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The spies on TV this fall are juggling work and family – just like the rest of us

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The spies on TV this fall are juggling work and family – just like the rest of us

On the new Netflix series Black Doves, Keira Knightley plays the wife of a politician and a mom to cute kids. She’s also an undercover spy, secretly feeding a covert intelligence agency information about her husband’s job.

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In Netflix’s new spy series Black Doves, Keira Knightley’s character Helen Webb seems to be the perfect wife and partner for an up-and-coming official in the British government.

Beautiful and intelligent, she’s a warm mother to two cute kids, capable of hosting a holiday party for her husband’s staff in one moment and coercing the children to stop playing underneath a table in the next.

But Mrs. Webb is also a spy for a mysterious intelligence organization, feeding them information about her husband’s work all while managing the family’s affairs – and having an affair with another man. And when that affair is discovered by a “handler” from the organization – played with a matronly ruthlessness by Sarah Lancashire – she mostly has one question for Mrs. Webb:

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Why was she sleeping with this man?

Mrs. Webb’s answer was a surprise, coming from an experienced spy. “I wasn’t working an angle,” she says through tears. “It was real. It wasn’t a job. It was…love.”

That’s right. After 10 years of marriage and two kids, Mrs. Webb fell in love with someone else while trying to decide if she still cares for her husband.

It’s a deliciously dramatic situation far different than the stories of detached, mostly loner spies like James Bond and Mission Impossible‘s Ethan Hunt.

Spies with families fill fall TV

Sure, there have been spy characters with families in films and TV before, from Harrison Ford’s turn as Jack Ryan in 1992’s Patriot Games to FX’s The Americans, which concluded in 2018.

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But this fall has seen a veritable flood of stories about spies with spouses and children, trying to hold onto their families while balancing the demands of brutal, often dehumanizing jobs.

In The Agency, Michael Fassbender plays Martian, a spy who returns home after a lengthy assignment.

In The Agency, Michael Fassbender plays Martian, a spy who returns home after a lengthy assignment.

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Luke Varley/Paramount+ and Showtime

There’s Michael Fassbender’s CIA case officer Martian — I know, that name seems a little odd — in Showtime’s new series The Agency. He’s trying to reconnect with a teen daughter named Poppy (India Fowler) who wants to know why he was gone so much during his last assignment.

She asks if he got information from people by making friends with them.

“Friends are people you like,” Martian replies, wryly. “[These are more like] acquaintances.”

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Poppy’s reply: “So you left us for six years to make…acquaintances?”

Ouch. Even bad guys have these issues. Like Eddie Redmayne’s character, an expert assassin in Peacock’s new series The Day of The Jackal. He’s married to a woman named Nuria (Úrsula Corberó) who suspects he’s having an affair because he’s so secretive. She has no idea her charming husband, who she knows as Charles, is actually a world-famous hitman.

By the time she’s discovered the secret room he built in their home for his disguises, multiple passports and assorted weapons, you’re left wondering why she doesn’t just run for the hills.

In The Day of the Jackal, Nuria (Úrsula Corberó) suspects her husband, who she knows as Charles (Eddie Redmayne), is having an affair. He's actually a world-famous hitman. In this photo still, he tries to reassure her.

In The Day of the Jackal, Nuria (Úrsula Corberó) suspects her husband, who she knows as Charles (Eddie Redmayne), is having an affair. He’s actually a world-famous hitman.

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Spies with families are popping up in lots of series: Paramount+’s Lioness. Apple TV+’s Slow Horses. And the trend makes sense; for TV series looking to stretch compelling ideas across eight or ten episodes, the plotlines generated by family conflict can add a wealth of new storylines.

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Each of these shows deftly uses spouses, children and loved ones to present a kind of spy thriller that feels different, with characters drawn so viewers can perhaps see a bit of themselves inside.

Everyday problems writ large

Their struggles can sometimes feel like ordinary challenges blown up into world-shaking espionage tales: spouses and children who don’t understand their demanding jobs, devotion to a vocation that damages them and their relationships, a growing sense of shame as their work keeps them from being present for the family.

These characters, even the villains, aren’t necessarily cold blooded killers. Nothing humanizes a character like seeing them care for someone they love. Indeed, that’s often the difference between anti-heroes and villains in such stories – the villains don’t really love anybody but themselves, while anti-heroes are driven by their connections to other people.

Even as you watch Redmayne’s The Jackal kill a gun maker to keep him from talking to the authorities, part of you is rooting for him to get back to Nuria and their son Carlito.

Particularly in the case of Black Doves, the romantic and family relationships add a significant layer to almost every major character’s arc – including Ben Whishaw, who plays a hitman acting as muscle for Knightley’s character Mrs. Webb. He also struggles with feelings about the family he could have shared with his own ex-boyfriend, who had a child.

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Sure, there are times when these setups seem preposterous or overwrought. But spies with families are also passionate and oh-so-human. Which, in the end, makes for the very best kind of spy story.

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In ‘No Other Choice,’ a loyal worker gets the ax — and starts chopping

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In ‘No Other Choice,’ a loyal worker gets the ax — and starts chopping

Lee Byung-hun stars in No Other Choice.

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In an old Kids in the Hall comedy sketch called “Crazy Love,” two bros throatily proclaim their “love of all women” and declare their incredulity that anyone could possibly take issue with it:

Bro 1: It is in our very makeup; we cannot change who we are!

Bro 2: No! To change would mean … (beat) … to make an effort.

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I thought about that particular exchange a lot, watching Park Chan-wook’s latest movie, a niftily nasty piece of work called No Other Choice. The film isn’t about the toxic lecherousness of boy-men, the way that KITH sketch is. But it is very much about men, and that last bit: the annoyed astonishment of learning that you’re expected to change something about yourself that you consider essential, and the extreme lengths you’ll go to avoid doing that hard work.

Many critics have noted No Other Choice‘s satirical, up-the-minute universality, given that it involves a faceless company screwing over a hardworking, loyal employee. As the film opens, Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) has been working at a paper factory for 25 years; he’s got the perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect family — you see where this is going, right? (If you don’t, even after the end of the first scene, when Man-su calls his family over for a group hug while sighing, “I’ve got it all,” then I envy your blithe disinterest in how movies work. Never change, you beautiful blissful Pollyanna, you.)

He gets canned, and can’t seem to find another job in his beloved paper industry, despite going on a series of dehumanizing interviews. His resourceful wife Miri (Son Ye-jin) proves a hell of a lot more adaptable than he does, making practical changes to the family’s expenses to weather Man-su’s situation. But when foreclosure threatens, he resolves to eliminate the other candidates (Lee Sung-min, Cha Seung-won) for the job he wants at another paper factory — and, while he’s at it, maybe even the jerk (Park Hee-soon) to whom he’d be reporting.

So yes, No Other Choice is a scathing spoof of corporate culture. But the director’s true satirical eye is trained on the interpersonal — specifically the intractability of the male ego.

Again and again, the women in the film (both Son Ye-jin as Miri and the hilarious Yeom Hye-ran, who plays the wife of one of Man-su’s potential victims) entreat their husbands to think about doing something, anything else with their lives. But these men have come to equate their years of service with a pot-committed core identity as men and breadwinners; they cling to their old lives and seek only to claw their way back into them. Man-su, for example, unthinkingly channels the energy that he could devote to personal and professional growth into planning and executing a series of ludicrously sloppy murders.

It’s all satisfyingly pulpy stuff, loaded with showy, cinematic homages to old-school suspense cinematography and editing — cross-fades, reverse-angles and jump cuts that are deliberately and unapologetically Hitchcockian. That deliberateness turns out to be reassuring and crowd-pleasing; if you’re tired of tidy visual austerity, of films that look like TV, the lushness on display here will have you leaning back in your seat thinking, “This right here is cinema, goddammit.”

Narratively, the film is loaded with winking jokes and callbacks that reward repeat viewing. Count the number of times that various characters attempt to dodge personal responsibility by sprinkling the movie’s title into their dialogue. Wonder why one character invokes the peculiar image of a madwoman screaming in the woods and then, only a few scenes later, finds herself chasing someone through the woods, screaming. Marvel at Man-su’s family home, a beautifully ugly blend of traditional French-style architecture with lumpy Brutalist touches like exposed concrete balconies jutting out from every wall.

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There’s a lot that’s charming about No Other Choice, which might seem an odd thing to note about such a blistering anti-capitalist screed. But the director is careful to remind us at all turns where the responsibility truly lies; say what you will about systemic economic pressure, the blood stays resolutely on Man-su’s hands (and face, and shirt, and pants, and shoes). The film repeatedly offers him the ability to opt out of the system, to abandon his resolve that he must return to the life he once knew, exactly as he knew it.

Man-su could do that, but he won’t, because to change would mean to make an effort — and ultimately men would rather embark upon a bloody murder spree than go to therapy.

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Austin airport to nearly double in size over next decade

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Austin airport to nearly double in size over next decade

Austin-Bergstrom International Airport will nearly double in size over the next decade. 

The airport currently has 34 gates. With the expansion projects, it will increase by another 32 gates. 

What they’re saying:

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Southwest, Delta, United, American, Alaska, FedEx, and UPS have signed 10-year use-and lease agreements, which outline how they operate at the airport, including with the expansion. 

“This provides the financial foundation that will support our day-to-day operations and help us fund the expansion program that will reshape how millions of travelers experience AUS for decades to come,” Ghizlane Badawi, CEO of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, said.

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Concourse B, which is in the design phase, will have 26 gates, estimated to open in the 2030s. Southwest Airlines will be the main tenant with 18 gates, United Airlines will have five gates, and three gates will be for common use. There will be a tunnel that connects to Concourse B.

“If you give us the gates, we will bring the planes,” Adam Decaire, senior VP of Network Planning & Network Operations Control at Southwest Airlines said.

“As part of growing the airport, you see that it’s not just us that’s bragging about the success we’re having. It’s the airlines that want to use this airport, and they see advantage in their business model of being part of this airport, and that’s why they’re growing the number of gates they’re using,” Mayor Kirk Watson said.

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Dig deeper:

The airport will also redevelop the existing Barbara Jordan Terminal, including the ticket counters, security checkpoints, and baggage claim. Concourse A will be home to Delta Air Lines with 15 gates. American Airlines will have nine gates, and Alaska Airlines will have one gate. There will be eight common-use gates.

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“Delta is making a long-term investment in Austin-Bergstrom that will transform travel for years to come,” Holden Shannon, senior VP for Corporate Real Estate at Delta Air Lines said.

The airport will also build Concourse M — six additional gates to increase capacity as early as 2027. There will be a shuttle between that and the Barbara Jordan Terminal. Concourse M will help with capacity during phases of construction. 

There will also be a new Arrivals and Departures Hall, with more concessions and amenities. They’re also working to bring rideshare pickup closer to the terminal.

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City officials say these projects will bring more jobs. 

The expansion is estimated to cost $5 billion — none of which comes from taxpayer dollars. This comes from airport revenue, possible proceeds, and FAA grants.

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“We’re seeing airlines really step up to ensure they are sharing in the infrastructure costs at no cost to Austin taxpayers, and so we’re very excited about that as well,” Council Member Vanessa Fuentes (District 2) said.

The Source: Information from interviews conducted by FOX 7 Austin’s Angela Shen

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After years of avoiding the ER, Noah Wyle feels ‘right at home’ in ‘The Pitt’

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After years of avoiding the ER, Noah Wyle feels ‘right at home’ in ‘The Pitt’

Wyle, who spent 11 seasons on ER, returns to the hospital in The Pitt. Now in Season 2, the HBO series has earned praise for its depiction of the medical field. Originally broadcast April 21, 2025.

Hear The Original Interview

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