Editor's note: The following article contains spoilers for Citadel Episodes 1 and 2.

After years of waiting, the first two episodes of Citadel are finally available on Prime Video. Produced by the Russo Brothers, Citadel is the first chapter of an intertwined spy thriller story that will expand toward multiple international series, including spinoffs set in Italy, Mexico, and India. And since the main U.S. series was already renewed before the premiere of the first episodes, we can say that Amazon Studios is betting a lot of money on the Russo Brothers' intriguing project. Unfortunately, the first two episodes of Citadel are somewhat disappointing. That’s because, while the series lays the foundations over which many stories can be told, the core conflict between Citadel and Manticore feels too simplistic for a spy thriller.

What Is Citadel?

Richard Madden as Mason Kane in Season 1 of CItadel
Image via Prime Video

The first two episodes of Citadel introduce the series leading stars, Richard Madden as Mason Kane and Priyanka Chopra Jonas as Nadia Sinh. Mason and Nadia are part of a spy organization called Citadel, which gets destroyed by the villainous Manticore after a single scene. In the opening scene of Citadel, Mason and Nadia are attacked by Manticore agents, barely escaping alive. In addition, to prevent Citadel secrets from falling into the wrong hands, the organization tech-genius Bernard Orlick (Stanley Tucci) activates a special chip implanted in the agents’ brains, erasing their memories. Mason and Nadia's amnesia allows the series to jump eight years in the future when Bernard is all left from Citadel and Manticore rules the world. It also gives the series the perfect excuse to explain to the audience what the heck is happening.

As Bernard tells Mason and the viewers, Citadel is a network created to counter the potentially destructive actions of other spy agencies. Since each of these agencies works for the interest of their home country, across history, spies have been responsible for causing wars, spreading misinformation, and murdering people for national interests. That’s why, a century before the series began, a group of spies from different countries joined forces to create Citadel, an agency loyal to no nation and only interested in the greater good and keeping the world peace. As Bernard humbly puts it, Citadel has helped to shape every event for good since its creation. In short, Citadel is the unquestionable hero of the story, opposed only by Manticore.

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What Is Manticore?

Lesley Manville as Dahlia Archer in Citadel Season 1.
Image via Prime Video 

Similar to Citadel, Manticore is also a secret spy network that doesn’t serve any nation in particular. However, Manticore was created by a group of eight wealthy families to serve their selfish quest for power. Coming from the U.S., Brazil, Mexico, China, South Korea, Italy, Germany and France, these families used their vast resources to hire an army of spies that follows their ruthless orders to the letter.

Manticore emerged eight years before the series’ main events when one mysterious Citadel spy sold the organization out. As a result, Manticore took over the world, controlling every national spy agency from the shadows. And in the eight years since Manson and Nadia lost their memories, Manticore has been funding terrorist attacks worldwide, killing thousands of innocent people.

The Citadel vs. Manticore Conflict Feels Too Shallow

richard madden and priyanka chopra jonas in citadel

It’s easy to understand why Citadel presents its titular network and Manticore as the obvious heroes and villains of the story. By making it clear to the audience who they should be cheering for, Citadel ensures any fans watching the many spinoffs being developed won’t have to do homework to learn who are the bad guys. So, having a clear team of heroes and villains sounds like a perfect way to build a sprawling franchise, as it sets the main player for any kind of story the creative minds working on the spinoffs want to tell. However, we are dealing with a spy thriller here, a genre that thrives in a world that’s gray, not black and white.

What makes spy thrillers so enticing is that we are forced to keep questioning everyone’s alliances since everyone involved in the spy game was trained to lie and manipulate each other. In addition, since each spy agency has to protect its interests above any individual, the heroes of spy thrillers are frequently sold out by their own teams. Finally, since international geopolitics is so complicated, spy thrillers show how different people can have their own idea of what it’s best for the world, which usually leads to ethical disputes and morally ambiguous decisions. All these elements are not random, as they increase the atmosphere of paranoia and doubt that we need to keep engaged in a spy story. Without that, a spy thriller is nothing more than an action story with cool gadgets.

Stanley Tucci as Bernard Orlick in Season 1 of CItadel
Image via Prime Video

While setting Citadel as heroes and Manticore as villains, the first episodes of Citadel undermine the spy thriller concept it’s trying to sell. Instead of a complex story where multiple players try to get ahead of each other, we have two forces with clear goals punching each other until one falls. It’s a shallow approach to spy thrillers that throws away genre conventions in favor of practicality. And to make things worse, Citadel takes one step further to paint every Manticore agent as a deeply corrupted individual.

In the first two episodes of Citadel, we are introduced to Dahlia Archer (Lesley Manville), a UK ambassador in the U.S. who secretly works for Manticore. Dahlia is keen to torture, promises to kill children, and rejoices in threatening a journalist. While the Citadel vs. Manticore dynamics could be subverted further in the series, the antagonists have been checking every box into the evil villain list, making them irredeemable and their actions impossible to relativize. The same can be said about Dahlia’s henchmen, twins Anders Silje and Davik Silje (Roland Møller), who are presented as cold-blood killers who take joy in their work. As a result, regardless of what secrets Mason and Dalia are hiding, there’s no way to sympathize with Manticore.

Layered villains are necessary for any good story, but spy thrillers need them even more to keep us guessing who’s the real enemy. Unfortunately, so far, Citadel failed to leave a good impression, as the first two episodes present a world that’s too simple and shallow to keep us engaged.

New episodes of Citadel come to Prime Video every Friday.