Alison Stewart: This is All of It. I'm Alison Stewart. Earlier today I talked to Michael Fassbender about his role as a CIA operative on the news show The Agency, which explores the human side of living a double life and how that affects loved ones. This season there's been a proliferation of a new type of spy on TV from series like The Agency, Black Doves, and the upcoming The Day of the Jackal, feature spies having families, long-term partners, and closer relationships. They also have to deal with the psychological effects of having to constantly keep secrets or be someone you're not. Eric Deggans, TV critic for NPR, explored this trend of spies with families in a recent piece for NPR. Hi, Eric.

Eric Deggans: Hey.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, we want to know, who are your favorite spy thrillers? Are you watching any current ones? Maybe you have a classic spy character that you really love. Are you more James Bond or Jackson Lamb? Give us a call. 212-433-9692. 212-433-WNYC. You can call or you can text to us. Eric, how has the spy historically been portrayed on film?

Eric Deggans: Well, we are used to the tropes that were created by the James Bond franchise. What we see with James Bond is he's a loner. There have been Bonds that have had romantic entanglements and there was even a Bond that got married. For the most part, he's a loner. He travels the world. He is very focused on his mission and he has lots of different relationships with lots of different women. No children in the mix, really. The Daniel Craig Bond, in the last movie, he did have a child. For the most part, no, no kids. This new flavor of spy has significant others, a husband, a wife, a spouse, someone that they care a lot about. They are bonded to, that they go home to every night.

They have to deal with the fact that they have this super demanding job that requires them to be ruthless in one area. Then they're trying to come home and explain why they're gone all the time, why they have all these issues that arise from their work. Why aren't they helping take care of their children? It's stuff that a lot of us are negotiating, but it's blown up into this giant canvas by these spy shows, these espionage shows.

Alison Stewart: How does showing family or relationships--? Has it humanized the characters?

Eric Deggans: Well, I think it does a couple of things. First, it makes them more relatable. The thing that-- You don't necessarily want to relate to James Bond. James Bond was, for men of a certain age, maybe a little older than me, a cool figure that you might somehow aspire to be like, but you didn't run into James Bond when you were hanging out at the office. These are people who seem more like yourself. They are negotiating a lot of the same issues you're negotiating, except when they get in a knife fight with an assassin, they can kick their butt and win.

In some ways, there's some aspirational stuff in there, but they are much more relatable. The other thing is, these spies that we're talking about are mostly in television shows. You need to figure out how to stretch this story over multiple episodes. If you can have a storyline where they're going home and they're dealing with a spouse who's disaffected, they're dealing with kids, they're trying to keep their family secret from their enemies, that can add a lot of elements to the story that can fill out eight episodes. It doesn't feel like the story is too thin to stretch across eight episodes.

We particularly saw this with The Day of the Jackal, for example, on Peacock, where Eddie Redmayne's character, he plays an assassin, he has a family, and he's being chased by an MI6 agent, an intelligence agent from Britain who also has a family. She has a husband and a child. All of those storylines helped fill out the show to the point where it made it much more compelling to watch over multiple episodes.

Alison Stewart: You're listening to Eric Deggans, he's NPR's TV critic. We are talking about the proliferation of spy series. Listeners, what are your favorite spy thrillers? Are you watching any current ones now? Do you have a classic spy character you love? Our number is 212-433-9692. 212-433-WNYC. Let's talk about a couple of specific shows. We've spoken about The Agency in detail today with Michael Fassbender. Any thoughts on that show?

Eric Deggans: Well, that's a remake. I'm sure you already said that's a remake of a French show. What's interesting about that is that, in some ways, it's about the lies you have to tell in that job. Michael Fassbender's character is an agent who was in a cover for five years, started having an affair with a married woman, fell in love with her, told the agency that he had broken up with her. Really he was trying to maintain the relationship. Then there becomes some question about who exactly is she? Is she working him? Then he also has a teenage daughter who is suspicious of this job, this demanding job, that has taken her father away from her. She's highly critical of how he's handled those decisions.

It's a really interesting-- Then, Jeffrey Wright has a character where he's connected to some people that he cares about that are also in trouble. Again, it's a way of showing multiple sides of a character. We don't see Michael Fassbender being an effective agent. We see him trying to be an effective parent. We see him trying to maintain this relationship with a woman that he loves, even though he's been lying to her about who he is, and she might be lying to him about who she is.

Alison Stewart: Oh, it's all beautiful. It's all beautiful.

Eric Deggans: Gotta love it. Gotta love it.

Alison Stewart: Black Doves. Tell me more about Black Doves.

Eric Deggans: That's Keira Knightley playing this woman who has been married to this guy for 10 years. She has two kids with him. He's an up-and-coming British official. It turns out that she's been spying on him for a private espionage intelligence agency for 10 years. She decided to have an affair because she was feeling unsatisfied in the marriage. Then the man she was having an affair with got killed. It turns out he got assassinated. It turns out he's at the center of this plot that she wants to try and unravel. As she unravels it, she has to keep her family safe.

She also asked questions about whether she still loves her husband or not. Her muscle, the guy who's called in to back her up on some missions, is played by Ben Whishaw. He also had a partner. He's gay, but he had a partner in London that he was connected to that he broke up with. He's back in town. He's wondering whether he should reconnect with this person. That person has a child. Both characters have significant others that they care about and children that they care about. They have to decide how to keep them safe and negotiate connecting with them while they're in the middle of this gigantic espionage story.

Alison Stewart: Do you buy Keira Knightley as a spy?

Eric Deggans: I do. I thought one of the best things about the show was her physicality and her ability to embody the perfect mom, in a way, the perfect work, this perfect spouse, professional spouse. She seemed to organize this holiday party that they were at the center of. She's witty and charming and beautiful and great with the kids. Then she goes to investigate this apartment and she runs into two assassins and she takes them out. She started-- She co-starred in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. She knows her way around an action scene.

With all of these movies, whether you're talking about James Bond or you're talking about Black Doves or you're talking about Slow Horses, there's a suspension of disbelief that has to happen. Of course, there's a bunch of outlandish stuff that happens, but she sells it. She sells it really well. One thing that I think is a constant about all the shows we're going to talk about is that the cast are really good and the actors are always doing a great job.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk about Gary Oldman. He stars in Slow Horses. I'm waiting for it to come back.

Eric Deggans: Yes, you and me both. I had the pleasure of interviewing Gary Oldman not too long ago for a public media show called The Business. He loves playing Jackson Lamb as much as we love watching him play Jackson Lamb, which is so awesome. What a wonderful character. This slovenly guy who, on the surface, doesn't care about anything. Of course, beneath that, cares very much about the misfits that he's managing in this department that MI5 has designated as, "This is where we dump the problem children. This is where we dump the people that we don't think are good spies." Jackson is experienced and savvy enough that he's able to make them into an effective group, even though they are a bunch of misfits who often make the wrong decisions.

Alison Stewart: Got a text here that says, "What about the new Mr. & Mrs. Smith? So good. Such a spin on its head."

Eric Deggans: Yes, that's a great one. For me, that was a little bit of a borderline one for my story because technically those two characters are not married. They're pretending to be married and they don't have children. What's great about Mr. & Mrs. Smith, this is a TV show, streaming thing, on Prime Video starring Donna Glover and Maya Erskine, based on the movie with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. They play these two people who are hired by an intelligence agency and they are tasked with pretending to be married. They are learning how to do the espionage job while they're also learning each other.

It is an allegory for how relationships build, and how you get to know somebody, and how you might fall in love with somebody, and how you might also start to realize that they have all these sides to them that you don't necessarily like. It's a great allegory for all the things that-- Then they end up in couples counseling even. It's a great allegory for all the things that you go through in building a relationship. The only reason I didn't include them in my story is because the show was on a long time ago and they're not actually married and they don't have children.

Alison Stewart: I have a question for you as someone who is writing about these shows. A lot of them are based in London. Aside from CCTV, why is London the current epicenter of the spy universe on to?

Eric Deggans: That's a good question. I think some of it is chance. Slow Horses was based on a novel by a British writer. I think some of it is an attempt to-- Some of these are co-productions with British TV outlets too. I think The Day of the Jackal, for example, is a co-production with a British outlet. That might be one reason why it's also set in Britain. Then there's also-- The Brits always have a special claim on our feelings about spies because of James Bond. It's hard to understate what a splash the James Bond movies made in the '60s. What a craze that inspired. Everything from the Saint with a TV show that was Roger Moore's first big part playing a spy.

He would go on to play James Bond to Get Smart, which is a wonderful satire series that brought us Don Adams and Mel Brooks was involved. That was a huge craze throughout the '60s and early '70s. Our Man Flint, there was an American offshoot, an American espionage guy who was kind of Bond, but American, played by James Coburn. That sticks in our pop culture DNA. Now we've had a version of James Bond that's been modernized. I think Daniel Craig did a great job of modernizing James Bond to the point where he wasn't quite as sexist, he wasn't quite as retrograde. He was a little more grounded in reality, a little more and a little more understandable as a character.

He always tried to play him as a guy that maybe we could connect with, even if he's particularly dysfunctional. Then we get to these modern characters that are very much-- You would imagine, if somebody's job is to inform on people all the time and occasionally be called on to kill people, that they would be emotionally shut down. They would not be able to connect with people. The difference between anti-heroes and villains is that anti-heroes connect with some people. They have people in their lives that they are devoted to, and they have values that you can understand and admire.

Villains don't connect with people. Villains only care about themselves, and they will turn on anyone in order to advance their own agenda. You can see it play out in all these shows. Who are the villain characters? The villain characters are the people who don't care about anybody. Who are the anti-heroes? The anti-heroes are people who have folks they want to keep safe, and they work very hard to keep them safe, even if it means killing other characters.

Alison Stewart: This text says, "The Americans was a great example of spies with family. A classic." This dovetails nicely into The Diplomat with Keri Russell in both of them. Actually, the spy agency that is run on The Diplomat is the CIA, and Ali Ahn is the character. It really is hard for her to keep her job and keep-- Well, it's not hard to keep her job. It's hard to keep the secrets of the relationship and her job. What makes her especially relatable?

Eric Deggans: Well, she's a woman. She's a career woman, very independent, very good at her job. She feels as if this relationship that she has with the chief of staff of Keri Russell's character is holding her back. She's upset because she feels like she's made decisions to hold her career back, to serve the relationship, then the guy in the relationship turns around and says, "Hey, I'm going to do something else." Ali's like, "Wait a minute, what?" How many of us can relate to having those conversations? If you're two people and you both have careers, and you both have to decide which career takes precedent at which time-- Many of us have had those conversations.

Alison Stewart: Eric Deggans is NPR's TV critic. Thanks for talking spies with us.

Eric Deggans: Oh, anytime. It's my pleasure.

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Alison Stewart: That's All of It today. All week long, here on All of It, we're talking about big new movies. On Monday, we talked about Nesferatu and Baby Girl. Today we talked about The Brutalists. Tomorrow we'll talk about the new film, September 5. I'm Alison Stewart. I appreciate you listening and I appreciate you. I will meet you back here next time.