Seriously, can there ever be too many spy series on TV? No such thing.
Especially in the streaming age, these shows are particularly apt to be binged, and every variety of current spy series — from The Night Agent to Slow Horses — proves that viewers cannot get enough of their espionage addiction. Now, those wintery True Detective fourth-season vibes are already returning with a must-see show starring Elisabeth Moss, who cannot seem to quit Hulu or FX.
The Handmaid’s Tale star gets to whip out her inner secret agent in The Veil, so let’s get down to what we can expect from this series.
Plot
Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders, Taboo) created and wrote this (officially, but we’ll see) limited series about MI6 agent Imogen Salter (Moss), whose name evokes Angelina Jolie’s double-agent character (Evelyn Salt) of yesteryear, but the two are apparently of no association. As Moss recently told Vanity Fair, Knight initially described the lead character as “playing 100 different roles and being 100 different people–how she was a shape-shifter–and how that was a good thing, not a cover for something else.”
As such, Salter jumps from alias to alias, and her life becomes intertwined with another woman, Adilah El Idrissi (Yumna Marwan), who is suspected of being “a notorious ISIS commander.” Salter works to get her to a safer place, which leads them roaring across Europe with the help of multiple intelligence agencies. Motives and true backgrounds remain unclear, and their dynamic grows more complex, which apparently acts as a metaphor of international relations in its current chaotic incarnation.
As well, it’s not quite clear from the below trailer if these two will ever trust each other, or if the audience can trust them, either. If that wasn’t enough, Knight described the series (to Vanity Fair) as being partially inspired by “Thelma and Louise–the way that the journey reveals the character,” so it’s a road-trip story in a sense. From the show’s synopsis:
FX’s The Veil is an international spy thriller that explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret, the other a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. In the shadows, mission controllers at the CIA and French DGSE must put differences aside and work together to avert potential disaster.
Cast
Elisabeth Moss stars as Imogen Salter, and fellow cast members include Yumna Marwan, Josh Charles, Dali Benssalah, Alec Secareanu, and James Purefoy.
Release Date
The Veil debuts on Hulu on April 30 with two episodes and weekly editions.
Trailer
Moss with a British accent — who could resist?