With Colin wheeling and dealing like he’s on a solo mission, how can Bill build trust with his CIA counterpart? How will he — or even the viewers — be able to see through the deceit and believe what he says?
“I think that’s part of the entertainment and enjoyment of the show,” says Ellis. “You want to trust this character on screen, but you start to learn by watching him that you can’t always trust what he’s saying. I think that plays into the way that we shoot the show. The CIA is essentially like a voyeuristic agency. Their job is to watch and get information and intelligence. And I think that we want our audience to have a similar experience in some ways, so the way it’s been shot, it’s not straight on-camera work all the time. You’re kind of watching from a hidden place. It feels like you’re observing something maybe you shouldn’t be.
“I want the audience to root for Colin and Bill, but I also want them to be left guessing about Colin and what he’s saying, because we don’t want him to be a black and white hero; the CIA works in this gray ambiguity, yes, trying for the greater good, but they have to do some pretty dark stuff to get there.”
When the team (I guess we can call them that?) finally gets in touch with Adrián, they learn he’s been duped by a notorious arms dealer named Saul Obregón. Adrián wasn’t trying to sell a weapon; rather, he wrote the software that could detect and disrupt the frequencies of directed energy attacks, thereby blocking what Critical Devices had weaponized. He wanted to expose his employer and keep people safe. Obregón — who’s very much not the journalist Adrián thought he was meeting — eventually gets hold of the flash drive obtained in the opening, and with that software, can now harness the weapon. Meanwhile, Colin and Bill continue to squawk at each other. Colin says the only reason he needs Bill is so that he can legally work in the States. “The FBI closes cases. We keep the world safe,” Colin says. After he exits, Adrián tells Bill about the lengths Colin went to keep him and Bobby safe, which seems to soften Bill’s harsh first impression of his newfound CIA frenemy.
Obregón plans to demonstrate the weapon over New York City by targeting the U.N. Secretary General’s helicopter. After that, he plans on selling the dangerous tech to the highest bidder. Thankfully, Colin and Bill are able to thwart the attack and apprehend Obregón before anything can go boom.
Despite the lies and bumpy start, the two men spark a “begrudging mutual respect” between them, says Ellis.
“It’s one of those things where it’s like, ‘God, if I didn’t think you were such a d*ck then we could be friends,’ sort of thing,” the actor says. “I think by the end of that episode they’ve realized that actually, they are quite formidable together, and they’re just gonna have to get through the fact that they’ve got these personality clashes in order to service their work. But I think for both of them, what they do and the end result of what they do is so important to them that they are prepared to bite the bullet.”
As for the future of this partnership, don’t expect smooth sailing just because they’ve got a case under their belt.
“A lot of the season is set up [around] the fact that Bill is straight-laced and very steadfast, and Colin is this kind of enigmatic character that can float in and out,” says Ellis. “You’re never quite sure where you’re at with him. One of the big things that happens in Season 1 is you realize that Bill isn’t everything that you think he might be. And Colin doesn’t realize that Bill isn’t everything you think he might be. And so there is certainly a clash in the future.”
As if the men didn’t have enough on their plates, Jubal tells Bill that FBI counterintelligence believes there’s a mole in the CIA’s New York operation. Now, it’s Bill’s job to find him or her, “no matter how deep they’re burrowed in.”
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