Covert Affairs: In the Light

There’s a whirlwind of activity in the Domestic Protection Division: An errant shipment of surface-to-air missiles is en route from Johannesburg to an unknown port in the United States, courtesy of notorious Sudanese arms dealer Hasaan Waleed. Annie is given the task of trying to convince the CIA’s former expert in East African affairs, bitter recluse Christopher McAuley (Eriq La Salle), to come out of retirement and help track down Waleed.

Meanwhile, the former Director of Clandestine Services, Henry Wilcox (Gregory Itzin, who, careful observers will note, doesn’t look a blasted thing like his onscreen son Sendhil Ramamurthy) stops by to chinwag with his successor Arthur. Annie and Auggie talk some gleeful trash about Henry, who, per Auggie, “ran more Dark Ops than anyone since the Cold War” during his reign. Auggie drops a chunk of exposition about Jai’s past -- his mother was Henry’s contact in India, whom Henry married and then dumped for a younger woman. While Auggie yammers on about Henry being known as the Prince of Darkness, Jai creeps up behind him on little cat feet and puts in his own two cents on the subject of his dad: “My favorite was always Satan’s Little Helper. Has such a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

(Seriously, Jai hovers a couple millimeters away from Auggie, and Auggie is wholly oblivious to his presence. Either Auggie wants to single-handedly disprove the theory that the other senses grow super-enhanced to compensate for blindness, or Jai is a ninja. A smoking-hot ninja.)

After Auggie slinks off in mortification, Annie and Jai engage in some flirtatious banter, which culminates with them maybe agreeing that they might possibly want to go on a date at some indeterminate point in the future.

Annie drives out to McAuley’s remote cottage. McAuley, who bears a severe grudge against the agency stemming from something that happened under Henry’s administration, pulls a shotgun and sics his dogs on her. While Annie wins over the dogs, she has less luck with grumpy McAuley. Still, she does manage to impress him with her superior fly-tying skills -- which, we see via flashback, were taught to her by her mysterious ex-boyfriend Ben. Yes, we get a flashback devoted to optimal knot-tying techniques. I look forward to further flashbacks to Ben and Annie’s sweeping romance in which he shows her how to properly grout tile and snake a clog in the kitchen sink.

Hey, speaking of Ben, here he is in Khartoum, pummeling the hell out of some knife-wielding dude while searching for… Hasaan Waleed. Small universe, no?

Jai and Henry drink Scotch and engage in some tense, uncomfortable father-son banter at a local tavern while Annie and Auggie lurk at a nearby table and observe the spectacle. Henry expresses disdain at Jai’s decision to cut short his prior assignment in London to come work for Arthur. Jai complains that he’s offering advice after the fact, whereupon Henry breezily replies, “It wasn’t advice, it was criticism.” Ah, I think I like Henry. He might be evil, but he’s kind of fun.

Annie plops herself down at their table and introduces herself to Henry. From his stricken expression, Jai appears to think this is a ghastly idea. Annie and Henry get along like gangbusters -- Henry lectures Annie on how everyone in the CIA eventually gets his or her hands dirty, while Jai guzzles Scotch and sulks. Jai is a festive piñata filled with daddy issues.

While looking through McAuley’s file, Annie discovers he had a long-standing relationship with Vanessa Sinclair, an agent who was murdered by Hasaan Waleed in Sudan five years ago. Annie thinks she can use this information to lure McAuley into helping them find Waleed, though she feels guilty about manipulating his emotions in this manner. Annie and Auggie commiserate about the shady and unethical nature of their job. Kids, you probably should have sussed out your feelings about the morality of using trickery and deceit for the greater good before you decided to become spies.

McAuley finally agrees to help Annie, provided the CIA gives him $100,000 to pay to his contact in New York in exchange for information on the whereabouts of Waleed. Equipped with a briefcase filled with cash, Annie, Jai, and McAuley wait at a café for the contact to arrive. “Your father’s an asshole,” McAuley tells Jai, by way of making small talk. Jai shrugs and sips his coffee.

While McAuley meets with his contact in private, Annie and Jai flirt some more. Having spent some quality time poring over Jai’s file, Annie drops another exposition bomb: Jai’s mother is a neurosurgeon from Mumbai, he spent the past five years on overseas assignments to get away from his father, he drinks lattes, and he’s a former champion squash player -- or lacrosse, per Jai’s bio on the official Covert Affairs site. I am sure there are those who can argue passionately about the differences between squash and lacrosse. I am not one of those people, so I’ll limit myself to noting that they’re not the same sport, and move on.

Anyway, McAuley pulls a fast one. He finds out Waleed’s location, gives his contact the hundred grand, and takes off, hell-bent on exacting his own revenge against Vanessa’s murderer. Annie and Jai are left in the lurch. Maybe if these two gorgeous kids had focused less on their mad chemistry and flirtatious banter and more on the task at hand, they might have been able to prevent this.

Annie and Jai convince McAuley’s contact to give them the same information he gave McAuley: The ship carrying Waleed and the missiles will be docking soon at the Brooklyn shipyard. Joan orders Jai and Annie to return to Langley, but Annie heads to the shipyard to prevent McAuley from killing Waleed. Jai reluctantly goes with her.

Waleed’s ship docks. As the missiles are unloaded, the CIA’s Ops team moves into position, ready to apprehend him. Jai and Annie track down a rifle-toting McAuley, who tells them Waleed’s criminal activities were funded by the CIA, which kept working with him even after he murdered Vanessa.

And then Ben pops up out of nowhere and shoots Waleed.

To repeat my comments from the pilot episode, in which Ben pops up out of nowhere and shoots the assassin Stas: Well! That was delightfully random.

Ben tries to flee the scene, but runs smack into Jai and Annie. Annie doesn’t notice him, but Ben and Jai make Incredibly Meaningful Eye Contact. Without alerting Annie, Jai takes off after Ben on foot. They scramble their way over and around and in between shipping containers, leaping in the air and tumbling to the ground and generally being kick-ass and awesome. More awesome parkour scenes, Covert Affairs! Fewer wistful flashbacks about knot-tying lessons!

Jai leaps off a container and lands behind Ben… who pulls a gun on him. Jai freezes. They exchange some more meaningful eye contact (ohhhhh, I hope there’s a good story between these two), and Ben scurries off.

So Waleed is dead, but the CIA gets their missiles back and prevents an embarrassing incident. There’s a big ceremony where Arthur dedicates the shiny new Ops center to Henry. Annie and Jai exchange flirty smiles while Auggie sulks. And Ben sits in a grungy room somewhere and drinks Scotch while staring wistfully at photos of Annie.

Fun episode. The plots still seem a little sketchy and shallow, but there’s some interesting stuff going on that will hopefully have a good payoff in later episodes. Kudos for the burst of character development and screentime for Jai -- he’s sexy, he’s shady, he’s likeable, he’s kind of awesome. The show isn’t there yet, but it’s moving in the right direction.