• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, December 12, 2022

The action scenes in Netflix’s new globetrotting CIA drama “The Recruit” excel in every way, and they are more than enough to carry the show.

However, the action stops dead in its tracks every so often with glimpses into the home life of this “recruit,” a recent law school grad who lives in Washington, D.C. and shares an apartment with two other 20-something roommates.

If patience gets you through these irksome interludes, then your patience will be rewarded. “The Recruit” represents a new take on the CIA.

Here, the agency’s inner workings are seen through the eyes of the young law school graduate referenced above who is newly hired to work in the office of the CIA’s general counsel.

According to the show, the general counsel and his team exist to try and make sure that CIA ops are conducted within the boundaries of United States law.

It doesn’t take a genius to guess that trying to bring CIA covert operations into conformity with legal limits represents a challenge for the agency’s lawyers.

In the show, most of them are portrayed as deskbound bureaucrats who do everything they can to avoid involvement and the responsibility and accountability that comes with it.

But the new recruit is different. Played by Noah Centineo (pictured above), the new lawyer does just the opposite. From his first day at work, he dives headlong into an investigation he stumbles on accidentally that he has no business participating in.

We have all heard the phrase “best practices,” right? Well, for Owen Hendricks, the CIA’s inexperienced, new lawyer, the bywords are “worst practices.”

Knowing nothing about the CIA and its spycraft, he blunders all over the place and because of his miscues he narrowly escapes death at least twice in the premiere episode.

But the thing is, he is on to something. And since his boss, the general counsel himself, wants to avoid responsibility just like everybody else, he gives his tacit approval to his young hireling to stay on the case while providing no helpful guidance, even though the GC is well aware that the recruit’s next misstep might be his last.

With this new and unusual job, the life of this new “Recruit” is an action-packed thrill, except when he goes home.

“The Recruit” starts streaming on Friday (December 16) on Netflix.