Diksha Sundriyal
The second season of Netflix’s spy drama, ‘The Recruit,’ returns with six action-packed episodes that take Noah Centineo’s Owen Hendricks through his most challenging mission yet. Considering the timeline of the series, it has only been a few weeks since Owen joined the CIA, but in such a limited time span, he has seen and survived the situations that would knock out even the worst of spies. Following the events of the Season 1 finale, Owen finds himself at the mercy of Nichka, who is also revealed to be Max’s daughter, Karolina. While Max is shot dead, Nichka takes some time to question Owen and find out what he was planning with her mother.
At first, it seems that Owen is going to die and Nichka is going to leave his body in a ditch, but then Dawn and her team show up. While Nichka is arrested, Dawn ponders over Owen’s fate, wondering if she should let him live, considering that he knows her secrets. He would have died if it weren’t for Hannah, who made a few calls after she saw Owen being abducted right in front of her. Lester Kitchens shows up to save the day, and the young lawyer is taken back home. Due to the mess created in Max’s case, Owen is benched until the investigation by the CEG concludes and clears him. At the same time, Dawn has also been pulled away from the action and sent to Mauritius.
After spending days doing absolutely nothing and almost dying of boredom, Owen unexpectedly receives a mail. The mail was meant for someone who was long dead, but Owen reads it regardless and discovers another major threat made to the CIA. The graymailer is in South Korea this time, and Owen convinces his boss to let him go to Seoul and take a look at it. Janus is sent along with him, even if unwillingly. There, it turns out that the blackmailer is Jang Kyun, a secret agent for the Korean Secret Service, NIS, whose wife, Nan Hee, has been abducted and is being held somewhere in Russia. He wants Owen and the CIA to bring his wife home. If that doesn’t happen, he will reveal all the secrets of the agency, which will permanently cripple it. SPOILERS AHEAD.
How are Jang Kyun and Nan Hee Rescued? Who Brings the US Navy Submarine?
In the small time window that Jang Kyun gives to Owen, he has to figure out who kidnapped Nan Hee and why. Through various sources, it is revealed that while she is being held in Russia, the Russians have no involvement in the matter. In fact, the real culprits are the Yamazaki Clan of the Yakuza. It turns out that NIS and the CIA had collaborated to create a cryptocurrency through which they hoped to track the illegal trade of criminal organizations. They made the mistake of not making it entirely untraceable. So, when Jang Kyun used his wife’s NGO to introduce cryptocurrency into the Korean mafia circle, he didn’t know that it would come back to haunt him.
The Yakuza traced the currency, which led them to Nan Hee, which is why they kidnapped her. They keep her alive and torture her in the hopes of getting information from her, not knowing that she has no idea what they are on about. In any case, Jang Kyun knows that he has to get his wife out as soon as possible, or she will soon be killed. With the help of British businessman Oliver Bonner-Jones, a meeting is set up with the head of the Yamazaki Cla,n who demands ten million as ransom. Knowing that they cannot get such a huge amount of money in time, Owen and his team come up with a different solution.
With Nichka’s help, they figure out where Nan Hee is being held. Under the guise of payment for her freedom, they have the Yakuza bring Nan Hee out on a boat, making it easier to plan an escape. Owen and Jang Kyun meet the clan’s leader with a briefcase that doesn’t have even a fraction of the ransom money. Their plan was to take Nan Hee and run while Lester and Dawn’s team provided them with the cover to escape. Due to unforeseen circumstances, the cover never arrives, which forces Owen to escape on his own while Nan Hee and Jang Kyun are held captive.
The hitch in the plan doesn’t deter Owen from his mission and he eventually finds the couple and helps them escape. They are picked up by their team on the boat they’d borrowed from Owen’s childhood friend Yoo Jin Lee, who joined them in the hopes of having an adventure. Even on the boat, they are not completely safe because they are in Russian waters. With several CIA agents in their territory, the Russians cannot let go of the chance to arrest them. If they get their hands on Jang Kyun, who knows decades’ worth of secrets of the CIA, it would be over for the American agency. Luckily, they receive some much-needed help in the end.
Owen makes a valuable ally in Oliver Bonner-Jones when he saves his life during an unintentional detour. Oliver is a person with friends in the highest and the lowest places. He is extremely resourceful and knows how to get things done fast. This is why Owen turns to him for help in rescuing Nan Hee, and the man comes through in the end. To stop the Russians from capturing Owen and his friends, Oliver shows up with the might of the US Navy with him, which scares off the attackers. Owen, Jang Kyun, Nan Hee and the others are brought on board the submarine. Everyone is safe and sound and ready to go back home.
What Happens to Owen? Does the CIA Betray Him?
One thing that Owen learns the hard way while working for the CIA is that he cannot trust his own employers to come through for him. The situations are often so sensitive and dire that if anything goes wrong, they always look for the easiest fall guy to save their own skin, and often, Owen finds himself at the receiving end of that stick. As things escalate in Seoul, CIA Director Alton West and Owen’s boss, Walter Nyland, have no inhibitions about pinning the whole thing on Owen if things go South. In fact, there comes the point where West hints that if Jang Kyun continues to be a threat to the agency, he will send someone to neutralize him. If, at the time, anyone comes in between that, they, too, will be killed. Even if it is Owen or anyone else from his team.
The great risk also comes with great rewards, and Owen knew this. In fact, he agreed to be tagged as a rogue agent if things didn’t go as planned. But in case they did, he also wants to be rewarded for it. In case of success, he asks for Lester Kitchens to be made the Chief of Station in Moscow. For himself, he asks for his life back so that he can leave the CIA without the threat of having his life ruined. At the time, West agrees to his demands. By the end, despite all the problems, the plan eventually works out and Owen saves the day by getting back Nan Hee and protecting the agency’s secrets. This means that he should get his rewards, right?
There is a good chance that West might come through with his promise to give Moscow station to Lester. However, the same cannot be said about Owen. Of course, he will try to get himself out of the agency, especially after he turns Jang Kyun into an asset for them. At best, West might get the CEG off of him, but there are still some loose ends that have the potential of pulling Owen back into business. Janus explained the situation to him in Season 1. One cannot leave the CIA unless they have cleaned up all the mess that is supposed to be their responsibility, and no matter how hard one tries, there is always a mess that needs to be taken care of. It is a vicious cycle that traps a person for life, and Owen is going to find out about it soon enough. He might be done with the agency, but the agency is not done with him.
Does Jang Kyun Accept Owen’s Offer?
The world of espionage runs on assets. It is critical to have the right people in the right places spying for you if you are to have the upper hand on your enemies as well as your friends. In the two seasons, Owen learns the importance of cultivating a good asset, which is why, at the end of the second season, he puts the offer on the table for Jang Kyun. Due to his expertise and his experience, the man is invaluable to any agency that employs him. With everything that happens in the second season, he has no prospect of going back to the NIS now. He has been branded a traitor, and he would be arrested and thrown in a dark prison cell for his crime. And that’s the best-case scenario. This means that he can never go back home now and must look to start his life anew somewhere else. This is where Owen presents the option.
In blackmailing the CIA to help him, he exhibited the range of his knowledge that could destroy the agency. Even if he doesn’t have any reason to threaten them now, they don’t want to let go of him so easily. Instead of letting him leave, they make an offer of work for them, and Jang Kyun knows that he is not exactly in a position to refuse. Now that the CIA knows how dangerous he can be for them, they cannot risk him being taken over by another agency. It would continue to be a threat to them, and to curb that problem, they could permanently get rid of him by killing him.
He has already blackmailed them once, so they won’t have any inhibitions neutralizing him. At the same time, they also know that the CIA is not the only agency whose secrets Jang Kyun knows about, and they can use this knowledge to empower themselves. This is why it is better for them to hire him and take him and his family under his protection. With all that has happened with the NIS and the FSB, Jang Kyun cannot take any risks, and it is in his interest to work with the CIA. This is why, when Owen proposes the idea to him, he doesn’t have to think twice about accepting it.
Is Dawn Dead?
One of the major characters in the two seasons of ‘The Recruit’ is Dawn. While she works for the CIA, she is proof that the agency doesn’t have all good guys on its roster. Dawn has already been cheating her bosses out of millions of dollars, but money is not the only thing on her mind. Her main objective is to head Moscow Chief of Station, and she is ready to do anything to get it. She doesn’t mind killing people, even if they are from the CIA, and even tries to get Owen and Lester killed. When she fails to do that, she joins forces with them, but even then, she exhibits no signs of loyalty towards them. When West asks her to neutralize Jang Kyun and anyone related to him, she is quick to jump on it even when it’s clear that Owen has salvaged the situation.
She would have killed them if it weren’t for Nichka. She doesn’t stop Dawn out of the goodness of her heart or because she feels she owes something to Owen. Instead, she wanted Owen and Jang Kyun for herself to hold her end of the deal with the FSB. If she delivered them a CIA agent and a high-ranking NIS agent who knew all the secrets of both agencies, then she would get rewarded beyond her wildest dreams. But none of that can happen if both her targets are dead, so she stops Dawn, and a fight ensues between the two of them. While both women are fierce fighters, Nichka manages to get the upper hand in the end and kills Dawn, bringing her villain arc to a fitting end. She will not be a problem for Owen or anyone else anymore.
What Happens to Nichka? Will She Die?
Nichka proves herself to be one of the most volatile elements in ‘The Recruit.’ Even when she helps Lester and Owen with Nan Hee’s case, she always makes it clear that she is doing it to benefit herself and no one else. While she gets money in return for doing favors for them, she is also working on something else. Following the events of Season 1, she is turned into a pariah in the circles she once used to frequent. This means she cannot go back to Lev and the criminal enterprise she was once a part of. There is only one place that she cannot offer her skills to now, and that is the FSB.
When Nichka sees how much intelligence agencies are ready to pay to do favors for them, she decides to offer her services to the Russian secret services. She knows that Owen and the CIA are coming to Vladivostok to rescue Nan Hee. So, she sets a trap for them by telling FSB about them. If she delivers so many foreign agents to them, she will earn a lot of favors and it just might turn the tide for her. However, she forgets to consider the part where the consequences turn out to be worse if she fails. She becomes overconfident in her ability to deliver no matter what, and that’s what costs her in the end. When she kills Dawn and is unable to deliver on the promises she made, she witnesses the FSB’s wrath. Like the CIA, when something goes wrong, they need someone to pin it on, and because Nichka failed to keep her end of the bargain, she now has to serve a different purpose for them.
The future looks pretty bleak for her, but like her mother, if there’s anything she’s good at, it’s surviving. Due to her connection with the CIA and her potential to be an invaluable asset, she still has some cards up her sleeves that can be used to turn the tide in her favor. What those cards are and how she uses them remains to be seen, but it is also clear that she will be the one to pull Owen back into the mess that he is so desperately trying to get out of. After, she is one of the loose ends he still hasn’t completely resolved yet.
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