Citadel is back, roaring onto the big stage at Prime Video and bringing its stellar cast back for another adventure. It feels like it’s been a long time since the first season of Citadel, to the point where I don’t remember the finer details of Season 1, but I remember the overall themes and plot. Callbacks to smaller moments would probably be lost on me. I know the series stars Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden as Nadia Sinh and Mason Kane, spies and former lovers who are trying to deal with loss of memory and identity amidst the chaos between two super-secret covert organizations, Citadel and Manticore. It’s also revealed that Nadia has a daughter she’s protecting, while during his temporary amnesia, Mason went completely off the grid and built a new life for himself with a new wife, Abby (Ashleigh Cummings). By the end of the first season, Mason regained his old memories, but they conflicted with the life he had built for himself over the years.
Now these agents are pulled back together. The Season 1 finale left Stanley Tucci’s Bernard Orlick in a bit of a bind, and at the beginning of this season, Citadel will catch you up on enough of what you missed in Season 1 within a reasonable amount of time. Bernard was taken by individuals intent on using technology that would allow them to put chips in people’s brains and control them. Basically, Manchurian candidates, but with chips inside their brains instead of conditioning. So the series becomes a lot of: Who can we trust? Can we trust anybody? Can we trust ourselves, our friends, the people we know? Is anybody telling us the truth? Who’s on our side? Who’s good? Who’s bad? What are their motives? It’s a constant battle to try to figure out who is truly a protagonist in this story and who is an antagonist, because everybody has different agendas, comes from different places, and many of these characters have done something negative in their past that they could be blamed for and are now looking for absolution by fixing the current problem at hand.
My favorite character in the series is James Hutch, played by Jack Reynor, the wildcard CIA agent who would make for a truly interesting and compelling spinoff character if this series is ever looking for one. He has a cartoonish rogue element to him that makes him hard to pin down, and yet he seems expertly skilled at what he actually does. He’s cocky, but extremely knowledgeable, good in the field, and can take care of himself. He’s also very charming as a lead, as you might expect from Jack Reynor. Since we seem to keep getting spinoffs of everything, if Citadel ever runs its course, Hutch should get his own show. Although, considering the gauntlet being thrown down at the end of the second season, it’s possible Hutch could just become the lead of next season anyway, depending on where the plot goes and which characters they need. Season 2 definitely makes a big, bold choice right at the end, and it could send seismic shock waves through a future Season 3.
Joe Russo, one half of the Russo Brothers and one of the directors behind Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, returns to the Citadel universe and directs several episodes this season. He manages to navigate the tricky intertwinings of all this espionage coming from several different angles, with characters you can trust and not trust simultaneously and a handful of characters who could easily be defined as the lead depending on the direction the series wants to take. It’s an interesting path, and I think the series remains engaging because of it. Citadel is another spy thriller, with a tinge of comedy, entering a marketplace already full of this type of thing, so it has to stand out.
It does that by leaning into personality and not trying to pretend that it has reinvented the espionage thriller. Sometimes these plots seem redundant because a lot of spy thrillers regurgitate the same villains and storylines. There’s always some sort of threat, but it’s a threat that feels like we’ve seen it before. There’s always a clandestine organization, but it’s a clandestine organization that feels like we’ve also seen before. Citadel doesn’t really try to run from that perceived repetition. Instead, it leans on its charismatic cast to do the heavy lifting and make the stylistic approach to familiar material feel like what’s different, with enough little twists and turns along the way and a willingness to take big risks, especially in the finale, and hope it all pays off in the end.
They also blend family into the espionage, both literally and figuratively, by having these lead characters get mixed up in things involving their parents, who are also connected to parts of this world. But it doesn’t feel too gimmicky. It doesn’t feel hokey, like Dad is taking the family on a road trip while also being a spy, much like Apple’s The Family Plan films with Mark Wahlberg, where his character keeps getting pulled into situations that also pull in his non-spy family. Citadel finds a better balance. Season 2 runs seven episodes and has audio description from Media Access Group. There’s a wonderful balance between the characters, action, set pieces, and violence throughout the show that works really well here.
Performance-wise, aside from Jack Reynor, I also really enjoyed Stanley Tucci, as it feels like he’s being given substantial work to do. The last thing I saw him in was The Devil Wears Prada 2, where it felt like the writers had no idea what to do with him for the sequel and he just kind of existed because he was in the first film. He’s a great actor, and he should always be respected as such by being given the best material possible. Don’t waste Stanley Tucci if he bothers to show up for your project, and I don’t think Citadel wastes him at all here. He has a lot to do, and he does it well. Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra Jonas are equally believable as Mason and Nadia continue their respective spirals.
As far as new cast additions go, I’ve gotta say, I loved Matt Berry’s inclusion this season as Frank Sharpe. I thought he was hilarious. There’s something about Berry and how he is able to light up a scene just by the way he reads his dialogue. Even when he’s not necessarily intending to be funny, he has a way of delivering a line that feels biting and sarcastic, like he can’t help it. I’m so familiar with his voice now, and I always associate it with comedy, that I wonder if he’s truly capable of doing a really emotional drama without me expecting him to make me laugh. He has such a strong technical prowess over being able to twist a line and throw it back at somebody like they’re the dumb ones for having asked it.
If you want an engaging spy thriller and you have Amazon Prime Video, Citadel is certainly worth it. It’s not one of my favorite series of all time, but I enjoyed watching Season 1, I was happy they renewed it for a second season, and I would definitely come back for a third. All of those are metrics I use to define whether something should be Fresh or Rotten. Do I want to see more? Am I looking forward to more? Would I recommend it? All of those indicate that Citadel is Fresh. However, there are series I feel tighter with, closer to, and more invested in. While Citadel is fun, it’s not a show I spend an excessive amount of time obsessing over. It’s just a show that is good for the moment, and that should be enough for most.
Check out Citadel before someone ruins the ending for you, because that finale certainly came as a shock to the system.
Fresh: 7.6/10
