[Editor’s Note: The following review contains spoilers for “The Agency” Season 1, Episode 10, “Overtaken By Events.”]
The finale of “The Company,” Showtime’s espionage thriller from writers John-Henry and Jez Buttersworth, opens on Michael Fassbender concealing his face. The person they name Martian is revving up his motorbike, so he pushes down his black helmet and slides the visor shut over his eyes. Within the second, it’s a sensible matter, however later, when he’s struck by a passing automobile and thrown from his bike, the ordinary security selection turns into one other stark reminder of what’s at stake for our lovelorn spy: If he desires to outlive, he has to cover his id. At all times. With out fail.
All through the 10-episode first season of “The Company,” tailored from the 2015 French sequence “Le Bureau des Legendes,” Martian has to masks his true intentions with a view to get what he desires. Typically, it’s for work, like when he’s looking for and safe the rogue agent referred to as Coyote (Alex Reznik). Typically, it’s for his household, like when his obscure explanations and mysterious conduct equally irritate and shield his solely daughter, Poppy (India Fowler). However even when he’s by himself and off-duty (if an expert spy can ever really punch out), Martian nonetheless has to cover. He has to cover his disillusionment with the CIA, he has to cover the particulars of his spycraft, and most of all he has to cover the truth that he’s in love with a lady who doesn’t even know his actual title.
That pressure — the unknowns of a love affair the place one get together is a spy, the opposite is likely to be, and neither is aware of how a lot they’ll belief the opposite, at the same time as they’re repeatedly drawn again collectively — is the beating coronary heart of “The Company.” The finale doesn’t get us any nearer to the reality about Samia (Jodie Turner-Smith), saving that important reveal for a later season. However Episode 10 does focus its icy gaze on Martian’s escalating obsession with saving her — and (it almost goes with out saying) saving himself. Did Martian’s fixed camouflage work? Did his secrecy and self-concealment defend him, like together with his motorbike helmet? Or, in a tragic twist, did they doom him not solely to the perilous, short-lived lifetime of a double agent, but in addition to a lonely life it’s clear he can not stand to dwell?
The reply, or as a lot of a solution as there may be simply but, can solely be discovered by way of a detailed examination of Michael Fassbender‘s face — one “The Company” offers many times from its very first scene, and one the actor illuminates with magnificent readability all through.
Take, as an illustration, the fateful assembly that results in Martian’s motorbike “accident.” Having efficiently baited British intelligence by sitting down on the Ritz’s cigar lounge with Sudanese negotiator, Dalaga (David Harewood) — he knew the room could be bugged — Martian accepts an invite to speak together with his previous “pal” Jim Richardson (Hugh Bonneville) about what MI6 can do to save lots of Samia (who’s reportedly on her approach to a nightmarish jail). “We all know the place she is, which wing, cell,” Richardson says. “We’ve got an S.A.S. unit with eyes on the jail, primed and able to go. You simply give the phrase and she or he’s out of there earlier than you will get again throughout the river.”
At this comment, Martian seems to be dumbstruck. The proximity Richardson claims to have would knock anybody again a couple of steps. Realizing she’s that near security, that near salvation, must be disorienting, particularly after his personal boss (Richard Gere) simply completed telling him Samia was properly out of attain. However Martian’s deer-in-the-headlights demeanor can also be attributable to the price of this quick-and-easy rescue mission: Martian’s loyalty. Richardson will solely give the go order if Martian agrees to function a double agent. He desires Martian to maintain working inside the CIA however on behalf of MI6, and he desires a solution now.
“Sure,” Martian says, after a quick back-and-forth, and it’s solely then he realizes Richardson is teasing him. The provide isn’t actual. Richardson was merely seeing the place Martian’s loyalties actually lied, in preparation for his or her future encounter on the hospital. However Martian didn’t know that. He solely knew what he was informed. He solely felt the clock ticking down on Samia’s security, and he responded accordingly. The lengths of his devotion show surprising even to the person who feels them, given his emotions so not often get to determine something.
Such scenes aren’t distinctive to the spy style. Private {and professional} allegiance are sometimes pitted in opposition to each other. Pals lie, blackmail, and betray. Brokers not often know themselves in addition to they suppose they know everybody else. However what makes “The Company’s” model of those occasions so rewarding is Fassbender himself.
Whereas Martian and Richardson are speaking, we, the viewers, must entertain the concept Martian is performing; that he is aware of, or no less than suspects, what Richardson is as much as, and he’s merely enjoying his half. As a substitute of Richardson studying one thing about Martian, maybe Martian is planting an thought in Richardson so he can get nearer to him, acquire his belief, and enact a plan of his personal.
However when Richardson drives away, episode director Neil Burger lingers on Martian for an additional few beats, and his expression doesn’t change. His masks doesn’t slip. His feelings — concern, ache, remorse — are all as uncooked as they have been when Richardson was nonetheless watching. They’re as actual because the Martian’s provide to betray his nation, and Fassbender channels them with sincere conviction. This isn’t a sly spy finishing up a covert operation; this can be a spy whose cautious plans have been overtaken by occasions.
However that’s not who Martian was all alongside. When “The Company” begins, Martian is being debriefed by his handler, Naomi (Katherine Waterston), explaining how he ended issues with Samia earlier than returning dwelling. “She obtained indignant, yelled, the standard bullshit break-up scene,” he says. “Only a contact extra brutal.” However flashbacks inform a unique story. Samia is fast to simply accept the break-up, even gracious. “It needed to occur,” she says. “I’ll be positive.” She’s calm all through, and so they even sleep collectively one final time.
Naomi is aware of none of this, neither is she suspicious about Martian’s rationalization. Why? She trusts him, certain, but in addition as a result of Martian is in full management of his story. He recounts his model of occasions tersely, not not like many emotionally closed-off males would, however he’s not evasive. He is aware of Naomi must ask what occurred with Samia, he is aware of she must know what occurred with Samia, so he doesn’t attempt to run away from it. He even tries to stay as near the reality as attainable, like so many good liars do: He says Samia cried, when he did. He says she tried to get bodily, once they each did. He alludes to the break up being “brutal” due to her, however actually it was brutal for him. He loves her, and he needed to depart her.
Fassbender, as a performer enjoying a personality in the midst of their very own efficiency, doesn’t give something away — not like he does within the finale, when Martian is not in management. Initially, he’s snug, confidant, and relaxed. He cuts his bitterness with a way of boredom to throw Naomi and others off the scent, when in actuality he can’t hold it from slowly consuming away at his soul. By Episode 10, he’s discombobulated, determined, and tense. His heartache over Samia and resentment towards the CIA has coalesced inside him. It’s modified him. And you’ll see it in his large eyes, his accentuated wrinkles, his drooping countenance.
Such meticulous consideration to Martian’s slight however important evolution is a credit score to each Fassbender and the Butterworths. They perceive Martian is an elite spy, so he’s been educated to not give something away until he desires to, which suggests at any time when he does, the viewers wants to acknowledge it. Ensuring we do is everybody’s duty (the writers, the administrators, the lighting technicians, all people), even when there’s an added weight on Fassbender to convey feelings clearly, with out the good thing about supporting exposition. That’s how vital our lead characters’ face is to appreciating the present’s central story.
So it’s no coincidence the primary shot of “The Company” and the final shot of Season 1 are funhouse mirror variations of one another. The introductory picture (directed by Joe Wright) sees Martian striding off the non-public airplane that introduced him dwelling. Because the hanger door slowly rises, he walks a literal straight line (painted on the tarmac) towards the digicam, one hand casually in his entrance pocket, the opposite holding a free duffel slung coolly over his shoulder. He walks up, drops his baggage, and — wanting barely above digicam — arms over his electronics. However his expression is inscrutable. He may very well be resentful, suspicious, or complacent — or he might simply be drained after an extended flight and a fair longer mission. Not figuring out what to make of Martian is strictly what he desires. Whoever is there to greet him, it’s greatest if they’ll’t get a learn on a person whose life is determined by letting his thriller be. In the event that they know what he’s actually pondering or feeling, they may use it in opposition to him. Presenting as an indecipherable puzzle is paramount.
Which is why the closing shot is so tragic. After returning to work to a hero’s welcome, Martian walks to his workplace and appears out on the individuals who simply applauded his noble work and protected restoration. His bruises caught by the window’s mild, his good facet forged in ominous shadow, Martian’s focus shifts from the folks on the opposite facet of the glass to the person staring again at him in it. Unable to look himself within the eye, he turns away and, as he remembers Richardson’s final phrases to him — “All it’s a must to do is hold a secret” — Martian’s inscrutable expression reasserts itself. His masks, his armor, is again on.
The one query is how lengthy he can stick with it.
Grade: B+
“The Company” Season 1 is out there on Paramount+ with Showtime. The sequence has been renewed for Season 2.