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Covert Affairs S03E09: "Suffragette City"

I really hope that next week's post-coma rundown includes at least 30 seconds' worth of Annie's pals surrounding her bed while she tells Auggie and Danielle and all the others, "You were there, and YOU were there," straight-up Dorothy Gale-style. Because as soon as I realized that "Suffragette City" consisted largely of a romp through Annie's subconscious, I had to resist the urge to maim my television.

It's just such a tired trope and I always feel like it's weird and out of place on a show that, theoretically, is grounded in something akin to "reality."

Still, thankfully, it wasn't as bad as I feared. And if Annie's adventures in Wonderland were truly indicative of the things that she knows, believes, and thinks about in her subconscious, does that mean that all the eager Annie/Auggie fans out there have gotten the confirmation that they've wanted all this time with that kiss?

While Annie worked through the evidence piled up in her headspace, Auggie and Joan teamed up on the outside to clear Annie's name. Lena finally made her play, running back to the office after taking out Simon and Annie and presenting a whole slew of evidence that painted Annie to look like she had committed treason: the fake passport, a fake off-shore bank account, even the fake sweep drive Lena acquired for Annie on Annie's VERY FIRST MISSION under her leadership. Lena had played her from the very beginning and, unfortunately, after months of bad publicity, including Jai's assassination, the CIA was less-then-thorough in its investigation and eager to pin its woes on Annie.

Auggie and Joan called shenanigans, of course; but, lacking the clearance and the authority to do much to derail Lena's plan, they were forced to work outside their usual channels. It was awesome to see Joan being proactive and badass for once and delightful to see Auggie back to fighting form. We've had depressed Auggie as well as drunk and disorderly Auggie. It's been too long since we've had asskicking Auggie, or, for that matter, crazy-smart detective Auggie. Now that we've cleared Annie's name, can we go back to figuring out who killed Jai? It's only been, like, the whole season.

The devil is in the details and it was the number on Annie's fake passport that ultimately led to Lena's plan for... um... well, Covert Affairs hasn't gotten there yet, so we'll go with "world domination" for now. It's a classic and she's kind of a psycho, so yeah, sure, world domination. Auggie traced the number and learned that it was indeed a fake and it wasn't a fake issued by the CIA, which meant it had to come from an outside "cobbler." Since there are only so many of those in D.C., Auggie figured he could eventually find the responsible party. The one who ended up being a dead body was probably a bit of a tip-off; plus he had his Super Blind Man Skillz.

At the scene of the cobbler's murder, Auggie smelled lavender and heard a diesel engine drive away. Both pieces of evidence were flimsy, but when Lena met him at the hospital to pretend to be concerned about her former protege, Auggie got a whiff of the perfume again. Outed by her lady-fragrance. I wonder how Lena feels about that.

Joan insisted that they couldn't arrest Lena based on her perfume, which was, okay, true, so Auggie turned his attention to the diesel engine he heard. He interviewed the deliveryman who discovered Annie and Simon and realized that the car he spotted was, in fact, Lena's car. Arthur unleashed the hounds just in time to intercept Lena before she could take care of Annie once and for all—I wondered when she would get around to that—and even though Lena ultimately escaped, through the magic of TV medical care, Annie turned out just fine, even though I'm pretty sure defibrillators don't work like that.

Now will someone please call Danielle and let her know her sister almost died? RUDE.

– Lena as "Blackbird" made for the least suspenseful head trip ever, but hey, there was an Annie/Auggie kiss AND I absolutely loved the opening credits homage when Annie stopped to smirk at the camera before swiping her key card.

– Coma Annie walked out of her lie detector test with grumpy Danielle. Auggie sucked at being "a dead mouse" and crashed Lena's charade of a lie detector test in the real world. The moral of this story is that no one on this show is capable of just sitting down and FINISHING one of those things.

– "Billy Collins' poetry is overrated and derivative." Basically.

– What's AWOL Lena's next move?

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Covert Affairs S03E06: "Hello Stranger"

After spending half the season building up the tension between Annie and Simon and Annie and Joan and Annie and...everyone, "Hello Stranger" felt like a throwback to previous seasons of Covert Affairs with its rather cut-and-dry mission and squeaky-clean ending. The Prime Minister of Yemen was admitted to the Mayo Clinic under heavy State Department monitoring to undergo heart surgery. Annie thought that would be a good time to turn his chief of staff, Sayid, into a CIA asset. Despite his protestations, in the end, Annie's dreamy blather about saving the world, one little piece at a time, spoke to the repressed idealist in Sayid and he ended up calling the asset hotline...right after Annie told Joan she requested a transfer out of the department.

Okay, so it wasn't a completely squeaky-clean ending. Still fuming about Eyal being sicced on her in Jerusalem, Annie has basically adopted the "taking my toys and going home" method of coping with her co-workers. At least she didn't go crawling back to Lena.

Does Annie seem just a little off her rocker to anyone else? Sure, she's showing assertion and being proactive, reminding everyone who will listen that she is a fierce spying machine. However, she's also been ignoring orders at an alarming rate, which makes her anger at being reevaluated by her superiors kind of childish. Has Annie always been this impulsive? If not, why the sudden change?

Joan raised a good point during her little chat with Annie when she said that the spy life was good for her, that she was happy in her line of work, but that it isn't for everyone. Annie is an excellent operative, but lots of people are very skilled in positions that they don't particularly enjoy. Could this be the case with Annie? In the past, there was never any doubt that she loved her job and loved what she did, but this season, we've seen Annie grow angrier at the system, unhappy with her current place, and I wonder if she has finally simply burned out.

Meanwhile, Auggie tried to kill his therapist with a blindfold and a cane. Actually, he tried to reach out and teach her how to cross the street as a blind person, theoretically in an attempt to enlighten her to his experience as a man who could once see and found himself forced to adapt to an entirely different way of life as an adult. I'd understand if she thought it was an attempted homicide, though.

Auggie's shrink learned quickly, and in no time at all, she and Auggie were having a grand old time frolicking back and forth across the street. However, she didn't care much for his essential takeover of her session. She pointed out that the lesson was a nifty distraction from talking about Auggie's real issues. He admitted that he once tried to kill himself by wandering into traffic, only to be saved/disappointed by the affected drivers' surprisingly good reflexes. However, Auggie bristled at the idea of examining that incident any deeper than the surface—it happened, he survived, end of story.

Still, the fact that Auggie went to therapy at all should count as some sort of progress considering his doctor gave him her blessing not to come to sessions at all last week. Auggie reached out. He's a control freak. I don't think that being stuck in a room talking about things he'd rather not talk about is an approach that will work for Auggie. At one point, the doctor asked, "Are you always trying to manage people and situations?"

Have you read his job description, lady?

So, how long until Auggie and his hot lady doctor end up doing the naked tango together? It's going to happen. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

– "And you claim this is a free country!" Okay, look dude, I'm not one of those people who gets bent out of shape about where it is and is not acceptable to smoke, but for SURELY even hospitals in Yemen would frown upon lighting up in the ICU?

– This week, Action Annie got to wear scrubs and masquerade as a nurse (or doctor!) to evade capture. In an attempt to mellow some of the angst that seems to have invaded Covert Affairs this season, I propose regular missions involving situation-appropriate costuming. We've had Nurse Action Annie. How about a cop? French maid? French maid is a classic. Maybe she can borrow some of Amy Pond's kissagram costumes?

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