The big story in television-land over the Thanksgiving holiday was the release of four new episodes of Gilmore Girls, a show that originally went off the air in 2007. Thus, it may have been easy for viewers to miss Undercover, a miniseries that aired the week before Thanksgiving on BBC America. At only six episodes, Undercover – which is a hybrid legal, police, and family drama – is an entertaining watch, though it is far from perfect. This review will focus on the first three episodes of the miniseries and will contain very light spoilers with one exception; I spoil something that occurs towards the end of the first episode because it is borderline impossible to discuss the show without revealing it (and BBC America’s own press materials reveal the same spoiler).
Undercover stars Sophie Okonedo as Maya Cobbina, a passionate criminal defense attorney living in London. As the miniseries opens, Maya is attempting to stay the execution of Rudy Jones (Dennis Haysbert), a death row inmate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. After Rudy’s execution goes awry and he isn’t killed, Maya comes home and to her surprise discovers that she is being considered as the Director of Public Prosecutions. As Maya weighs whether to cross the aisle from defense work to literally being the highest-ranking prosecutor, her husband Nick Johnson (Adrian Lester) is dealing with his own issues. Nick is ostensibly a loving husband to Maya and father to their children. But Nick has never told Maya that when they met twenty years earlier, Nick was an undercover officer tasked with infiltrating a group led by activist Michael Antwi (Sope Dirisu) of which Maya was a member. Instead of fulfilling his mission, Nick fell in love with Maya in 1996 and quit his job as a cop, though he failed to ever tell her the truth. Michael died in police custody, and Maya’s potential new job brings his unsolved death back to the forefront, putting Nick’s secret at risk.
The narrative alternates between 1996 and 2016, which enables Undercover to illustrate how the main characters have developed (or have not developed) over time. When Nick first meets Maya, she successfully makes a legal argument to dismiss the charges against her drug dealer clients and then fist pumps as she leaves court, pleased at her victory. In 2016, Maya is no less zealous in defense of her clients, though her demeanor is a little more refined. Okonedo – best known to American audiences for her Oscar-nominated performance in Hotel Rwanda – expertly plays Maya’s enthusiasm for criminal defense work, while at the same time demonstrating how Nick could fall in love with her such that he would quit his job. The passage of time also enables Undercover to show how Nick has changed; the first episode establishes Nick as a supportive stay-at-home dad, so it is jarring in the second episode to see the flashbacks of him as a quick-thinking undercover cop. Lester is excellent in illustrating how the veneer of his perfectly crafted – yet fake – world begins to crack and he is forced to make decisions that put others’ lives in jeopardy in order to avoid telling Maya the truth about his identity.
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The secondary characters are more of a mixed bag. Leanne Best is a standout as Abigail Strickland, a former colleague of Nick’s who has descended into drug addiction. Haysbert is probably the biggest name in this show, thanks to 24, Major League, and years of Allstate commercials, but he does not have that much to do as he spends the second and third episodes in a coma. The senior officials who orchestrate the coverup of Michael’s death are one-dimensional, evil figures without any nuance (though amusingly, one of the villains is played by Mark Bonnar, who fans of Catastrophe might have difficulty taking seriously in a drama).
The dual narrative has its limitations, however, namely that Undercover does a poor job of showing the physical differences between the characters over twenty years. Having the same actors play the same characters years apart is always tricky without the de-aging technology utilized for Anthony Hopkins in Westworld, Robert Downey, Jr. in Captain America: Civil War, or Michael Douglas in Ant-Man. Undercover barely even attempts to show a physical difference between the characters; Maya has a different hairstyle and, amusingly, Nick has a soul patch in 1996 but not in 2016. And some of the minor characters look completely identical in 1996 and 2016. This may be a nitpick, but it detracts from the show’s realism.
Although some of the action takes place in Louisiana, the majority of the plot occurs in England. American attorneys such as myself will surely be interested in Undercover’s depiction of the practice of law there, such as the court attire and the titles (even though I was pretty sure I figured out from context what the Director of Public Prosecutions does, I still had to look it up). Admittedly, the first few episodes only contained a handful of court scenes; Undercover is more character-driven than a Goliath-type legal drama.
The show also grapples with issues that are still relevant today. Michael rails against the disparate treatment between blacks and whites in London, and Nick (undercover) questions a white police officer at a public forum about the amount of times he has been pulled over compared to a black officer.
Undercover is perfectly entertaining, particularly with many shows about to go on winter hiatus. Next week I will review the final three episodes of the miniseries, though I do not have hope that it will magically improve its de-aging technology.
Harry Graff is a litigation associate at a firm, but he spends days wishing that he was writing about film, television, literature, and pop culture instead of writing briefs. If there is a law-related movie, television show, book, or any other form of media that you would like Harry Graff to discuss, he can be reached at [email protected]. Be sure to follow Harry Graff on Twitter at @harrygraff19.