3-2-1: The Recruit

 2023, 8 episodes - Netflix
created by Alexi Hawley (The Rookie, The Following)

The Plot 100

CIA lawyer Owen Hendricks is only days into his first professional gig when he comes across a "grey mail" case that threatens to expose a vast network of undercover agents. In attempting to handle the case, Hendricks finds himself way over his head, not only in dealing with the Belarusian spy wanting out of prison, but in navigating the cutthroat politics of working for the government, the intense competition and backstabbing within the agency, and in sacrificing his own personal life for career gains.

3-2-1

3 Great: (1) Noah Centineo. I've watched this kid through the past few years, mostly in Netflix's plethora of teen romances (the Lara-Jean trilogy, the Perfect Date, Sierra Burgess is a Loser) and most recently in Black Adam, and he's good. He's damn good. He's charming, sympathetic, good looking, and affable.  He's got everything that young Mark Ruffalo had, and more (mainly an additional 6 inches in height).  The teen romances threatened to pigeonhole him, but The Recruit is the perfect breakout vehicle for him, one which lets him do everything he did so well as a romantic lead, but also delve into action, intrigue and espionage. Centineo is the absolute center of this entire series and he carries it ably on his broad shoulders. His greatest trick (as likely guided by the showrunner and various directors) is to not fall into the trap of the action hero. At every step, Owen Hendricks is out of his dept, but always seems to find himself ably wading in these waters. Owen is never surprisingly good at anything, not driving in a car chase, not shooting guns, not "playing the game", but he is clearly smart, thinks nimbly on his feet, and isn't risk averse. He takes chances, some which pay off, some which don't. What Centineo brings to all this is the weariness and the wear and tear of "sink or swim" living, and he's desperately swimming, though he could so easily sink. Centineo remembers the bruises and emotional scars from episode to episode and by the penultimate entry of Season one Owen is traumatized, panic attacks setting in, and he's doing his best to just make it through yet another crazy day. It's a really fun, thoughtful performance.

(2) The CIA is a problem. This show isn't sugar coating anything, the CIA and the various disconnected units, are a real problem. They compete, rather than work together. They backstab and try to take each other down a few pegs, if not take each other out of the game altogether. Nevermind the actual work, it's gruelling just surviving the internal threats.  It's a wonder anything gets done. The show paints Owen as a good guy (perhaps the only good guy), though it shows the wear that CIA and its methodologies has on him and his conscience. The rest of the agency are dicey, unreliable fuckers who certainly aren't trustworthy.  

(3) Doug Liman. The director of The Bourne Identity and Edge of Tomorrow) helms the first two episodes of the series and it looks really, really good.  It's a series that requires its lead character to navigate many different environments in many different areas across the globe and it all looks pretty damn good.  While they shot it in Quebec and LA, the substitutions for many different European cities, desert scenes and Washington all work quite well. It's not a show that spends a lot of time admiring its locations, it moves so quickly, and in the first two episodes it plunges Owen into action that he's just not used to, but Liman certainly is.  It's nothing crazy, but it all feels much more dynamic than the network TV fare.

2 Good
(1) Momentum.  There are no shortage of complications in The Recruit. Despite everything Owen Hendricks is juggling, the show, by being mostly laser-focused on its lead, never feels convoluted. Owen is navigating inner-office rivals (Aarti Mann, Colton Dunn, and Kristian Bruun), inter-departmental contacts (including the joint chief of staff and the justice department), an office romance, court cases, dodging a subpoena, various encounters with scary black ops teams, the Belarusian assassin, and his best friends/roommates who are validly concerned about him.  The result is a very propulsive, very consumable viewing experience that offers a lot of laughs, excitement and investment in the characters

(2) Alexi Hawley also created The Rookie which stars Nathan Fillion, and you know Fillion is always down to do a little something with his friends. He pops in for the final two episodes in a very minor but perfect Fillion-esque cameo.  It's maybe not as fun as TDK in The Suicide Squad or voicing the telepathic octopus in Resident Alien but still always fun to see him in these little roles.

1 Bad:  One of the subplots has the sort of will-they/wont-they of Owen and his roommate/ex-girlfriend Hannah (Fivel Stewart) that mostly works fine in the context of the show, except when it decides to have scenes of Hannah and other-roommate-Terence (Daniel Quincy Annoh) together and all they talk about is Owen. And then in the late stages of the series Hannah does something that seems pretty much pointless, which as a story means is trying to accelerate the romance.  But at the same time, the way the show subverts the expectations of this subplot for the finale is pretty good.

META

I was genuinely surprised when I (a) started watching The Recruit and (b) found myself thoroughly enjoying it. I crashed through just over three episodes in a Sunday afternoon when I remembered I had things to do, but I easily could have kept watching all the way through. I recommended it to the wife, who caught up on the episodes I had already watched and we watched the rest together, both enjoying it quite tremendously. Was very happy to see the notice at the end of the season that it's been renewed for a season 2.  It certainly wrapped very little up this first season and left a lot to explore on the table.

Also learned Alexi Hawley is brother to Noah Hawley.  They're styles of storytelling don't seem comparable, but there's certainly a quality they demand for their shows that is up on the screen.