Nate Williams is a longtime tech and entertainment writer based in the Midwest. He covers movies and TV for Collider. Since 2016, his work has appeared on such sites as MakeUseOf, SlashGear, and ComingSoon.net, among others. When not actively working, you’ll likely find him seeing a new movie or reading an old book. (Or vice versa.)
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By and large, spy thrillers usually fall into one of two camps: They’re either globe-trotting, action-packed spectacles à la Mission: Impossible or Bourne, or they’re John le Carré-style slow-burns more interested in the emotional toll of espionage than the missions themselves. Very few titles manage to strike a balance between the two. Turns out, that’s exactly what makes The Agency such a pleasant surprise. This under-the-radar drama, somewhat hidden on Paramount+, delivers both the international intrigue and political maneuvering of something like Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan while also exploring the identity crises and personal sacrifices that made The Americans one of television’s defining spy dramas. And yet, despite a unique take on the genre — not to mention an impressive cast led by Michael Fassbender, Jeffrey Wright, Jodie Turner-Smith, and Richard Gere — The Agency hasn’t garnered much buzz since premiering in late 2024. That’s unfortunate, because it’s one of the smartest modern espionage series on television today.
If you’ve watched a lot of action-packed spy thrillers, you might expect The Agency to start off with the establishment of a cover identity for our lead. Instead, it opens by tearing one down. Fassbender stars as Brandon Colby, better known by his CIA codename “Martian”: a veteran non-official-cover operative who’s spent the last six years undercover in Africa. When he’s abruptly recalled to London Station, he’s forced to give up this carefully constructed identity and re-enter a world he hasn’t stepped foot in for over half a decade.
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
Things only get more complicated when he reconnects with Dr. Samia “Sami” Zahir (Turner-Smith), a woman from his undercover life whom he also happened to genuinely love. Meanwhile, under the supervision of Henry Ogletree (Wright) and London Station chief James Bradley (Gere), Martian also has work responsibilities to deal with: international crises, double agents, deep-cover operatives, geopolitical conflicts… you know, the stuff of all great secret agent shows. Through it all, Martian finds himself caught between his professional obligations and the emotions that won’t stay buried.
What ultimately separates The Agency from many contemporary spy shows is its refusal to treat espionage as a job anyone would actually want to work. Sure, the missions are exciting, and the international politics are fascinating, but Martian isn’t some iconic action movie hero. He’s exhausted, emotionally fractured, and he’s not sure how to tell which version of himself is actually real after living under an alias for so long.
There’s real psychological damage to be wrestled with after years of cover-ups and deception. In this way, it feels directly in line with all six seasons of The Americans, where Philip and Elizabeth Jennings constantly questioned whether they could ever separate their real selves from the roles they were forced to play. At the same time, The Agency never loses sight of the broader intelligence game. Like the best of Jack Ryan, it tracks the CIA through all its diplomatic tensions, covert operations, intelligence failures, and shifting alliances. There’s a real suspense that comes from these briefing room scenes just as much as the field operations.
So, for viewers who enjoyed the globe-spanning intelligence operations of Jack Ryan but also miss the deeply personal storytelling of The Americans, *The Agency *is your ideal middle ground. It understands that espionage is just as much about the personal cost as it is about the actual work. And in this crowded streaming space we’re in, where everything seems to be getting louder and louder to steal our attention, there’s something to be said about a grounded, character-driven drama like The Agency. With season two released in June 2026, fans of The Agency are currently (anxiously) awaiting a Season 3 renewal. That also makes now the perfect time to dive in. Who knows? Maybe its success on Paramount+ could be exactly what the show needs to score another season.
