As the first episode of Treason begins, an assassin sets up a sniper rifle outside a house. Inside, Adam’s partner asks if he can fix this. Adam (Charlie Cox) says they have to. When Callum (Samuel Leakey) steps outside, the gunman focuses on him. Five days earlier, Adam tells a group of kids that the people at MI6 work secretly around the world to keep the UK safer and stronger. He goes on to say the head is C which stands for control. Sir Martin Angelis (Ciaran Hinds) takes a call and learns that the PM is asking for a brief chat. He wants to reassure him that it is business as usual until a successor has been selected. Martin meets with Nigel seconds later. While they chat, Kara Yerzov (Olga Kurylenko) and a man keep an eye on Martin.
Sir Angelis looks at the full report on Nigel Lambert regarding his illegal immigration activity and extramarital afford of him. Martin mentions that the President of the Supreme Court illegally obtained a visa for his 26-year-old lover. Martin can make it go away by preventing it from being entered into official records. He’ll make sure it never comes to the attention of the police or MI5 too. He won’t ask for anything in return immediately. The waiter takes Martin’s order before Nigel leaves. Kara poisoned a drink that she gives to Martin. As Kara flees the building and joins her partner, Martin gets ill back in the restaurant. Kara’s partner hits a biker. He briefly checks on the delivery man before they flee.
Adam learns what has happened so he has to stop the meeting with the students. PPO Frank Scott (John Lightbody) tells Adam more about Martin as they leave the building. Adam gives them instructions before taking a call from Olamide who doesn’t know if this is a threat to national security. Adam is connected to the foreign secretary. He tells her about Martin being admitted to Bart’s ten minutes ago after suffering a cardiac arrest. Martin is unconscious and being kept in isolation. She asks Adam if he is ready to assume his duties as chief. Adam warns her that another attack may be imminent. After the intro, Maddy De Costa (Oona Chaplin) works with Danny. She tells him she was a captain with the 47th Royal Artillery.
Olamdie tells Adam that the heartbeat is the most secure biometric. He receives the highest level of security clearance. Adam is told that they’ve scheduled a call with the secretary general of NATO and the CIA director. Zoe (Dinita Gohil) will be Adam’s executive assistant. As chief of staff, Olamdie will keep the day-to-day decisions off Adam’s desk. Adam takes a call from Maddy who learns about Sir Martin Angelis. He wants to explain this to the children because Ella might struggle with it. Maddy reassures him that he’s got this. After the call, the PM calls to speak to Adam. Then, Adam meets with the team and tells them the threat level has been increased to severe.
When Adam mentions that he is in charge, Malik (Sargon Yelda) asks if there is a decision to appoint a permanent successor. Adam insists Martin will be back, but they need to find out whether this is part of a wider threat. Malik thinks the Russians are responsible, but Patrick Hamilton (Adam James) disagrees. Once the others leave, Patrick asks Adam if he remembers the crazy guy in training. He used to teach them to run in zigzags to be harder to hit. Patrick doesn’t think Martin is going to survive. If something else is coming, Adam must stand and face it. Thomas is worried that they’ve killed the biker. Kara tells him that she needs a driver and he was there. That means something to her. She promises to get his money soon.
Adam wants a total media blackout until they know what they’re dealing with. Becky calls him to tell him about the hit-and-run on the delivery rider half a mile from the club. He got enough of the license plate to help them track down the owner who sold the van for cash two weeks to a man named Charles McGregor. Although that isn’t his real name, they have a decent description to use now. When Kara checks the computer, she sees Thomas’s picture and worries they’re in trouble. Adam goes home and notices that Ella (Beau Gadsdon) is not happy. He talks to the family about the job being safe and the house being guarded. As for school, a protection officer named Frank Scott will pick them up and drop them off.
Adam tries to reassure them that everything will be okay. Kara meets with Thomas to tell him that the cyclist was taken to the hospital. His face is on the Met server so every cop in the city has it. She gives him half of the money and promises to get the rest once she has found somewhere safe for him. When he puts the money away, Kara poisons his drink. He likely dies a few minutes later. Ella tells Maddy that she doesn’t want things to change because some of the other kids just stopped picking on her. Maddy tells Adam who admits he doesn’t know if he is ready even though his entire career has been building up to this. Adam tells her she’ll have to call him C or Chief in front of the PPOs to maintain authority.
Malik calls Adam to tell him they’ve just found the body of Thomas Keegan (Joseph Kloska). When he meets with them, Adam learns that the medical examiner is fairly certain the cause of death was poisoning. They contemplate whether it could be the same poison. Sir Martin wakes up. Adam sits with him. When Martin asks why she didn’t kill it, Adam suggests it was part of something bigger. Martin says this was the worst possible time since it is near the leadership election. Adam is warned not to trust anyone. Martin says people will doubt him even though he knows what he is capable of. He should be ready because Martin’s enemies are now Adam’s enemies. Martin wants to be up to speed when he gets out.
Before Adam leaves, he takes a picture of Martin’s books. Later, Adam uses the names of the books to discover the meeting place. When he goes to the meeting place, Kara is waiting for him. Adam admits it has been a while so he was intrigued. He also thought she might know who tried to kill Martin. Although he thinks she is SVR, Kara reveals they kicked her out for tipping him off about the embassy siege. She has come to collect. Kara doesn’t think he knows half the things she did to get him a heartbeat away from the top job. Now, he might be in a position to help her. She poisoned Angelis and he is going to use his security clearance to get her what she needs.
Adam threatens to have her arrested. Kara doubts it since he’d have to explain to Maddy that his entire career was engineered by his ex-lover. She tells him more about the things she did for him over the years. Adam tells her to stay away and he doesn’t need to know what she wants. Dede Alexander (Tracy Ifeachor) waits for her team to arrive before telling them they’ll be using a civil engineering firm as cover. Their target is Adam Lawrence. While the team begins setting up, Dede visits Maddy. They look at old pictures from their military days. Dede explains that she looked around and knew it had been too long since she had seen the people she really cares about. They talk about Maddy being a stepmother as she admits it is hard with Adam’s work.
Dede claims she is just there on vacation to see her friend. Adam takes the family to the movie theater later. He has to step away when he gets a call from Kara who tells him that the IDR is going to detonate an explosive device on a cross-channel ferry when it docks tomorrow. She can give him the intel to stop the attack, but she wants the MI6 files on Baku. Five local men were killed and she wants to know what happened. Once he agrees to cooperate, Kara tells him where to go. After the movie, Adam stops by and picks it up. Maddy gets tired of waiting so she decides to check on him. Once Adam gets it, he calls Tina to tell her about the device on the ferry. In the middle of the night, Adam gets up to use the computer while Maddy stays asleep.
He checks the Baku files and learns that there was no MI6 involvement. Maddy interrupts to remind him he can talk to her, but Adam says he just needs to get some rest. Adam calls Kara in the morning to tell her there was nothing in the files and MI6 wasn’t involved. He says there is nothing else he can do and he doesn’t want to hear from her again. Maddy tells Dede about Adam buying the present for the coworker at ten o’clock at night. It felt like a dead drop. It was an LP by a folk singer from Baku. There is something going on that she can’t put her finger on. Dede gives her a pen that records speech within a 10-meter range. In the control room, Malik mentions the Dutch far-right men being arrested on the ferry with a nail bomb in a backpack.
He finds it odd that Adam reached out to the counterterrorism squad with an IMO number late last night. Malik reminds him that the European far-right falls under his purview. Adam says they didn’t have time and that isn’t how he does things so he should get used to it. Later, Zoe gives Adam Martin’s briefcase and tells him to remove any confidential files before it is sent to his home. He finds the paperwork about Nigel before Patrick interrupts. Neither has seen anything like that. Adam learns that Ella’s protection officer tried to pick her up at the school, but she had left using a different exit. They do not have eyes on her. They begin tracking her phone using satellites while Ella is followed by a woman. She calls him to tell him about the woman in question. When the call cuts out, Adam orders for a team to be sent out there.
Adam calls Maddy to tell her too. After that call, he calls Kara to warn her that he’ll use destroy her if she touches his daughter. Ella is grabbed just before the episode ends.
Treason Review
The opening episode of Treason quickly set the scene by having Kara poison Sir Martin Angelis so Adam could become the head of MI6. Once that happened, Kara attempted to use their relationship to gather information about several killings in Baku. However, Adam found that MI6 wasn’t involved so he refused to give her any more information.
His daughter, Ella, was possibly kidnapped at the end of the episode because of Adam’s unwillingness to cooperate. Meanwhile, Dede Alexander is leading a team to find out what Adam is up to. The episode was fast-paced without a lot of character development making it very difficult to care about anyone or anything.
Some of the performances are good, but other performers seem like they’re out of place as they desperately attempt to speak with an accent that isn’t natural to them. The episode had a few eye-rolling moments considering Adam and his family are supposed to be protected at all times. Surprisingly, Adam was often able to escape his bodyguards to meet with an enemy spy while his daughter just slipped out the backdoor at school and possibly got herself kidnapped.
Meanwhile, his wife is spilling the beans about everything to an old pal without regard to safety. The lack of character development and character depth are two of the biggest problems though as viewers may have difficulty finding a reason to care about any of this. The opening episode scores a 5 out of 10. Recaps of Treason are available on Reel Mockery here. Find our site helpful? Consider supporting us by following this link.
Jay Skelton is a fan of all television shows and movies. He tries his best to keep up with the latest foreign television shows and movies. Jay loves skinny dipping in the dark too.
