Another hard day at the office!

Covert Affairs is back with a bang, literally! Not even 10 minutes in and Agent Annie Walker of the Christian Louboutin heels-wearing fame has already made some really terrible 4^th of July cupcakes, been transferred to another department, and seen her friend and fellow agent blown up in his car. Such a busy morning. Who knew that an umbrella could save your life?

Judging from tonight’s episode, it looks like the tone for season 3 has been set quite clearly: Annie Walker is growing up, leaving her cuddly days as a DPD operator behind and instead venturing further into the belly of the CIA beast. Instead of just focusing on a single mission every episode the show is now taking on what looks to be a season-long arc using Jai’s death as a catalyst of sorts (can we just take a moment here and mourn the loss of Mr. Sexy-Face, Sendhil Ramamurthy, from our TV screens). Obviously Jai was hiding something big and I for one am dying to know what the hell that deliciously cryptic symbol on Jai’s file boxes and the (presumed) bad guy’s shoulder is all about. The big question is: who is the big bad? Is it the Cambridge educated Russian, is it New Russia and its New Morals, is it someone within the agency, is it Annie’s sister (she did give her that umbrella even though there was no rain!)? Does anyone else feel like Covert Affairs has entered Alias territory a little bit with this twist? Though, as much as I love Annie Walker, she is no Sydney Bristow!

In any case, Jai gets blown to pieces, Auggie (oh Auggie) gets Jai’s old job, poor Arthur doesn’t get a single cupcake (which is probably why he’s a bit grumpy), and Annie gets a tough new boss, Lena Smith (the awesome Sarah Clarke from 24), who I’m sure will turn out to have some shady-ass backstory (I hope it doesn’t turn out that she slept with Arthur, not sure Joan would be pleased).

I like how that first episode keeps hammering on the importance of trusting your instincts. Like I said, Annie is no longer a baby agent being cuddled by Joan and Auggie. Instead, she’s a teenager, all rebellious and more than willing to take the chances she hasn’t been allowed to take before. Safe doesn’t interest her anymore. But the question is where will those instincts take her? Joan has already given her a bit of a (CIA-style) cryptic warning when she heard Annie was going to work for Lena, and Lena herself insists on Annie listening to her gut feeling and acting out her instincts. So far this means Annie has taken more risks than she normally did before and, more importantly, she decided to have hot shower sex with Simon Fisher, aka the bad guy.

I approve.

Obviously though, we shouldn’t go around sabotaging break-lights just to meet handsome strangers. I guess Annie’s instincts are yelling at her to just enjoy the spy game and use all her assets to accomplish a mission. Will this prove the CIA guys right? Are women too emotional to use men for sex and information? I’m more thinking that we might actually see Annie get a little bit lost this season (and here’s hoping that Auggie will continue to be her shirtless rock) but that remains to be seen. Those darn instincts, so hard to predict…

So, to sum up, Annie’s first mission under Lena’s supervision (though the woman insists on not being a supervisor but rather an equal) takes her to Morocco to make contact with Simon (who is obviously up to something since he has a gun in his glove department). Some beautiful Moroccan landscape passes by (and lots of curious bystanders who clearly want to be in this episode), Annie flirts with Simon (and danger), they have a picnic in the desert, ride out a sandstorm together, and then get rid of all the sand by hitting the shower—together. But not until after Annie has used a cool-looking device to extract information from Simon’s laptop (through the hotel safe by the way, evidently those things are NOT CIA proof) because, ya know, it’s not all fun and games in spy land. I wonder if there’ll be anything useful and interesting coming from that laptop. And how long until Auggie realizes that he’s essentially working the same case as Annie?

Basically, what this first episode left us with is an infinite number of questions. And I’m frigging excited to start putting the pieces together. How about you guys? Anyone think that maybe Jai is not dead (there is the question of that guy that bumped into Annie at the diner before the whole umbrella thing)? What about Lena? Will she stand by Annie in times of trouble? Does anyone really care what happened to those German “tourists”? And why leave the passports in plain sight like that? Not very stealth if you ask me. And, the key question, why was there no shirtless Auggie in this episode?

Next week sees Annie and Auggie in Spain together. This should improve on the shirtlessness of tonight’s episode, right?

Random stuff:

• Did y’all know that the episodes in season 3 are all named after a David Bowie song? Similarly, season 1 episodes were named after Led Zeppelin songs, and season 2 after R.E.M songs.
• A shout-out to the Icelandic (because I’m from Iceland) band Of Monsters And Men whose song, “Little Talks”, opened last night’s episode (I get ridiculously excited when something Icelandic pops up on American TV, it’s a bit sad actually).