SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for CIA Season 2, Episode 3.
CIA Season 2, Episode 3, “Radio Active” will be known for the performance of Jane Adams as agoraphobic operative Annie Gossage. The Hacks alum is the best thing about this hour of the CBS series, and Annie has the only memorable character arc. The show’s main characters, on the other hand, are going frustratingly backwards.
The plot consists of Annie having intercepted a radio transmission that points toward a chemical weapon attack in New York. But Annie hasn’t left her apartment in five years. The best parts of the episode are Colin Glass and Bill Goodman’s interactions with Annie, as CIA moves past awkward jokes about her phobia and into building a rapport between them. Viewers know that Annie will inevitably have to leave the apartment, and yet it still feels like a win when Colin convinces her to do so. That’s because audiences have gotten invested in Annie’s story, thanks to a great performance by Adams that doesn’t lean too far into her character’s quirks. Annie isn’t defined by her agoraphobia, even if that plays a significant role in the plot.
As for that plot, it leaves something to be desired. As much as Annie gets fleshed out as a character, that’s how much the other guest players aren’t. The bad guys are just generic bad guys; some of them don’t even have names. Nikki and Gina pay a visit to a Reddit user who has their key piece of evidence, and he’s written like a stereotypical middle-aged nerdy guy. The plot choices are also a little suspect; it’s common sense that the villains should be able to find said Reddit source as quickly as the heroes did, yet the CIA team doesn’t consider that until it’s already too late. There’s also the generic black van leaving the generic abandoned warehouse. Story-wise, “Radio Active” is squarely middle of the road.
That might be fine, because Adams’ performance injects some personality into the case of the week. But then CIA undercuts itself with its personal subplots, which come across as choices made purely for dramatic effect. Bill is on the outs with Katie, which is understandable since he just told her he’s been lying to her. But then he gives a speech about not knowing what he’s capable of—and while Nick Gehlfuss delivers it beautifully, it feels like it’s out of context. Bill hasn’t done anything particularly drastic in this story to prompt that thought. If he’d said that after an episode where he’d had to kill someone other than a generic henchman, or made an impossible moral choice, then that speech would ring a lot truer than it does. Just because it was easy to lie to Katie about his new job doesn’t feel heavy enough to warrant such a profound statement.
That pales in comparison to the continued frustration of the Toni Napier subplot. Bringing her back in the first place was holding onto baggage that should’ve been resolved in Season 1. But then Colin spends the entirety of “Radio Active” cold-shouldering her and talking about how he doesn’t want to deal with her—only for them to end the episode in spontaneous liplock, going into his apartment. This plot path not only makes everything he said previously seem like empty words, but undoes all of the character development he earned last season. The audience invested in his hurt and anger from Toni’s betrayal, but just a few episodes later they’re hooking up again. Nikki’s explanation for bringing Toni back, however spurious, makes a certain degree of sense; of course the CIA would be loathe to let go of an asset it thinks it can use in any way. But Toni makes one plea that isn’t even that convincing, and Colin’s resolve is gone.
Sure, this might be exciting in the moment since it creates all this romantic drama, but where does it go in the rest of CIA Season 2? It would make the main recurring plotline from Season 1 look like a waste of time if Colin and Toni just wind up together again. It also doesn’t look great for his credibility as a character, because if he can change his mind so easily on something this big, what else might he waffle on? Of course, this is all big-picture hypothesizing; it’s possible that this is just a short-term fling that has no lasting effect. That’d be preferable, actually, because Colin deserves better. CIA should be looking forward at its new stories, not retreading the one it did last season.
“Radio Active” is great for Jane Adams, and not so much for everyone else. It’s essentially a standalone, guest-star focused episode, save for those last two scenes. Hopefully Adams will come back in a future episode, because that would be a delight, even if the rest of the hour is a disappointment.
CIA airs Mondays at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. Photo Credit: Courtesy of CBS.
