Last week’s penultimate episode of “CIA” dropped one hell of a bombshell: The love of Colin’s life, Toni Napier, didn’t die in the explosion in the Philippines like he had thought. And in Monday’s twisty season finale, she’s seeking revenge on Joanne Kerkering, the CEO of a corporate security firm named Pyramid that’s been selling state secrets for profit.
With the double agent on the run after having killed mole Kevin Turner, finding her and stopping her revenge tour becomes the CIA’s highest priority. But with all of the personal drama unfolding, it’s safe to say that Colin isn’t in the best headspace to take on one of the most stressful missions of his career.
“Colin is a career intelligence officer who has been kept alive by and guided by his gut instincts,” showrunner Mike Weiss tells TVLine, “and when you discover that the woman that you love, whose murder you’ve been investigating for a year, is actually still alive, you can imagine how all of a sudden, you’re not trusting your gut and you’re spiraling. Lucky for Colin, he’s got Bill by his side to steady him. But I think it’s really interesting to see a guy who’s a veteran and a KG intelligence officer have to suddenly second guess every one of his instincts and every one of his calls in the field, even though he has a very important assignment this week, which is: Find this woman and bring her in alive before more people die.”
Toni! Toni! Toni!
The CIA tracks Toni to a Pyramid merger event where she’s holding Joanne at gunpoint. (She thinks Joanne ordered the bombing in Mindanao.) Toni connected the dots about Project Bingham, Harry Tan’s secret mole operation that buys off spies across the globe with Pyramid money. Colin saves Joanne from Toni’s clutches, though Toni says she was protecting Joanne from Harry, who she then shoots dead. But that Pyramid “merger”? It’s more like a takeover. And Harry’s goons are quickly closing in.
After Colin, Bill, Toni, Joanne, and Sarah flee the scene, Toni is put into custody. Only the CIA decides to put her back in the field, much to Colin’s dismay. The organization thinks she’d be more valuable working for them than rotting in prison. So will Toni be a major component of Season 2 when the series returns in the fall?
“I don’t know yet,” Weiss admits. “The actress [Angela Sarafyan] is incredible. She’s both talented and just incredibly lovely to work with. We are gonna write for her as often as we can, and her character has a really cool journey for Season 2, which is, the CIA is a lot of things, but the people that work at the CIA are not dumb. If they are going to put her back into the field, they need to test her and let her win back the trust that she obviously blew up when she vanished a year ago. So her journey back is going to be a journey back to trust and collegiality.”
Moving forward, Colin’s emotional and shocking blow just may shake the guy to his core come next season. But will it affect his ability to trust?
“I hope so. That sounds like good television,” says Weiss. “He has this stated belief that we talked about in episode 102 of ‘CIA,’ which is that relationships slow you down and make you vulnerable. Which I think the audience knows is a load of BS. It’s the kind of thing that you tell yourself when you believe that maybe you don’t deserve happiness and comfort. And so for Colin in Season 2, we’re gonna see him revert back to that harsher, more guarded version of himself. And his Season 2 journey is gonna be about getting back some of that humanity that maybe he has lost in the fallout from Toni’s reappearance.”
Does Bill finally understand the CIA’s tactics?
Also of note, Bill turns down a promotion in Cleveland to stick around and work in the shadows with Colin. (I mean, we still need a show, people!) But what’s his justification for turning down such a valuable and unique offer?
“He says it, and I think he means it completely,” says Weiss. “He’s like, ‘And miss all the fun?’ I think the job at the CIA/FBI fusion cell is more fun and exciting than he could have possibly predicted, and I think Colin was right (even if he was bluffing in Episode 1) where he said that the problems of the world get solved in the shadows, which is where [they] work. And in Season 2, we’re gonna be dealing with that as a theme. Bill’s gonna be wrestling with who he’s meant to be. Was he meant to be a law and order FBI agent, or can he do more good, can he keep America safer, by living and working in the shadows alongside his new friend? I think we know what he’s gonna choose, but he needs to figure out why he chose it.”
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