Countdown to Thirteen: The Assets: Episode 5 – “Check Mate” (2014)

Since I missed yesterday's News Satire Roundup (which I posted earlier today,) I'm throwing in this weeks Countdown to Thirteen post as well.

 

Sure, it feels a little premature to name the fifth episode of an eight-episode miniseries “Check Mate,” but it’s pretty well earned.  This is a good one that plays to what I think are the show’s main strengths:  the investigation into the mole and the shading in the drama playing out among the minor characters.

With Jean now officially leading the investigation, she has the team probe possible sources of the breach.  But while they work, the KGB is hard at it as well, doing everything they can to overwhelm/confuse the CIA as a means of protecting their own asset (the mole) after having acted too quickly and noticeably on their information.  Sandy and Jean, although initially at odds with one another, begin to find common ground.

So, looks like we’re getting option 3:  Jean and Sandy team-up!  That was the one I was pulling for, and I’m glad; I was a little disappointed to see Sandy and Jean butting heads so much in the previous episode.  And generally, I like how Jean is shaping up here.  The “Sister Ursula as an American CIA officer in the ‘80s” thing isn’t her – rather, that’s merely Sandy’s initial assessment of her.  She’s still kind of prickly and non-ingratiating, but there’s a more interesting story going on.

After a couple of lighter episodes, Sandy is back with a vengeance.  She’s great here – she works hard in the investigation (even if, at first, it’s only to prove Jean wrong,) and she again uses her savviness to find a window into what the KGB is doing.  She’s a smart woman all around, but she’s particularly smart about people, and that’s where she always shines the most.  She also goes to bat for her theories and, probably most significantly, she recognizes that she and Jean need to get past their differences for the good of the investigation.  It’s true that a lot of the outright testiness is actually on Sandy’s side – Jean is more socially-awkward than imperious, and her unfiltered criticism is really her attempt to help Sandy reach her full potential – but in a way, that makes it an even bigger move on her part.  Sandy’s been the one fueling the issues between them, but she realizes that it’s doing the investigation a disservice and it can’t go on.  Nice bit of character growth there.

I also like the other side of things, from the KGB end.  This episode has a lot of cool, sneaky spy stuff, and I love that sort of thing.  I also continue to appreciate the way the show spends time with minor characters, like the assets (the CIA folks are the main movers of the plot, but it’s the assets whose lives are hanging in the balance,) fleshing them out in small but effective ways and making us care about what happens to them.