‘The Agency’ Season 2 Loses Focus on Its Primary Asset: Michael Fassbender

[Editor’s note: The following review contains spoilers for “The Agency” Season 2.]

Late in “The Agency” Season 2, Dr. Rachel Blake (Harriet Sansom Harris) stares into the eyes of a Martian and marvels at what she sees. Nothing. That’s what she sees. The CIA’s in-house psychologist for London Station “ambushed” the man whose code name is Martian (Michael Fassbender), hoping to catch a hint at whatever he’s been hiding from her, his peers, and the rest of the world.

But it didn’t work. “You’ve given me nothing,” she says, her voice wavering between awe and fear. “You could be telling me the truth. Or not. Either way, for someone who’s been doing this as long as I have, it’s pretty fucking exciting — like watching da Vinci paint the Mona Lisa.”

It’s a great scene, starting with the inherent suspense of seeing two skilled combatants crossing swords for the first time. Dr. Blake’s mission is to find the mole in the agency. Martian’s mission is to stop her, since, you know, he’s the mole. By the time she corners him, it’s long been clear both agents are elite talents, so the risk of Martian getting caught has arguably never been higher. Trained assassins have nothing on a shrewd therapist.

Better still are the actors themselves: Fassbender shuts down enough to convey Martian clocks the seriousness of the moment, but not so much that it’s obvious he’s lying. Harris counters his pristine composure with fleeting, flamboyant tells; one second she’s curious, the next dubious, before ending on censorious. Dr. Blake may say it’s exciting to see how well Martian can hide his truths, but her face betrays the blame that belongs to a man who refuses to be honest when his country demands it.

Capital-A Acting! Crackling tension! Dr. Blake’s Mars mission has it all! The only problem is that it happens so late. Way late. Seven hours into a 10-hour season. Writers Jez and John-Henry Butterworth make a number of considerable changes to “The Agency” Season 2, but their only irreparable slip-up is one their main character would never make: misplaced trust. Too much time is devoted to elevating one-note supporting characters and their incidental solo missions, and too little time is given to the star attraction, the man from outer space, the guy with a face worthy of comparing to the Mona Lisa.

The other alterations may have contributed to the damning one. Most noticeably, “The Agency” Season 2 is no longer a show about a spy who fell in love with a woman who may or may not be a spy. Despite Season 1 teasing Sami (Jodie Turner-Smith) as Martian’s Achilles heel — the one risk he knows he shouldn’t take but has to anyway — Season 2 turns the mysterious Sudanese professor into a more docile symbol: the one that got away.

Martian spends the first half of Season 2 trading information with British intelligence in exchange for orchestrating Sami’s safe return from captivity. But once that’s done, there’s no way he can be with her. She feels betrayed by falling in love with his false identity, and he knows any significant time they spend together will only draw more attention to the duplicitous measures required to bring her back in his arms. When they part for good — Martian standing outside her window in the rain, Sami running after his fading taillights — the noticeable cliches outweigh the desired heartache.

Maybe Sami will play a factor in saving Martian if “The Agency” gets to Season 3, but Season 2 feels like a regression. She’s given little to do other than go where she’s told and pop up when Martian needs a reminder of what makes him human, which doesn’t do much to serve the second season’s other major shift: Where once there was a show about how much it sucks to be a spy, now there’s a show trying to explain why these brave men and women do on the job anyway.

Season 2 builds to a climax where Martian attempts to prove his loyalty. Sure, he sold a few secrets to the Brits in order to save the woman he loves, but that doesn’t mean he’s ready to abandon his country, its constitution, and the agency itself. I mean… OK? As easy as that position is to understand, and as much as it works to help preserve “The Agency’s” established cast and structure, it’s far less dramatic and borderline nonsensical. For the entirety of Season 1 and a good portion of Season 2, we’re meant to believe Martian is willing to throw it all away for love. Now, he’s only willing to throw it all away for a while, until he can fix things and, perhaps, save the woman he loves and remain in the job he may not love, but he’s good at.

John Magaro and Ambreen Razia in ‘The Agency’Courtesy of Luke Varley / Paramount+

At times, it feels like Season 2’s top priority is to turn Martian into a larger-than-life hero; the kind of guy who lies better than everyone else, shoots better than everyone else, thinks better than everyone else, etc. But not only does that line of character development run slightly counter to the grounded portrait presented in Season 1, it makes enduring all the B- and C-plots without Martian that much more difficult.

Most prominent is Danny (Saura Lightfoot-Leon), codename: Gremlin, whose field work in Iran involves a dull honey trap that never leads anywhere all that thrilling or surprising. Owen (John Magaro) leads a mission with a decent twist, where he escorts the target’s sister to track him down in Africa, but the most shocking choice is also too soft for the stakes we’re meant to feel in the life-or-death world of international espionage.

Both Danny and Owen relate back to Martian’s story in minor ways (although Owen’s becomes conveniently major in the waning episodes), but these characters never establish themselves as much more than alt-reality Martians; they’re either walking the same roads he did to become the agent he is today, or they’re too far down a path he knew to avoid. They’re backstories without being explicit backstories, or cautionary tales without risking the loss of someone we care about. In a series about the imbalance between what spies give and what they receive in return, their arcs fit. But as Season 2 drifts closer to admiration than scrutiny, their stock heroism pales in comparison to Martian’s dynamic decision-making.

“The Agency” is far from the worst offender when it comes to dialing back an A-lister’s presence in their own series. “Imperfect Women” splits up Kerry Washington, Elisabeth Moss, and Kate Mara so often, I doubt any one of them appeared in more than half the show. “The Madison” advertises Kurt Russell like he’s a second lead, when he’s in fact much closer to a recurring cameo. “Scarpetta” and “Half Man” both divided their stories between two time periods, one with top-line actors like Nicole Kidman, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Richard Gadd, while the other timeline features younger versions of their characters played by age-appropriate actors. (Fun fact: Bobby Cannavale’s son, Jake Cannavale, plays his younger self in “Scarpetta”.)

Whether it’s for practical purposes (the actor has limited availability, the studio is trying to keep the budget down) or artistic ones, diluting a star’s screentime typically doesn’t work in TV. Serialized stories thrive on time spent in the story and, more specifically, with the characters who earn our emotional investment.

For “The Agency,” that’s Martian. The Butterworth brothers did a great job in Season 1 establishing a lead character who’s easy to care about. He’s relatable yet exotic — a spy, sure, but one who hates his job because it’s robbing him of the life he yearns for — and Fassbender draws us in with every perfectly honed look.

If you’re lucky and skilled enough to cultivate a hungry audience, you have to keep feeding them. Or, to use the show’s own metaphor, if you show us Da Vinci working on his Mona Lisa, you have to let us watch him paint. Otherwise, all that excitement fades faster than Dr. Blake’s amusement.

Grade: C+

“The Agency” Season 2 premiered Sunday, June 21 on Paramount+. All 10 episodes are available now.