- Title: Covert Affairs – Wishful Beginnings
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Annie (Piper Perabo) steps off the plane having escaped weeks of captivity in Russia to be driven to Blue Bonnet Farm, a CIA safe facility where she is informed she will spend days, perhaps weeks, going over what happened to her in Russia and the events which led her there. However, rescued by the CIA’s urgent need for her, Annie returns to Langley only jump from the frying pan into the fire by being assigned to work on a joint CIA/Mossad mission to retrieve a vital piece of intelligence from a missing Mossad asset that may force her to betray the man who risked his life to rescue her from a Russian prison – Eyal (Oded Fehr).
Eyal’s boss (Tovah Feldshuh) is far more concerned with the watch (which is filled with valuable intelligence it was able to copy during the long flights from Washington D.C. to Rihad) than the missing Swiss national who wore the watch while working as a stewardess for a private aviation company whose clients included several important Saudi oil executives. Joan (Kari Matchett), under the CIA’s new policies following Lena’s (Sarah Clarke) life as a double-agent coming to light, orders Annie to help Eyal retrieve the watch but not share the intelligence on it with their allies.
The pair quickly find the scared young woman but the watch is nowhere to be found, and when she dies from being poisoned sometime in the previous 24-hours by an ex-CIA agent now working for the highest bidder, including his current boss who just happens to be a friend of the U.S. State Department – and someone the Israelis believe is a possible money launderer for terrorists and someone they would love to spy on. Annie is able to retrieve the watch and, despite her ability to hide that fact from Eyal, decides to share the intelligence with him regardless of what the consequences might be.
The episode has several big moments including Auggie welcoming Annie home, Annie’s medal ceremony, Eyal’s boisterous first introduction to Auggie, the true reason behind Joan’s clandestined rendezvous with Seth Newman (Tim Griffin), the dangerous road both Eyal and Annie walk to keep their friendship intact, and Annie’s uncomfortable return home for the first time since her shooting. Her new temporary home away from home is one twist I’ll admit I didn’t see coming.
And there’s certainly more for the show to explore over the course of the season as, aside from her regular missions of the week, Annie will still has to go through the many layers of CIA reintroduction including her debriefing, move her safe house, and get a new cover job as Miss Walkers days pretending to work for the Smithsonian appear to have come to an end. There’s also a conversation with Auggie that should occur before the season’s end and hopefully we’ll find out far more about Mossad’s long-term plans for Annie.
I don’t like it when Annie and Joan fight.