S01.E06: Secrets in Night Need Early Rains

[jenrising]

Season Finale - Available 5/26 on Amazon Prime

[FnkyChkn34]

This must have released early?  Because I watched both it and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Thursday night...

That said, I have no idea what I just watched.  Or why.  Not that I'm actually confused by the plot, but by how this show got made and aired in the first place.  It had huge potential, and then... oh well.  At least Richard Madden is still pretty.  

[WritinMan]

Wow. This show is really bad. Bland and ultimately nothing worthwhile is going on. Shocking considering the money and effort involved.

I won't be watching season 2 and I won't be watching the "next chapter" teased at the end. I've already forgotten the name.

[BellaR]

That was odd. I think that most people guessed from the start that Mason was the traitor. From the start of this episode, it was clear who his mother was. In the plane, while Mason was fighting the undead twin, Carter seemed to let it slip that Citadel erased Mason's memory, but then Carter didn't seem to have any clue that Mason was with Celeste. They really should have explained all of the nonsensical plots, so that they could start fresh with the new chapter/season. I guess if they explained those lapses of logic they would have had to have an explanation for all of the things in this episode that made no sense. 

As WritinMan said, very little actually happened, which is another reason why they should have tightened the episode.

Edited May 26, 2023 by BellaR

[Snazzy Daisy]

Citadel: Diana in 2024? Nope.

Nadia wasn’t the mole. Mason was, but he did it to protect his daughter. Shocking!

Citadel is evil. Shocking! If this organisation is really good at what they’re doing, with their fancy surveillance technologies and gadgets, why the basic & stupid mistake like wrong coordinates? Bad intel?

Dahlia Archer is in fact Mason’s mom. Shocking! We see this coming since episode 2. 🙄  

Am not sure I’ll be coming back for S2. I like Richard Madden in Bodyguard but not in this show.

 

[Constantinople]

This is what happens when you confuse good storytelling with

• explosions
• fight scenes
• flashbacks
• upsidedown camera shots
• "mysteries" for their own sake
• "twists" that undercut the premise or contradict what was said in a previous episode
• two conventionally attractive leads with no chemistry and
• the desire to "create a new franchise rooted in original IP" (Amazon Studio boss, see the Media thread).

I'm also not particularly interested in watching a spy show which amounts to one of the lead characters working out his family issues.

[blackwing]

As a standalone episode, I thought this episode was fantastic.  It had everything that I thought this show was going to be.  Fantastic action sequences.  Spy intrigue.  And a little bit of humour.

I can definitely see from this episode why the series was so expensive.  This episode being the season finale also probably had the most reshoots, and they went all out on the effects/budget.  The parachuting, the submarine, the fight, Davik cutting Mason's tether and he gets stuck on the sticking up part of the sub... all awesome.

I laughed at "You're supposed to actually pull the trigger." / "You just parachute in?" / "Yeah I'm amazing."

It wasn't too hard to guess that Mason was Dahlia's son, especially when we had the flashback of Young Mason (who I honestly thought was a girl, I was trying to figure out which woman on the show was about 38 years old and assumed it was Abby/Celeste).  Not too hard to deduce that Mason was the mole all along.  I really liked how Mason's English accent slowly re-surfaced when he talked to his mom.

There's still a lot of plot holes.  For example, I am positive that Dahlia said that Carter Spence was one of the Citadel agents they had turned to Manticore.  I kept waiting for him to reveal his duplicity, but he seems firmly on Citadel's side.  Abby/Celeste was pretty much turned to Manticore by the good twin, they wiped her memories, but then Stanley Tucci put her with Mason knowing that she had been turned. 

Also, Stanley Tucci, spy extraordinaire, and didn't even know of the relationship between Dahlia and Mason?  I don't buy that he didn't know.  And he must have suspected that Mason was the mole all along.

I hope they have better writing in Season 2.

Citadel: Diana looks to be the European version of Citadel.  Maybe Italy?  I don't much care for Diana's hair (looks like a bad wig that Jennifer Garner would have worn on "Alias") but the scenery looks fantastic.

[Ceindreadh]

I will be interested to see where they go with Season 2.  I did enjoy season 1, I didn't feel like it was a chore to watch.  It was definitely easier on the brain and held my interest more than Rings of Power (which I didn't even finish watching).

Was checking out the imdb.com listing before watching this ep and I noticed an Easter egg/spoiler in the episode titles

Spoiler

Look at the initials of the words and see what they say

 

Edited May 26, 2023 by Ceindreadh

[ottoDbusdriver]

1 hour ago, Ceindreadh said:

Was checking out the imdb.com listing before watching this ep and I noticed an Easter egg/spoiler in the episode titles

  Reveal spoiler

Look at the initials of the words and see what they say

Nice catch !!

[shrewd.buddha]

This could be a textbook example of style over substance.  
It is a series of pretty people in picturesque places engaged in convoluted action sequences..
.. none of which manages to engage me enough to want to watch more.

The upside-down views, time-jumping and amnesia personality/name changing left me with something of headache - and an underlying sense that all the shenanigans were just a distraction: there is nothing behind the curtain.

I have questions:

• What did Dahlia do to Tucci's character after she pulled out his teeth and he gave up the codes?
• Why does Kyle/Abby's daughter look much older than Mason/Nadia's daughter? 
• Are  Manticore minions derived from fruit flies?: Entire batches of them are killed by one or two Citadel agents each episode.
• Can non-manned submarines run for eight years without maintenance?  Why have such huge monitors onboard?
• It only takes four surviving Citadel agents to do the work previously done by over a thousand?  

Edited May 27, 2023 by shrewd.buddha

[Snazzy Daisy]

No wonder young Mason looks so familiar.

The young actor - Audie Rick was also in 1883. He played young John Dutton Sr. 

[SonofaBiscuit]

Yeah…this wasn’t great (and I’m pretty easy to please!).

Priyanka Chopra Jonas’ acting was as expected, but I thought Richard Madden would be much better than he was (I am familiar with him but haven’t really watched anything he was in).

The time and location jumps coupled with racing through plot lines was just too chaotic. Like, there were elements that could have been interesting, but the show rushed through them to tell a story that was at times predictable, while also kinda boring?

WTH, both Mason and Priyanka in the Declassified thing referenced Nadia being Mason’s wife. LOL, I don’t remember that happening. I recall her leaving the ring and walking away…That was bizarre.

Like I said, I’m easy to please and would have been happy watching a sexy spy series where a Scottish, amnesiac Mason Kane falls in love with his partner again, while occasionally remembering bits and pieces of their past 🤷🏻‍♀️

[magdalene]

I have been re-watching Rome because of Ray Stevenson's passing and thought I should squeeze in the Citadel finale to finish the season and that was a mistake. It wasn't good to have the reminder what good story-telling and good acting look like when watching Citadel.

I just don't care about the plot and any of these people. I am not going to watch a second season or this Italian variation.

[Artsda]

I'm confused. So Nadia and Mason did marry? So his 2nd one would not be real 

Mason wife has known who he is entire time and lied to him, he should be more angry? 

 

[FnkyChkn34]

15 hours ago, SonofaBiscuit said:

Priyanka Chopra Jonas’ acting was as expected, but I thought Richard Madden would be much better than he was (I am familiar with him but haven’t really watched anything he was in).

I really like him in the few things that I've seen him in - I recommend Bodyguard and Rocketman, or the first 2 seasons of Game of Thrones (he has a smaller role in that, but still good).  Klondike wasn't bad either, and Eternals is better than the reviews, IMO.  I have yet to check out Medici and 1917, but I hear they are pretty good too.  

[Mirabelle]

We know this series had a lot of rewriting and reshoots so I wonder if Nadia and Mason being married was in an early version and that detail just didn't get fixed in the rewrites/reshoots. Especially if the only reference to it is in the last episode, the producers may have decided it wasn't worth the extra time and money to reshoot that scene between Mason and his mother or to re-edit that Declassified episode. 

I caught Mason referring to Nadia as his wife but I assume that was just how he felt about her. 

[shrewd.buddha]

23 hours ago, SonofaBiscuit said:

WTH, both Mason and Priyanka in the Declassified thing referenced Nadia being Mason’s wife. LOL, I don’t remember that happening. I recall her leaving the ring and walking away…That was bizarre.

We have watched a few of the "Declassified" extras:  they really are very WtF - - the actors and producers appear to be talking about scripts that have yet to be shot..? 
There is no sense that they have seen the final product: the botched, Frankenstein-ed result of the supposedly massive reshoots and re-edits.  Maybe in some version of the show Mason and Nadia did marry. 

Edited May 28, 2023 by shrewd.buddha

[CarpeFelis]

WTF, writers?! Nadia’s heartbeat is up to 350 beats per minute? 350, really?! I don’t think that’s humanly possible.

And Dahlia turns out to be Mason’s mother… is this supposed to be a spy thriller or a soap?

[catherinejane]

when they were all in the Original Citadel HQ at the end (Nadia and Mason plus his current wife and child, there was a a lady with hair in long plait in a few scenes, behind them, but no idea who that was.

(maybe either Ex wife of Stanley T or their 16/17 year old child?)

overall silly but i watched.

I assume Mason's new wife didn't know anything, she never had her memory restored, only Mason did. Still not sure if kid of both of theirs was actually their kid (they met/married/had kid very quickly after both losing all memories!)

 

[StarBrand]

Finished this up tonight, because I was curious about it.

It was entertaining enough, but nothing that left a lasting impression-it certainly didn't offer up anything I had not seen before.  "Rabbit Hole" at least gave me a surprise or three. I highly recommend that, actually.

The only thing I liked much was Tucchi's character.  I can't really explain why, but I liked whenever he showed up (and what the hell happened to him after he gave out the codes-I'm suspecting that's being left until S2-not sure if I'll be watching..)

On 5/29/2023 at 10:18 AM, catherinejane said:

I assume Mason's new wife didn't know anything, she never had her memory restored, only Mason did. Still not sure if kid of both of theirs was actually their kid (they met/married/had kid very quickly after both losing all memories!)

--Mason made sure she could never have her memories restored, by destroying her backup, or never making one in the first place, I forget.

 

 

Edited June 11, 2023 by StarBrand

[HerkyJerky]

15 hours ago, StarBrand said:

t was entertaining enough, but nothing that left a lasting impression-it certainly didn't offer up anything I had not seen before.  "Rabbit Hole" at least gave me a surprise or three. I highly recommend that, actually.

AGREED!