The Recruit offers cheap thrills wrapped around a pretty boy
Netflix's new spy-adjacent show starring Internet boyfriend Noah Centineo feels decidedly familiar
TV Reviews The Big Bang Theory
Perhaps it’s the way Netflix has conditioned us to think about its shows, but upon watching even just the pilot of The Recruit we couldn’t help but reduce it to its comparable titles. You know, the row of ones that would be recommended if you binged your way through it and hoped to find something similar to watch. You’d see Alias there, of course. And the likes of Chuck and Nikita. Maybe even stuff like The Blacklist and Covert Affairs. Which is to say: Many of the elements of this spy-adjacent show starring Internet boyfriend Noah Centineo feel decidedly familiar.
The Recruit is not so much a throwback to shows you loved as much as it is a facile facsimile of them, one that struggles to find its own reason to exist other than to join such an illustrious row on your Netflix homepage. In algorithm-speak, if you enjoyed shows like those, you’re likely to find something to love about Centineo’s first stab at becoming a Gen Z action hero. (He’s the kind of agent who, in times of crisis, actually suggests using his Instagram drafts folder to transfer highly sensitive information; no, really.)
Maybe that logline is enough to pique your interest; The Recruit, after all, knows exactly who its audience is. Why else would the very first words coming out of Centineo’s character’s mouth be lyrics to a Taylor Swift song? If you must know more about the premise of the show, don’t worry. It’s quite simple. That is, until, in true spy-caper form, the plot continues to get more and more complicated, even as its set pieces and action sequences become easily spotted a mile away.
Owen Hendricks (Centineo) is the new kid at the CIA. A lawyer by trade, he’s now been recruited to be part of the agency’s legal team, tasked with the most inane job of them all. As a kind of hazing, Owen is called to rifle through the many threatening letters the agency gets on any given day and figure out whether any of them pose any actual threat to national security. Dutiful boy that he is, Owen finds one that may well be worth following up on. Max Meladze (Laura Haddock, giving us Lena Olin-on-Alias vibes) is sitting in jail for murder. But she apparently has secrets that could jeopardize the agency’s operations in Russia and Belarus. (This is a spy show, after all.) Owen has every reason to believe she’s actually onto something. She’s a liability if they don’t help her.
The rookie, of course, dives headfirst into Max’s case. And his co-workers (played by The Big Bang Theory’s Aarti Mann and Superstore’s Colton Dunn, casting choices that hint at the Veep-like energy the Alexi Hawley-created show flirts with) are all too happy to haze him further. If getting tortured in a black ops site could unironically be called “on-the-job hazing,” that is. Which is precisely what happens. It’s but the first instance where Owen’s seeming gullibility is married to an impossibly lucky streak that continues for episodes on end. Somehow we’re constantly led to believe Owen is but a bumbling “golden boy” who always comes out on top—whether his missions end up demanding he escape assassination attempts left and right or overpower and outmaneuver skilled spies in exotic locales fit for the James Bond type he constantly insists he isn’t: “I’m not a spy. I’m a lawyer,” he notes every other episode. Or, as he puts it mid-season, “If I worked in intelligence you think I’d be so bad at it?”
He’s bad at it because, as he admits to his roommate slash former girlfriend slash one of his various love interests in the show (we are to believe no woman, it seems, can refuse his effortless charms), he never behaves. He’s not good at it. Such a trope of a guy needing to bend the rules to get shit done is so overdone it’s almost laughable when presented so earnestly. And yet, he seems to be great at his job because, with Max’s guidance and much-needed help from those women around him, he constantly finds a way of not only staying alive but fulfilling his various mission briefs. All of which, of course, require him to jet set all over and continually demand he be paranoid of every new person he meets.
As the season careens into a wintry high-stakes final mission for Owen and Max, the show’s spidery plot culminates in a well-worn kind of standoff where Centineo is forced to deliver lines like, “You’re a prisoner of this incessant need to survive” with a straight face. It’s a testament to his commitment to the show and this character (who, we should note, is shirtless and/or in boxer briefs the requisite amount of times you’d expect) that Centineo doesn’t wholly drown in this outrageously absurd series. (Oh, did we forget to mention that subplot involving a torture robot?)
If the final episode is any indication, plans for a second season are surely well underway. The Recruit will no doubt perform as designed. That may require us all to forgo wanting to know more about Owen. Then again, he’s no character. He’s an engine for the show’s plot to move forward, for us to skip recaps and watch episode after episode to see what happens. One just wishes there was more to this spy drama than cheap thrills wrapped around a pretty boy who keeps failing upward (and into the wrong hands, over and over again).
The Recruit premieres on December 16 on Netflix.
36 Comments
I feel personally attacked by that “how about a White Claw” line in the trailer. To some degree, I don’t think this is really anything other than a deliberate strategy by Netflix—a lot of their originals feel like you churned up a couple better films or shows and produced a serviceable product that’s designed to show up after that other thing you like and be a good enough time. You keep marking time with “okay enough” that people keep subscribed while your big hits like Stranger Things or Squid Game or Wednesday produce their next iterations.
Cheap thrills AND a pretty boy? Go on…I have more free time, my twitter just got suspended for laughing at Elon, haha. Thank God.
When’s Netflix going to make a docu-drama over the Twitter meltdown? Or are they waiting for Elon do pull some more crazy stuff? The story writes itself.
I don’t want any story to end with someone hurting themself intentionally or otherwise. Generally. That being said, “The Life and Times Of Elon” can’t be produced properly until he has passed. So…fingers crossed.
Hm. I’m not sure I’d describe him as a pretty boy.But that’s personal taste, nothing more. It’s like there’s a spectrum of people on which you find James Wolk and Nicholas D’Agosto and this one is existing somewhere on there that I’m immune to.But he’s definitely way prettier than me, so that’s life. Netflix needs to stop churning out bum shows. Right now I’m really only keeping my subscription for reruns of Grace and Frankie, The Witcher, Dracula, The Umbrella Academy, and because that is obviously where Sabrina lives. Other services are way more exciting these days.
Hey , if you like The Umbrella Academy, , you should probably check out Doom Patrol It also has a group of misfits living in an old mansion trying to be heroes , while a father figure skulks around them . Also some great dance scenes (although it has never beaten the ‘I’m defending our honour ‘bro” scene from TUA,it has come close a few times ), hell they even debuted on TV on the same day!
Shows and movies with heroes who only survive due to repeated luck bug the ever-loving shit out of me. They should be either good at what they do and survive on their own skills and wit, or get beaten up, shot, captured, or whatever – the way things really work. I’ve already put too much thought into what sounds like a pretty vapid show, but the CIA does not put up with rogue rookie agents, nevermind send them on globetrotting adventures.
Or the Inspector Clousseau approach, where you just play the whole thing for laughs.
This might be along those lines, but the trailer definitely looks like a tonal mishmash where the basic premise and description sounds like it should be light and breezy, but it seems like it’s presented with deadly seriousness.
If it has to use a real agency, as opposed to just calling it the “US Division of Investigation” or whatever phony nonsense you can come up with, then yeah, Clouseau’s the way to go.The best depiction of the CIA, therefore, is American Dad’s version.
“Now, If You’ll Excuse Me, I’m Going To Go Party My Nose Clean Off My Face.”
this, but unintentionally.
Ok, so you hated Bourne and Bond and the Matrix movies and John Wick… what does that leave?
Bond in some cases, but the others weren’t just getting by on luck. Bourne didn’t bend over to tie his shoes right as someone was taking a sniper shot at his head.
Then again, the CIA is a government bureaucracy. Is this kid the nephew of somebody important and can’t be tossed out on his keister?
Hell, the CIA barely has field agents any more, it would seem. Over half of their budget immediately gets spent on “private contractors” nowadays.
I mean the real CIA is a force for pure evil in the world so give me the fantasy.
Does this have any relation to the Colin Ferrell movie?
So is this based on the Colin Farrell movie or not? Because that’s an incredibly underappreciated film, and anything that draws more attention to it regardless of its own quality is okay by me.
“outrageously absurd series”You say that like it’s a bad thing.Honestly, this sounds a lot like that Jack Ryan abomination on Amazon, except the incredibly stupid antics are presented with a wink and a grin, which makes it 1000% more palatable.
I like Jack Ryan but I’d like it better as a comedy. I’ll check this show out.
I’d honestly be fine with Jack Ryan if they changed the names and called it something else. because nonsense action shows are right up my street. I just feel like the show runners never read the books (or saw any of the movies), and their one-page treatment completely skipped the part where the main characters are meant to be competent.
Glorifying a terrorist organization + zoomer stereotypes + Taylor Swift lyrics?
Hard pass.
“Internet boyfriend Noah Centineo”
I do not know what those words mean.
Maybe it’s the new way of saying “teen heartthrob.”
So here’s the thing… I had never seen him in anything or even heard his name before this. And I can’t halp thinking that really helped me enjpy the show for what it is, because I found it amusing and thought he was pretty well cast.
I think it means this show is ..not for us*.(*well me anyway)
It means he’s a cross between famed internet boyfriends Oscar Isaac and Timothée Chalamet. Hmm actually he is. I wonder if I’ve uncovered some kind of secret formula.
They’re probably thinking of those days when their tweenage loins pulsated forth at the sight of him in that godawful and forgettable series of films about the whiny Korean chick.
A show about a hero CIA agent is like making a show about a hero nazi.
fyi that drafts folder thing is valid tradecraft. i believe the 9/11 hijackers communicated using gmail drafts.
I somehow doubt that because Gmail didn’t launch until 2004.
Him?
I watched the first episode, and overall I thought it was interesting but not especially funny (though some parts got a minor chuckle).First off, he is supposed to be a lawyer, but nothing he does is remotely related to being a lawyer. Odds are I am just dumb, but that seems like they needed a job for him to be eligible for that makes him seem smart while also giving him the job he has in the show.Like I said earlier, I didn’t think the pilot was that funny. There were some amusing moments (I liked when he had to scrape up the burnt pieces of the paper and hold them in his hands, that was kind of funny), but overall it just felt more like gestures at jokes than actual jokes. Maybe it gets funnier as it goes on. Maybe it just isn’t my type of humor.Speaking of how funny it is, what is the tone of this? It doesn’t seem overly comedic enough to balance out the more darker elements if they are going for a dramedy, but it also doesn’t take itself seriously enough to be a drama. I don’t need things to fit into a specific box, but I also need to understand what they want me to think of it.In the positives, I really like that it has one serialized plot. I like shows/movies with momentum, where the protagonist is always doing something. Movies can feel a bit like a slog when they are just a series of things happening to the protagonist than the protagonist doing things, so I actually liked this.
This show is incredibly fun and the most enjoyable part of the show is the government infighting between all of the different people and factions. That element alone is worth the enjoyment
Aww… no mention of Kristian Bruun, one of the most game celebrity guests on Comedy Bang Bang. Sounds like we can add this to the Bruun filmography that Scott can gleefully ridicule on a future episode.