Drama
Chicago Fire
Where’s the fire? In Chicago, it seems. But the flames outside Firehouse 51 are nothing compared to the heat generated inside.
Before Jason Bourne, there was Treadstone.
Fans of the Bourne franchise will remember that Treadstone was a secret government program within the CIA that created sleeper agents like Bourne. Fans also remember that Bourne exposed the program and it had to be shut down.
Or was it?
In 1973, American spy John Randolph Bentley was kidnapped by a KGB agent code-named Petra. She delivered him to Dr. Meisner, an East German doctor developing brainwashing techniques to create and control assassins.
Meisner considered Bentley a success, calling him a cicada: “An amazing little creature. They burrow underground just beneath the surface for years at a time and wait. And then they awaken from their long slumber.”
“And die,” Bentley adds.
“Yes,” Meisner says, “but not before they fulfill their destiny.”
While his kidnappers believe they have created the perfect double agent—and an effective assassin—Bentley’s conscience kicks in and he fights back (not unlike another Treadstone agent we’re familiar with). He breaks out of the building where he’s being held, kills a few communist spies and makes his way to a NATO safe house to let his American comrades know that he’s alive and coming home.
In the present day, British citizen Tara Coleman (a discredited journalist who was fired for chasing after a wild conspiracy regarding a Soviet-era missile) receives information that her theory was correct: In fact, North Korean rebels are now trying to obtain the nuke’s launch codes. But more than that, she’s told that the CIA has begun waking their own “cicadas” from the Treadstone program.
Across the globe in North Korea, SoYun Pak, a piano teacher living in Pyongyang, discovers a hidden talent for martial arts and the ability to speak English after hearing the tune “Frère Jacques” (the same song that Meisner used to trigger Bentley). In Alaska, an oil rig worker named Doug McKenna finds himself able to fend off multiple attackers in a barfight with abilities he never knew he had.
Sound familiar?
From its origins in the Cold War to the present-day repercussions of not shutting it down, Treadstone gives fans a new look at the infamous program that created super-spy Jason Bourne.
Language is rough—and, at least in episodes downloaded from Amazon, uncensored–but not frequent. And while the show does make occasional references to sex, it seems that the new Treadstone agents are more concerned about completing their missions than delving into sexual dalliances—especially since both SoYun and Doug are happily married to their respective spouses.
In fact, Treadstone’s biggest setback is the violence. Fingers are chopped off, bathrobe ties are used as choking devices, people are thrown from buildings and secret agents (controlled by a children’s song) ruthlessly kill without quandary. Furthermore, the concept that sleeper agents can be anyone, anywhere, woken by a fairly common and simple tune, is more than a little unnerving for anyone watching the series.
A man is tortured and brainwashed through a combination of sleep deprivation and a “cocktail” of hallucinogens. Under the influence of these drugs, this same man hallucinates that he is being attacked by soldiers in a war. Upon coming out of his stupor, he realizes that he has actually shot three unarmed prisoners, and we see blood splattered on the wall behind them.
A man breaks a pair of glasses in half and uses the shards to stab another man in the neck, killing him. In a slew of fight sequences, men and woman use their fists, feet, a police baton, a mortician’s knife and a straight razor to beat each other up. One man is stabbed with a scythe, another man slips off the roof of a building and another is thrown off a building. Someone uses a bathrobe tie to strangle a man to death.
A woman’s finger is chopped off in a fight. A table is broken when a man is thrown onto it. A man uses a bar stool to choke another man, but he stops short of killing him. Bones are broken and joints are dislocated in a barfight. A man receives a deep cut above his eye.
Three people lie in a morgue covered by undergarments (a female corpse is additionally covered with a t-shirt) and with sacks over their heads. A man removes one of the sacks to reveal a gunshot wound to the corpse’s head. This same corpse is later thrown through a window to create a distraction.
A man breaks down a glass door and then walks across the glass in his bare feet. A man is injected with an unknown substance that causes him to stumble and his vision to blur. He counters the effects of this substance by stabbing himself in the thigh with an adrenaline pen. A woman attempts to inject another man with an unknown substance, but the syringe is knocked from her hand.
A man contemplates taking yellow pills that his wife sent to him but decides to go out drinking with his friends instead. People drink beer at a bar. A woman searches for wine. A few people smoke cigarettes. A man makes an inappropriate sexual comment to a woman. A couple discusses erections. “It’s Raining Men” plays on a stereo. A woman hides her husband’s hearing aid in her bra and her husband later retrieves it (we don’t see anything critical).
We hear about a young North Korean girl being separated from her family after her parents’ conduct was deemed “very bad” by the state. Characters lie and keep secrets. The f-word and s-word are both heard a couple of times as well as “h—” and “a–hole.” God’s name is misused once.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
Where’s the fire? In Chicago, it seems. But the flames outside Firehouse 51 are nothing compared to the heat generated inside.
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