What I’m Watching: Covert Affairs

Covert Affairs: Season 1, Episode 4 “No Quarter” (B)

I have to say, I enjoyed this episode much more than the three that came before it. Maybe it’s the pairing of someone with Annie for the whole episode who is able to up her game and also impress in his own right? Perhaps it’s the casting of an actual Israeli actor as an Israeli (sorry, “NCIS”), and no less than Oded Fehr, who played terrorist Farik on Showtime’s “Sleeper Cell.” While Fehr’s Eyal can’t hold a candle to Shaw of “Chuck” in terms of coolness, he is pretty slick and definitely keeps Annie on her toes. It’s a shame that these twist-oriented shows still insist on painting Israeli agencies as entirely corruptible, even if it’s not Eyal who was ultimately the mole. All I kept thinking while Eyal and Annie were running around together is how much better this show would be if Katee Sackhoff was playing Annie. While it’s possible that Sackhoff might come across as too cocky, the way Piper Perabo said “plenty!” when Eyal questioned her level of field experience made me want to throw up. My critique of CIA protocol for this week is to point out that taking an agent off an active case for him to perform a perfectly-postponeable lie-detector test seems foolhardy and stupid at best. Auggie’s anger at being interrogated helps to make him an interesting character, though from the start he was always much more interesting than all the rest. It’s good to see more of Peter Gallagher, who for some reason isn’t a regular credited cast member, although his messy marriage antics are starting to get a little irritating.