CIA Season 1 Episode 11 Takes a Page from Tyrion Lannister’s Book to Catch the Mole

Critic’s Rating: 3.6 / 5.0

3.6

With just one more episode of CIA Season 1 to go, the series had to start closing in on the mole.

As the potential mole was narrowed down to three people, there was only one way for Colin and Bill to sniff out the right person.

They took a page out of Game of Thrones’ book, and it seemed to work out in a way they weren’t expecting.

Much More Than a Standard Case of the Week

At first, the case of the week on CIA Season 1 Episode 11 felt boring and a waste of time.

It seemed to be there just to offer some more backstory for Colin, which should have come up earlier in the season.

Then things took a turn while Colin and Bill hunted down a man named Sandy.

Sandy was the man who pulled Colin into the CIA world, and he had other assets out there that he was trying to protect from someone called the “Forbidden Eye.”

After the death of one of his assets, Nora, Sandy is more focused than ever on getting information on this man after those he has trained and helped.

Finding out that he was after the wrong translation reminds us of how many languages have words that sound the same but can have different meanings.

We tend to say that the English language is confusing and difficult to learn, and while that is the case, it’s not the only one.

Sandy was searching for the “Forbidden Eye,” when the same word meant “Eye of the Pyramid.”

And so, it connected right back to the mole arc, bringing us all the way back to Pyramid Securities.

It was a quick way to manage it all, but I still think it was too little, too late. 

We could have had a great buildup to the mole being revealed, and instead, CIA has had to fit it all into a couple of episodes due to the initial slow buildup.

One thing that this does is bring out all the secrets Colin has been keeping.

Sarah learns the truth about Colin’s role in the CIA, but that’s not what stings the most.

Colin takes his own advice to Sandy about telling the truth, but it’s a great twist on it.

While Colin encouraged Sandy to tell his wife the full truth about being part of the CIA for the 50 years of their marriage, Colin makes it clear to Sarah that there were never any real feelings.

It’s rare for something like this to happen.

Usually, a spy series will see an agent fall for his mark over time as he gets to know her, but Colin was 100% honest about this one.

As much as it hurt, it was a necessary blow. The job was done, and this was the best way for Colin to make a clean break.

CIA Pulls a Game of Thrones With a Needed Twist

I had worried that CIA was going to go the most obvious route with the mole, making it Nikki.

It didn’t make sense in terms of casting, but there was never any real hint that it could be anyone else.

This is where the writing has failed on CIA.

While we need red herrings, we also need clues as to who is really behind something. Otherwise, it feels like the storyline wasn’t planned out until the very end.

I’ve said repeatedly that I feel like the constant change in showrunners has created issues for the storytelling, and I can’t help but feel that’s the case here.

In the end, it wasn’t Nikki at all.

After all this focus on it being her, Lim narrowed it down to three people. 

They were the only ones with access to all the information that had been leaked to Pyramid.

What’s the best way to get to the bottom of it? Tell everyone something slightly different, and in this case, it was the color of the stroller involved in the intel.

While this has been used since the dawn of time, I always think of it as a Tyrion Lannister move on Game of Thrones, and it works every single time.

It didn’t work exactly as planned in this case; it did reveal the mole.

Of course, it was Turner. Who else could it be but one of the supporting characters we’ve not really gotten to know and don’t really care about?

He finally figured out that someone was onto him, but by that point, it was too late for him.

I would have loved to have seen this arc continue for at least one more episode. 

It would have been so much stronger with the hint that it could have been him or Zeeb, rather than constantly pushing the idea that it was Nikki.

We could have even seen him attempting to cover his tracks, making the idea of him being the mole more realistic.

CIA had to wrap the arc up quickly, though, and it does lead to a much bigger situation.

After Turner is killed in his hospital bed — because Bill was not allowing him to die from Colin stabbing him — the two need to get to the bottom of this “doctor” who walked into the room.

It wasn’t a doctor at the hospital, of course.

The whole reason Bill and Colin needed to keep Turner alive was to get answers about Pyramid and the bigger threat there, but people there were always going to act to keep their secret.

What I don’t understand is how Colin and Bill didn’t even consider that someone from Pyramid or within this bigger conspiracy could move to kill Turner to keep their secret.

It’s frustrated me that Colin and Bill have often been written as not being the sharpest tool in the shed, but I guess that wouldn’t have allowed for the shock reveal.

What most people likely didn’t expect was for the “doctor” to be Toni, Colin’s former partner, who died.

The way Colin has always described the death, he was there for it, so he never had a reason to question her death.

This could be the time to get some sort of flashback to really feel like there was something between them.

I was looking out for some sort of big blow against Colin, though.

Sandy had said that solving a case often leads the agents to pay for that sin, and this is the payback against Colin.

He needs to learn that the woman he loved lied to him and faked her death.

While with Sandy’s secret, his wife would likely eventually understand.

Is there even an explanation for Toni telling this lie and hurting Colin so much? How far does love go?

It leaves CIA on an interesting point as we move into the Season 1 finale.

Don’t forget that the CIA Season 1 finale will air an hour earlier than normal, at 9/8c, on CBS.

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