This is something of a cross between the Netflix series *The Rookie *and the new Jack Ryan series. Both of which I enjoy as lightweight entertainment. The Recruit was created by the creators of The Rookie, and it’s about a rooke CIA lawyer who, of course, immediately gets caught up in “field ops” all day every day.
I’m not going to watch the 2nd episode. Unlike The Rookie where most of the cops are good, well-meaning people, every single employee of the CIA is an asshole and/or corrupt in some way. Except the protagonist. It gets tiresome.
And though I’m pretty good at suspending any expectation of realism (I like Jack Ryan after all), I was really annoyed at a scene where Owen, the protagonist, gets his fingernail pulled out at a CIA “black site” because of a trick pulled on him by CIA colleagues, who are, as mentioned, major assholes. I was just seriously annoyed that with The Rookie the writers/creators are “pro cop,” here they have the CIA black site head, a) use torture, b) on someone she didn’t know wasn’t a U.S. citizen (perfect U.S. accent), and c) someone she didn’t know wasn’t her colleague as he claimed. And then afterwards when she laughs it off as a “communications mistake” she implies that if it became known what she did at the CIA, people in the CIA would “have a good laugh.”
It annoyed me. Maybe because I just read a book about Abu Ghraib, I’m really not in the mood to turn torture into slapstick where it’s perfectly OK to be casually used by the CIA, even on their own U.S. citizen employees.
That’s a shame. My wife and I looked forward each evening to watching the next episode. The characters are supposed to be over-the-top. There’s a scene in a conference room where everyone talks in “code” (like “how did that thing with the guy turn out?”)n to preserve deniability, and Owen says something like “Russia” and everyone immediately gets up and runs out of the room. “Nobody wants that shit on their shoes.” Actually pretty funny.
it’s preposterous. Like he’s going to jet off to Yemen and hitch a ride to a black site. Hate the roommate dynamic. The soundtrack doesn’t mesh with the white boy in a suit.
BUT it jumps along and i like the idea of the character and the baddie looked great in the opera house. will hang on for a few episodes.
I enjoyed it, but I don’t have high standards for shows. Don’t really care if they are realistic, as long as they are entertaining and I found this one to be very much so. I thought the explanation for the CIA teams paranoia was pretty funny typical office politics at a higher level. I loved the group meeting, where no one said anything factual but spoke in nondescript terms, so that no one really knew what they were talking about so they could deny knowledge if the shit hit the fan.
And the utra paranoid agent working with the field agents was pretty funny… Really liked how they worked that side story into the main event.
SPOILER —
Just make it so confusing, no one can follow it, and no one will really care what happened.
Typically snow camo is just to break up blocky silhouettes.
in the early 2000’s the Army had some of the most worst looking camo for Iraq and Afghanistan. but you put that camo up in the shale mountains, from afar it worked like a dream!
The snow was entertaining at best. May it be unrealistic? sure but snows these days cant be accurate with alot of tactics since everyone watching our tactics use them against us. there were alot of great shows of the CIA and other OGA’s that got cut because of overly realistic acting/ tactics