The Company

Wow! What a strong conclusion for what’s sure to be recognized as one of the year’s best miniseries. The tone this time was definitely more of a piece with The Company’s slow-building first part than last week’s globe-trotting actionfest. But the dark, regretful feeling that permeated every action, every conversation, was, in the end, the only way things could have turned out.

Watching the complete breakdown of Leo (Alessandro Nivola) throughout his interrogation was shocking — in part because of its swiftness, but more so because his only crime was being too loyal to the Company.

Or so it seemed, until we found out he was the mole, Sasha, all along — a fact he later revealed by shooting his best friend and godfather of his children in the gut and fleeing to the crumbling remains of his adopted homeland.

Truly, it seems, the Cold War was a grand debacle, perhaps summed up best by Michael Keaton ’s Angleton in his greenhouse conversation with Chris O’Donnell ’s Jack: "We’re all lost, Jack. We’re lost in the wilderness of mirrors."

Defectors, false defectors, double and triple agents: It was all hard to keep straight, to remember who were the allies and who were the enemies. But I think that was ultimately the point of this whole project — to let us peek behind the curtain and see that there were no brilliant puppet masters with grand plans. There were just a lot of idealistic men and women trying to do the best for themselves and their countries, even when they couldn’t figure out just what that was. A little disheartening, to be sure, but probably a lot closer to the truth than your typical black-and-white, heroes-and-villains scenario.

On a more positive note, the reappearance of Rory Cochrane's Yevgeny, who was mostly MIA during part 2, brought the story full circle in a satisfying way.

Ultimately, it came down to three college friends who became bitter enemies — but instead of resulting in a climactic battle, there was only a weak truce, borne not of trust, but simply of resignation.

Harvey (Alfred Molina) and Jack’s final conversation applied to all three of those once-idealistic young men, and to both sides of the Cold War, as Jack wondered if the lives they had given up really made any difference at all, and if the world would understand or even remember their sacrifices. It was a perfectly bittersweet note on which to end such a subtle, contemplative piece.

So, on that upbeat note... thanks for watching The Company along with me. I’ll be taking a blogging break this fall, but returning in January for the seventh season of 24. With big changes planned for the cast and locations this time around, it should be a wild ride, and I, for one, can’t wait.

Watch online: For clips of The Company, visit our Online Video Guide.

With another two strong hours under its belt, The Company is really shaping up to be the miniseries of the year, and one to watch out for come the next Emmy nominations.

Though the second section of a three-parter often suffers a little from being necessarily transitional (see the Lord of the Rings and Bourne trilogies), this episode side-stepped that trap, starting with a tried-and-true device: Open with a shocking dramatic event — say, the capture and torture of a main character (Jack) — then fall back three days to show how we got to this point.

But what looked from the previews last week to be the climax of this episode was only the beginning of the excitement. You could have made two stand-alone films out of this one’s two main set pieces: The Hungarian uprising, shot as a bloody gun battle in an urban wasteland, and the botched Bay of Pigs invasion, a full-scale beach-storming under cover of darkness that rivaled any Hollywood war movie. While "Night 1" was about the dirty business of back-room deals and international espionage, "Night 2" was about the logical conclusion of many "moves behind moves" — death and destruction.

The further we get into this story, the grimmer the picture of the CIA gets, and of the U.S. government as whole. I found myself nearly as incredulous as Jack when the Company made promise after promise to desperate foreign rebels that it couldn’t — or simply wouldn’t — keep.

And with Jack’s disillusionment plain, it seemed like the medal he was awarded for bravery was really just another shady ploy to renew his loyalty in the Company, or at least ensure he wouldn’t be shouting too loudly about America’s duplicity.

One bright spot was the welcome introduction of a more compelling romantic interest for Jack in Natascha McElhone, who first turned heads (or at least this writer’s) in 1998 with The Truman Show and Ronin. I would have liked to see more of her Elizabet, and maybe we still will; but with such a broad historical scope, I guess some characters are bound to get lost along the way, and the British freedom fighter might be one such casualty.

Finally, I’d be remiss (again) not to mention the The Company’s striking — though too brief — animated opening, a subtle nod to Alice in Wonderland that succinctly illustrates the miniseries’ down-the-rabbit-hole theme. It’s another bold choice on TNT’s part that you’d probably never see from a wooden "Big 3" miniseries. As the broadcast suits continue to ponder where all the TV-watchers have gone, The Company is yet another flashing neon sign responding "Right here."

Watch online: For clips of The Company, visit TVGuide.com’s Online Video Guide.

Let me start off with a disclaimer: I’m not familiar with the Robert Littell novel of the same name on which The Company is based. However, based on the Internet buzz, I know a lot of fans of the book have been very much anticipating this miniseries. So what I ask of you, readers, is that you be as understanding as you can about my lack of foreknowledge, while still feeling free to tell me what’s what when I get it wrong. Thanks in advance. [end disclaimer]

Well, we're only a third of the way in, but so far, I like what I'm seeing. Even abridged as it must be for TV, this is clearly a complex, multilayered story. The Company is juggling a large cast of international characters who are constantly double- and triple-crossing each other, but thankfully, I didn't have to strain too hard to keep it all straight.

I don't know if the novel's focus was so squarely on the characters of Jack (Chris O'Donnell) and Yevgeny (Rory Cochrane), but the friends-turned-enemies situation set up (with impressive subtlety) in "Night 1" is an old classic that provided an easy, human entry point into the murky world of Cold War espionage. For some reason, Disney's The Fox and the Hound, of all things, kept coming to mind — and I'm no Disney fan, but I guess that demonstrates the effectiveness of universalizing the story.

For a miniseries, the production values seem above average — but I guess that's what you get with a couple of old pros like Ridley and Tony Scott in executive producers' chairs. We haven't seen a lot of the brothers’ trademark action sequences so far, but the ruins of post-World War II Berlin, at least to this war-movie fan, certainly feel authentic, as do the CIA operatives, all crisp black suits and whiskeys neat.

Now for a little bit of bad. As I’d suspected would be the case, the weak link here is O'Donnell. Whether he's playing the fourth Musketeer, Robin to a big-screen Batman, or a potential McBeau to the ever-whiney Meredith Grey, this guy's always the same — and not in the good way that Pacino's always Pacino or De Niro's always De Niro. Hopefully, as The Company moves forward and Jack hardens over his long years of CIA service, we'll see more of the conflicted character and less of the O'Donnell charm/smarm that's thoroughly worn out its welcome.

Either way, he's still surrounded by a strong cast of Hollywood veterans — most notably Michael Keaton doing a darker, more haunted variation on his classic twitchy paranoiac, and Alfred Molina, alternately warm and menacing, just like he was as Doc Oc to Tobey Maguire’s friendly neighborhood Spider-Man (minus a few tentacles, of course).

But the real surprise here is Cochrane as KGB agent-by-way-of-Yale Yevgeny Tsipin. For those who came of age in the '90s, Cochrane will probably always be Lucas from Empire Records or Slater from Dazed and Confused. Notwithstanding his previous gig on CSI: Miami — which I avoid like a bloody crime scene — it seems The Company's creators took a chance giving Cochrane such a prominent dramatic role in this high-profile project. So far it's more than paid off, with Yevgeny far more sympathetic and multifaceted than O'Donnell's Jack.

The other big surprises tonight: The bleak ending, with Keaton’s character silhouetted in a dark office, wracked with self-doubt after the betrayal of a longtime friend and fellow agent — and, of course, the ballet dancer’s suicide, which I honestly never saw coming.

Based on the previews, it looks like the dark times for O’Donnell’s Jack are just beginning, with some 24-style interrogation — as well as explosive action — in the offing next week. Can’t wait.


For clips of The Company, visit TV Guide’s Online Video Guide.