ice cream with the kiddies while this is going down and Annie pleads with her not to go home, refusing to tell her why. Danielle is understandably not okay with this nonsense and Annie ultimately spills the beans.
Another thing that Danielle is not okay with? Her little sister being a spy
Okay, so it’s not so much the spy thing as it’s the lying about being a spy thing. Danielle has young daughters, daughters that Annie occasionally babysits. What if one of Annie’s spy-nemeses figured out who Annie is? Where she lives? Who she lives with?
Reeling from the betrayal and thinking of her children’s safety, Danielle kicks Annie out of the guest house. Annie runs off to take down her asset’s assassin and returns to Danielle packing up her things with a “Don’t worry, I didn’t try to crack your spy safe.” Danielle apologizes for her anger, says she understands why Annie kept her occupation a secret, but stands firm in her assertion that Annie needs to leave.
Despite her newfound homelessness, the summer finale ends on a somewhat positive note for Annie, attending a baseball game with Auggie at her side.
Stray observations:
- The high heels Annie donned for the original extraction mission were ridiculous. Did anyone catch the difficulty she had going down the stairs? Shen the Dearly Departed Asset had to take her hand and help her down! Next time, Annie, I would try for sexy and sensible.
- I love that Auggie waited all night at the hospital while Annie underwent tests to determine whether or not she had been poisoned as well. It’s so… Auggie.
- Arthur’s Brief Shining Moment of Badassery in the bathroom with the guy from the state department was great. I want to see more Spy Action Arthur in the future, if only to remind us that he didn’t get the job he has by being a bureaucratic butt-kisser.
- I whole-heartedly approve of the use of the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter”
in this episode.
Some stats and info about Covert Affairs, “World Leader Pretend”
TV SHOW – Covert Affairs
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 2, Episode 10
AIRED ON – August 9th, 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.