Citadel premieres on Prime Video on April 28, 2023.
We’re only three 40-minute-long episodes into its first season, and yet there doesn’t seem to be a spy cliche that Citadel hasn’t embraced already. Executive produced by the Russo brothers (of Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame fame), this series mashes up the goofier eras of James Bond with plot of The Long Kiss Goodnight, the star-powered romantic comedy of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and science-fiction elements reminiscent of Total Recall or Dollhouse. It’s as much of a hodgepodge as it sounds, and mixing together so many discordant ideas results in a show that seems as confused about its own identity as its amnesiac protagonists.
It begins by filming upside down, which will be one of several uses of spinning shots in the first half of the six-episode season, and emblematic of a style-over-substance approach. In a Bullet Train-like setup, the mission of sexy super spy Nadia Sinh (Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra Jonas) to take out an arms dealer on her train through the Alps gets more complicated with the arrival of her former partner – in every sense of the word – Mason Kane (Richard Madden of Game of Thrones) and a target who isn’t what he seems.
In a twist similar to Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation, the mission turns out to be a ploy by the generically evil organization known as Manticore to wipe out the elite spy agency Citadel. Eight years pass with Nadia and Mason presumed dead until their former Q/guy in the chair Bernard Orlick (Stanley Tucci) pulls the amnesiac Mason back into the espionage life in the shadiest way possible but somehow still persuades him to help recover a briefcase containing the codes for all the nuclear weapons in the world.
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That’s the scale of threat and moral absolutes Citadel is seemingly dealing with. If there was concern about cheering for CIA or MI6 agents despite those real-world agencies’ mixed (to put it generously) histories, Citadel quickly dispels that with a laughable handwave. In a news clip montage showing the evils committed by real spy agencies, Bernard explains that Citadel “helped shape every major event for good in the past 100 years” including the launch of the International Space Station and averting Y2K. Meanwhile, Manticore represents the wealthiest families around the world in their quest to amass more wealth and power.
In the first three episodes, it’s hard to tell if this black-and-white conflict is being played straight or is part of some complicated misdirection meant to manipulate Mason. Lesley Manville is absolutely hamming it up as Dahlia Archer, who is both the face of Manticore and the U.K. ambassador to the U.S., combining prim matronliness with deadly threats carried out by sadistic minions. But Bernard is also lying to Mason and possibly manipulating the spy-turned-family man by giving him the chance to feel like a big hero. Episode three brings a twist reminiscent of Dollhouse or Alias that hints there may be more hiding beneath the silliness, but it remains to be seen if Citadel can reach anything close to the storytelling heights of those shows.
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Citadel’s tone is also highly inconsistent. The show’s opening scene starts with Nadia and Bernard sharing cheesy banter and talking through the gadgets hidden in Nadia’s purse, then makes a hard pivot to Mason in a brutal fight in the train’s bathroom. The show even lampshades one of its primary influences with a cringey line from Mason’s wife Abby Conroy (Ashleigh Cummings): “You can’t even remember to put the toilet seat down and now you’re Jason Bourne?”
The second episode is the strongest of the three made available before the premiere, sending Bernard and Mason on a mission packed with amusing complications as Bernard tries to get his former top agent to remember the tricks of the trade. It also focuses more on Nadia, who finds herself in a dire situation that would be at home in a Quentin Tarantino movie and fights her way out with panache.
The chemistry between Nadia and Mason is the highlight of Citadel, with the two stars playing on each other beautifully as slick spies in flashbacks and humorously in their present confused state. Bernard explains that Mason was good on his own but really hot stuff with Nadia at his side and it’s easy to believe, though it’s also revealed that their fiery romance was filled with inevitable secrets and betrayals. These episodes just tease at the depth of their story, and so far it’s a more compelling mystery than whatever Manticore has planned.
It would be easier to have faith that the pieces will all come together if it weren’t for Citadel’s troubled production, with the original screenwriters leaving due to creative differences with the Russos and David Weil taking over as showrunner for extensive reshoots. Weil doesn’t have a great track record, with his revenge thriller Hunters starting as a pulpy character-driven drama before collapsing under too many twists, and his ambitious science-fiction series Invasion taking far too long to deliver on its premise.
Even so, Prime Video has already renewed Citadel for a second season and plans to use it to anchor a series of spinoffs filmed in different countries in local languages. Costing nearly $300 million for six episodes, Citadel is already one of the most expensive shows ever made, and while there are certainly some fun moments in the first three episodes, that seems like shaky ground to build on given how much money is at stake.