Covert Affairs: Difference between revisions

** Joan doesn't show it much since she is no longer a regular field agent, but in ''Welcome to the Occupation'' she and another agent take five armed kidnappers down while being unarmed.

* [[All Women Love Shoes]]: Annie's cover story to go back to the scene of the shooting is that she wants to retrieve her Louboutins.

* [[Badass Israeli]]: Annie's contact in the fourth episode.

** Eyal Lavin makes a return appearance in season 2. And is again badass.

* [[Cunning Linguist]]: Annie speaks 6 languages fluently: English, Russian, German, Spanish, Hebrew, and Portuguese, and she knows enough Turkish "to get by." It's one of the reasons she was recruited into the CIA.

** She also apparently knows at least some Italian as well, because in one episode she has to trade an Italian journalist for an American spy and she completely understands his ranting and even responds in Italian. She also understands Arabic, but she can only speak the cuss words. Estonian is her only weakness as she knows only the cuss words and not much else.

{{quote| '''Auggie''': And leave me all alone?<br />

'''Annie''': Oh please, there'll be a pretty woman next to you before I even cross the bar.<br />

* [[Everything Is Online]]: The premise of "Communications Breakdown".

* [[Expy]]: It takes a while but you start to realize that the show has included several expies of famous fictional spies that Annie bumps into. Ben is Jason Bourne while Eyal, the Israeli spy that's appeared twice is a bit of James Bond.

* [[Fake Defector]]: Subverted, they thought someone was this in episode 2.

* [[Fake-Out Make-Out]]: Sort of. In "Bang and Blame" when {{spoiler|Annie is caught in Gaskin's office, Auggie comes in (shirtless of course) and pretends they were just getting it on - on Gaskin's sofa. Once they leave, Gaskin can only look at his sofa and squick.}}

* [[Government Agency of Fiction]]: The Domestic Protection Division. Notable since the CIA is a foreign intelligence service yet for obvious reasons the show takes place mostly in the States. Something of [[Truth in Television]] as the CIA has 90% of its employees in the States. Most of whom are likely support for the operatives, analysts for the information, management/administration, or counter-intelligence rather than any sort of shadowy internal espionage thing (which, as mentioned above, is the FBI's purview).

* [[Handicapped Badass]]: '''Auggie'''. Just all the way through. He's the one who teaches Annie grappling, for one thing.

** Two years ago, {{spoiler|Jai was Ben's, in Sri Lanka}}.

* [[Hero of Another Story]]: Whenever Annie teams up with a foreign agent for an episode, they're either this or [[The Mole]]. Examples include [[Badass Israeli|Eyal Levin]], [[CIA Evil, FBI Good|Agent Frank Rasabi]], and [[Hot Scoop|that Italian guy from the Argentina Episode]].

* [[I Am Not My Father]]: Keep telling yourself that, Jai.

* [[Idiosyncratic Episode Naming]]: With the exception of the pilot, each season's episodes are named after songs in one artist's canon:

** Season 2: [[REM]] ("Begin the Begin," "Bang and Blame," etc.)

* [[I Have No Son]]: {{spoiler|Henry Wilcox to Jai. Jai's response? "I guess I don't have a father, then."}}

* [[Incredibly Obvious Bug]]: {{spoiler|An MI-6 double agent}} plants one on Annie's phone.

** Not that obvious, since it was a black half-inch sticker.

* [[Lampshade Hanging]]: "The IRA? Really? Is this 1987?"

* [[MacGyvering]]

* [[Moe Stare]] : Annie. What a gorgeous smile!

* [[Nerds Are Virgins]]: Awesomely subverted with Auggie, who is most certainly a ladies' man.

* [[Overt Operative]]: Annie seems to give out her real name to EVERYONE, which is actually Standard Operating Procedure for the CIA (and most intelligence agencies in general). One's "cover" usually does not consist of a fake identity but rather simply [[Spy From Weights and Measures|lying about one's job]]. It's too easy for a competent foreign agency to uncover an entirely false identity, and (more importantly) it can often be difficult to ''remember'' who you're supposed to be (especially for a newbie). In practice, it really is enough to say that you work for (for instance) the Smithsonian under your real name. They've handled it quite well.

* [[Part-Time Hero]]: Sort of but considering her normal job is a CIA operative, it's not really a part time thing.

* [["Previously On..."]]: Started popping up late in the season, so that the viewers were reminded of the [[Myth Arc]].

* [[Product Placement]]: The people behind the camera have yet to figure out how to do this subtly, so it can be kind of painful to watch at times.

* [[Shown Their Work]]: They might play fast and loose with the CIA stuff, but Christopher Gorham has been going out of his way to do the research to accurately portray a blind person, including spending time at the Canada National Institute of the Blind.

** At the same time, some of the smaller details are fairly accurate. For instance, CIA agents are always referred to as operatives and case workers.

** The executive producer of the show is Doug Liman, who is also responsible for ''The Bourne Trilogy.'' In one of the preview videos before the show debuted, he likened the show to seeing what happened to Jason Bourne in between the movies.

* [[The Spock]]: Riva, with shades of [[Straw Vulcan]].