SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for CIA Season 1, Episode 8.
When CIA first started, a few things were obvious about the FBI spinoff, and several of them happen in Season 1, Episode 8. “Orbital” is the episode CBS audiences will look back on as where CIA really began. And for that, they’ll want to thank top-flight guest stars Costa Ronin and Donal Logue.
The blueprint of CIA has clearly always included certain character beats. By the end of Season 1, Bill Goodman wouldn’t be so straight-laced and would become more comfortable with the way the Agency does things. Colin Glass would move on from the murder of his partner Toni. And analyst Gina would get out into the field. “Orbital” checks off two of the three and takes a big step toward the third. All of this logistical manuevering is made more interesting because of the guest actors injecting such personality that the episode is both functional and entertaining.
Dick Wolf aficionados will recognize Logue, who plays Colin’s questionable contact Jonah, from his recurring guest stint on Law & Order: SVU as Declan Murphy—undercover cop the father of Amanda Rollins’ daughter Jesse. (Let’s also take another moment to appreciate how much his career has expanded in the 20 years since the underrated sitcom Grounded for Life.) As he does in many of his other roles, Logue provides comic relief on CIA, with Jonah pushing Bill’s buttons once they’re both captured. He’s essentially the devil on Bill’s shoulder, prompting Bill to question himself until Jonah gets a George Mason-style heroic death by disposing of a leaking nuclear battery. Logue is genuinely funny, and genuinely tragic in the one moment before Jonah rides off into the sunset.
On the flip side, there’s no better person to call to play a Russian villain than Costa Ronin. He’s stolen whole episodes of The Americans and Homeland playing a Russian spy, so of course he’s the actor who gets called to play a Russian spy on CIA. This is exactly up his alley—and very different from his appearances in the current season of For All Mankind. But because he’s so great at what he does, it’s disappointing that “Orbital” doesn’t give Ronin’s character Sasha that much depth. Audiences learn more about him from Colin than they get to see. He gets to kidnap Gina and unfortunately be killed off, because in Ronin’s hands, he would’ve been a great recurring nemesis who could’ve gone toe-to-toe with Tom Ellis and Nick Gehlfuss at any time. But for what he’s asked to do, the actor provides all the menace and all the intensity that CIA needs.
And for Broadway fans, Just in Time star Caesar Samayoa has a small part as the front desk clerk at the hotel. It’s obviously nowhere near as cool as his stage role, but it’s nice to see him get a little bit more exposure.
All of these actors make “Orbital” pop more as an episode. The plot isn’t that hard to suss out: there’s a nasty device on the open market and the good guys have to wrest it away from the bad guys. Other crime shows have done similar stories. The scenario just allows CIA to give Bill, Colin and Gina the character development the show’s been working toward. This is really Natalee Linez’s episode, as Gina has been clamoring to get into the field for a while. Some might say it’s predictable that she makes a mistake and has to be rescued; others may argue that it’d be less believable if she didn’t fumble, considering she’s in brand new territory. But “Orbital” gives her potential as a field agent, which also ensures Linez will have more to do than sitting behind a desk providing expository facts. In turn, having to worry about Gina enables Colin to work through some more of his emotions about Toni, because there’s only so long the show can keep bringing that up before it gets played out.
Then there’s Nick Gehlfuss. The same Wolf enthusiasts who recognize Logue will not be surprised by Bill in this episode, because they’re used to Gehlfuss as the more impulsive Dr. Will Halstead on Chicago Med. In that sense, this episode feels like a return to form. Gehlfuss gets to have a different foil as he works against Logue, and CIA viewers finally get to see Bill’s fiancee Katie in the opening and closing scenes of the episode. (Let’s hope the show doesn’t go down the cliche path of ending their engagement because of all the lies, especially since it introduced Bill’s ex in Episode 7, and she was still very interested.)
“Orbital” starts from a fairly bare-bones plot but makes it interesting because of what it allows the actors to do. The guest actors show up with the pop and pizzazz, and the main cast members respond to that energy. Like the FBI episode that serves as its lead-in, this CIA installment is here to fill in the big picture before anything else. But this episode is a lot more fun to watch, because it has that spark. Especially since viewers already know CIA Season 2 is coming, it’s fun to see the groundwork being laid for the show to get bigger and better.
CIA airs Mondays at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. Photo Credit: Courtesy of CBS.
Article content is (c)2020-2026 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.
