Editor’s Note: The following are spoilers for the first season of The Citadel.During the first season of Prime Video Citadel, we are invited to question everything that appears on the screen. True to the spy genre, we’re kept in the dark about everyone’s loyalty and individual motives until the classic is revealed in the finale. After the erased memory of Mason Kane (Richard Madden) journey rediscovering his former life as the chief spy agent in Citadel alongside local tech genius Bernard Orlik (Stanley Tucci), we learn of the heated rivalry between the Citadel and their sinister counterpart Manticore. As we get to know new characters like the talented Nadya Shin (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) and deceived Celeste/Anna/Briel (Ashley Cummings), we are gradually realizing how distorted the information we have is, and perhaps even more wondering if the Manticores are really the only bad guys in the series. With a second season already announced, as well as several international spin-off shows set in Italy and India, we’re poised for the dynamic between the two opposing organizations to become even more complex and subversive.
‘The Citadel’ encourages us to question everything
From the first episode Citadel establishes a simplified binary system of good and evil between the Citadel and Manticore spy organizations. When Mason and Nadia are attacked by Manticore agents in the opening sequence, Bernard initiates a fail-safe procedure that erases their memories to prevent the Citadel’s secrets from being revealed. When Mason shows up alive and well eight years later, Bernard re-initiates him into the agency, and that’s how we, the audience, along with Mason, learn about the two agencies. The citadel was created centuries ago by groups of spies from various agencies who created an intelligence network to mitigate harm from agencies whose main concern is the national interest. As Bernard emphasizes, the Citadel is not beholden to any one country and appears to only act in the interest of the population at large - he also mentions that they had a heavy hand in shaping every positive event in history.
With the Citadel presented as an undeniable hero, Manticore is naturally portrayed as an evil organization that only operates for selfish gain. Created by eight powerful families around the world, after contributing to the collapse of the Citadel in the first episode, they have free rein to control every spy agency and are involved in financing terrorist attacks around the world. All of this information is more or less exclusively shared by Bernard, one of the remaining agents of the Citadel, who has first-level access to the Citadel’s sensitive data and is an integral player in the agency. So there definitely is a sense of unreliable storytelling, or at least biased storytelling, especially since we’re getting data through the lens of someone who is essentially a blank canvas and has no prior experience to question anything. . Instead, we are forced to accept descriptions of the simplistic conflict between the two agencies and their motives with a grain of salt.
There are also a few veiled comments that are omitted from time to time and invite us to question the expectations set by the series. In fact, the most notable of these is at the start of the train, when the Manticore agent who was Nadia’s target says grimly, “The thing is, myths, after all, are just stories, delusions, lies.” Lines like these, foreshadowing further revelations in the series, remind us of the need to try to distinguish “delusions” and “lies” from what’s real. Actually, Russo brothers actually establish the notion of “not everything is as it seems” from the very first frame of the show. The show, with its upside-down and slow transition to the right frame, already indicates that we may have a distorted perception of the truth, and continues to remind us throughout the season.
Manticore may not be the only bad guy in The Citadel
We also think that the Citadel probably has too much power as an underground spy agency and doesn’t really have any obvious checks and balances. The flashback timeline in Episode 4 includes an undercover mission with Nadia’s friend Celeste, who assumes the identity of Brielle to infiltrate the life of Anders Silje (Roland Möller) to access the Key of Oz, a vaguely described generic hacking device. When she blacks out for six months, Mason decides it’s time to infiltrate the opposing facility and bring Celeste back. Upon her return, the Key of Oz goes missing and Mason suspects that Celeste is a double agent in the agency (who would later be responsible for the fall of the Citadel) and immediately makes an executive decision to erase her memories. The fact that Mason was able to authorize a procedure that was still experimental on a whim and met with little to no opposition from his superiors once again reflects the Citadel’s unbridled power and questionable ethics. This is especially emphasized when Nadia is revealed to be trying her best to destroy the key from Oz (although we just take her word for it), indicating that even she didn’t trust it in the Citadel’s hands.
Citadel The Season 1 finale really reinforces those doubts as we learn that Mason was a mole and why he chose to be one. The fact that Citadel’s most experienced and trusted agent has become a defector does not bode well for the perception of the organization and is likely an indication that something is wrong. But when we find out that his mother is actually a Manticore agent, Dahlia (Leslie Manville), and that his father was actually killed by the Citadel and not by a terrorist attack, the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. The Citadel sent an air missile to the wrong coordinates, which resulted in the death of 157 innocent civilians, and instead of taking responsibility, they covered it up. The terrible cover-up speaks to the agency’s uncontrollable influence and questionable morality, especially considering that Mason’s father was also an agent of the Citadel, so if anyone had a right to know the truth and could be trusted with it if it originally came from them, it was Mason.
Beyond the supposed motives and connections described by Bernard, we don’t actually know much about Manticore. We know that Dahlia apparently doesn’t have a problem with monstrous human torture (as an underground spy agency, do we really believe the Citadel didn’t torture people either?) and definitely has the image of a traditional villain, but in the first season, it’s really Did not happen. provided any hard evidence of their other alleged actions. Due to the extensive unreliable narrative and the constant guessing games, it’s hard to know if Manticore is really the “bad guy” in this binary, especially in light of what we’ve seen in The Citadel. So, if Manticore wants to destroy an organization with seemingly endless influence, can they be that bad? Of course, they do terrible things, but perhaps the Citadel is actually a great evil.
1 season Citadel now available to stream on Prime Video.
Source: Collider
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