Second Opinion: Covert Affairs Pilot by BJ

Annie Walker is a brand new CIA agent in training when she’s abruptly pulled from the intensive training course at “the Farm” and brought to headquarters. Her language skills are needed in a case. Annie acquired her knowledge of laguages while traveling the world. It appears that she had a wonderful time and even fell in love with a man named Ben in Sri Lanka, only to have Ben break up with her via a short note. Annie hasn’t been able to get Ben out of her head and the breakup seems to have made no sense to her.

Annie hasn’t even finished training and is as green as anyone can get, but she is thrust into an intelligence gathering exercise with a Russian who has turned himself into CIA custody. Something doesn’t seem right to Annie, but she can’t quite put her finger on it. She gets no time to analyze before a shooter destroys her meeting place and she flees for her life, leaving the information she came for behind.

With a bit of “outside the box” thinking, Annie retrieves the intel and the CIA discovers a plot to kill a visiting foreigner, a Russian author. In a climactic fight scene where Annie is nearly killed, she believes Ben saves her.

While the plot was interesting enough to keep my attention, it focused to introduce the characters. Annie is naive to the workings of the CIA, but possesses a great skill thinking on her feet. Auggie, the blind “tour guide” teaches Annie and the audience the ins and outs of the agency.

As a counterpoint to Annie’s work life, she lives in her sister’s guesthouse and interacts with family who doesn’t have any idea what she does during the day. Her well-meaning sister seems eager to help Annie find a nice guy, but the man she chose for Annie was clearly not a good match.

There were a few times I found myself slightly annoyed at the show. Annie removes a pair of high-heeled shoes from a crime scene and none of the law enforcement officers there think to tell her that she is not allowed to take items from a crime scene. There was a scene where Annie is being interrogated, and the officer immediately guesses she is from the CIA. It seemed a little too easy that other law enforcement agencies just nodded and looked the other way at CIA activities on domestic soil.

Having said that, I was willing and able to suspend belief for the most part. Covert Affairs is not a realistic portrayal of the CIA, and I’m more than willing to accept that most of the time. The cast of characters was lively and interesting. Piper Perabo did a great job bringing forth Annie’s life changes. She especially stood out in the family moments, illustrating the differences in Annie’s life. Christopher Gorham is a standout as Auggie, the character who knows all the good gossip and inner workings of the agency. He and Annie had some very nice chemistry.

A supporting cast featuring Kari Matchett and Peter Gallagher, Emmanuelle Vaugier and Sendhil Ramamurthy has me more than eager to see more. Covert Affairs is great summer escapist fare.