Owen Hendricks (Noah Centineo), what has the world done to you? After one too many sticky situations, he’s reassigned to a desk rotation and is soon bored out of his mind. Until an opportunity to go to South Korea arises and he jumps at it, eager to return to where he lived for a while growing up…and maybe even reconnect with a childhood crush. He has other motivations for taking on this mission, though, mostly to save his own skin when he’s dragged into the orbit of the dangerously alluring Nichka (Maddie Hasson). On the opposite end of the espionage-spectrum, Hendricks also finds himself entangled with the NIS agent Jang Kyun (played with style & class by Teo Yoo), who is ready and willing to use every bit of leverage to get what he wants. It’s hard to know who to trust, and Owen quickly learns he can’t even rely on the Agency itself for safety or answers.
The Recruit returns for more spy shenanigans and political chicanery, as Owen makes more messes than ever. He’s still learning how to play the game and soon gets in way over his head, making him the perfect foil to the bigger players; Owen’s naivety forces them to stall and explain and drag him along by any means necessary. The action is explosive and chaotic and the interpersonal relationships even more so. The storytelling still has a few wobbles that peppered the last season, but the cast is solid and they ricochet off each other with each new revelation.
Gear up for a treacherous amount of betrayal, blackmail, and a brawl across Asia that brings in a dangerous web of shady underground organizations. You’ll be waiting for who’s going to snap first—and when they do, that’s when the action really takes off. The motivations aren’t always as high-stakes as the drama makes them out to be, and the “world-threatening” intel is a timely but uninspired choice, but you don’t watch The Recruit for gritty Black Mirror-level story; you watch it because it’s a whole lotta fun seeing how far each character is willing to go.
