Drama
Alien: Earth
FX’s ‘Alien: Earth’ is just the latest graphically violent entry in the already graphically violent ‘Alien’ franchise.
Sacha Baron Cohen’s career is built on an oxymoron: He’s best known for being a fictional reality star.
As the enthusiastically rube-ish Borat Sagdiyev (most famously in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan), he fronted a mockumentary, satirizing American culture through the real people he interviewed on camera. And as the flamboyant Brüno Gehard, he again embraced the mockumentary—skewering fashion, celebrity and his unsuspecting quarry in another “self”-titled film.
While he’s played more traditional characters as well, Baron Cohen’s fame owes itself to his own world of unreal reality. When he’s in character, it’s impossible to pull him out of it. He becomes the man he pretends to be.
Given this outlandish pedigree, it might seem strange to some that Baron Cohen would now play such a somber, understated character in Netflix’s miniseries The Spy. But when you think about what the titular spy did for a living, perhaps nothing could be more natural.
Eli Cohen is a Jewish Arab—a true Israeli patriot who, despite the everyday prejudices he and his wife suffer, would do anything for his adopted country.
In 1961, his country asks, How much?
Israel, under constant threat of attack from its neighbors, is dealing with a new danger: Syria seems to be planning something new and something big. But what? Israel’s top-notch espionage operation is in the dark. Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, needs someone to infiltrate the notoriously suspicious country and supply Israel with much-desired information.
Eli looks the part. He proved his bravery when he smuggled his family and other Jews out of Egypt. And even though Eli leaves a wife and growing family behind, he’s willing to go.
And so Mossad renames him Kamel Amin Thaabet, creates a backstory for him as a wealthy textile tycoon and sends him off to infiltrate the highest levels of the Syrian government—first in Argentina (where he supposedly made his fortune) and then in Syria itself.
Should Syria learn who Kamel really is, he’ll be summarily tortured and executed. No question about that. But there’s another danger, too. As Eli spends years as Kamel—secretly visiting Israel only rarely—he slips farther and farther into his character.
There’s more than one way to lose your life, Eli finds. You can do it all at once. Or you can lose it bit by bit, day by day, pretending to be someone else.
The Spy is based on a true story, and the real Eli Cohen was an instrumental figure who supplied Israel critical information that came in handy during 1967’s Six-Day War. Cohen didn’t live to see that war begin, though. And Netflix’s The Spy offers a chilling bit of foreshadowing in its opening minutes: Cohen sits in jail, writing his last letter home to his wife. We can see, as he writes, that his fingernails have been pulled off.
Fingernails aside, the miniseries is more restrained than you might expect. The Spy is all about secrets, and the plot drives forward at almost a tense whisper rather than a scream. Struggles are more likely to be verbal than physical—dances of deception rather than flying fists and feet. James Bond may be the world’s most famous spy, but his brand of gadget-brandishing, woman-wooing espionage has no place here.
But when problematic content does make it on screen, it can feel all the more real and, thus, more impactful. Moments of violence and torture can be excruciating to watch. The pilot episode includes both sex and nudity (involving a married couple). And given the parties that the real Eli Cohen threw for Syrian officials have been described as “orgies,” there could be more of the same down the road.
Baron Cohen’s turn toward the serious works on a number of levels, and it is gratifying to see the actor turn away from the outlandish sex, language and offensive behavior that made him a star. But while The Spy may be, in many respects, “better” than some of Baron Cohen’s previous work, it still doesn’t make benefit for families.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
Syria is attacking Israeli farmers on the two countries’ shared border, but Mossad suspects that the bombing runs are merely a distraction. Syria, Israel believes, is up to something much bigger. But what? In desperation, they turn to Eli Cohen, a man who applied to (and was rejected by) Mossad twice before. They ask him to lie to his wife about his real job and force him through training as they cobble together his cover. Soon he’s on his way to Buenos Aires with a new identity as Beirut-born textile magnate Kamel Amin Thaabet … and into a new and dangerous life.
The story is told mainly in flashback. When Eli officially gets the spy gig, he goes home happy and makes love to his wife, Nadia (even though he can’t tell her anything). We see them in bed together, both naked and making sexual movements. (Nothing critical is seen.) At a swank party the two attend, a woman swims naked in a pool (we see her from the back, her body distorted by the undulating water), and a couple tumbles on a couch to make out.
In Mossad headquarters, Eli’s boss, Dan Peleg, rebuffs the advances of his secretary, though it’s clear that the two have been intimate before. (“I thought we stopped doing that,” he tells her. “Something about your husband.”)
We first meet Eli in 1965 in a Syrian prison cell. His fingernails have been apparently pulled out, and he writes a letter as blood seeps from the wounds. We see a Syrian attack on Israel, too: Bombs pepper a farming community, sending people flying. (News footage of a different attack shows a hole blown through a wall.) We hear about at least one other spy who lost his life serving Mossad, and watch as Dan tries to make amends to his widow.
People smoke cigarettes (though one smoker is reportedly trying to stop) and drink cocktails. Eli and others lie repeatedly—mostly as part of their duties. But Nadia keeps her pregnancy a secret from Eli, too, not wanting to discourage him from taking an important job. (She thinks Eli’s going to be an official buyer for the Israeli army.) We see her running to the bathroom, apparently suffering from morning sickness. We hear one or two misuses of God’s name.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
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