'The Agency' review: Michael Fassbender shines in smart, propulsive spy thriller

WHAT IT'S ABOUT After six years of deep undercover in Khartoum, Martian (Michael Fassbender) is called back to the CIA's London station. (His real name remains a mystery.) Why has the Martian landed? Reasons are not quite clear other than a crucial operative, code-named Coyote, has disappeared, and the Station is in an uproar over whether he's a double agent for the Russians. Martian is about to enter a hive's nest of competing interests and agendas. Henry (Jeffrey Wright) is director of operations, also Martian's mentor, who must navigate the whims of cold-blooded station chief Bosko (Richard Gere). Meanwhile, Martian himself is in the middle of a complicated situation which doesn't quite rise to the level of a compromised one — yet. In Khartoum, he's fallen in love with Sami Zahir (Jodie Turner-Smith). To his surprise, she turns up in London right around the time he does.

This ten-parter — based on the French TV spy series "Le Bureau des Legendes" — is produced (in part) by George Clooney.

MY SAY The title of John Le Carré's 1963 classic "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" gave the language an immortal phrase with two meanings. Everyone pretty much knows the first of those — the spy who unretires — but the second is where lies heart and soul. It's the spy who came in from the emotional "cold" and who learns to value human relationships again, who learns to love. As everyone also knows, spies and true love mix poorly, and if they do (at all) you can be reasonably certain you've got a tragic TV series on your hands as much as an espionage one.

Spies aren't supposed to love. It's not what they signed up for. Martian's handler Naomi (Katherine Waterston) sums up this devil's bargain nicely in a frosty piece of advice she gives to a neophyte agent: "The price [of the job] is surviving totally alone, forever."

Le Carré couldn't have said it better (and probably did, in so many words and over so many novels and movies). "The Agency" is based on a French TV series but his considerable shadow falls deeply over this adaptation. Fassbender's Martian is a precision instrument, which otherwise has a fatal flaw. His love for Sami means he has developed a blind spot but he's not sure where or even how. In any event, he's absolutely certain he's got everything under control anyway. We all know better.

This story has been told before, but there's certainly no reason why it shouldn't go through the Hollywood gristmill again — this time with a few contemporary touches (Ukraine, Russia, a reheated Cold War), some first-rate actors (notably Gere in an interesting stretch) and a smartly written script.

"The Cold War's back and it's as chilly as [expletive]," someone observes, when Martian walks in the door of the CIA field office in London. "Pythias returns to Ithaca," someone else acidly remarks (Pythias is hero of Greek legend who returns home to save his friend; "The Agency" is wonky and egg-heady that way.)

Everyone here knows everyone else. They have history, some of it fraught. When, for example, a certain Dr. Blake (Broadway's Harriet Sansom Harris) arrives at HQ, Waterston's Naomi winces, and Blake returns the greeting with her own grimace. "The Agency" may be a spy thriller with some predictable beats, but those unpredictable little human ones are what's best here. The spy stuff is just the dressing.

Where does all this end up? Could real world events dictate the endgame? Or, like "Homeland" so long ago, will doomed love be the answer?

BOTTOM LINE Good, smart, propulsive spy thriller