Mason Kane (Richard Madden) was once one of the top agents for an independent global spy agency called Citadel that operated outside the controls of any government with its mission being to protect humanity from global threats. During a mission alongside Citadel's other top agent Nadia Sinh (Priyanka Chopra Jonas), the mission turned out to be a trap by insidious organization Manticore which lead to Citadel's collapse and Mason losing his memories believing himself to be an alias Kyle Conroy. 8 years later, Mason/Kyle is now married to Abby (Ashleigh Cummings) with a daughter Hendrix (Caoilinn Springall) with still no memory of his life beyond these 8 years save for flashes in dreams. When Mason/Kyle attempts another DNA test, this brings him to the attention of Bernard Orlick (Stanley Tucci), his former tech support specialist in Citadel who tells him that Manticore are preparing something major and he needs to use his dormant skillset to stop it.
Citdael is the long awaited collaboration between Amazon Studios and producers Joe and Anthony Russo that has spent five years in development with the intention being to create a globe spanning spy franchise consisting of a mothership series along with several planned local language spin-offs with an Indian and Italian series both confirmed at this point with several others in various stages of development. Totaling a six episode first season, Citadel is noted for being one of the most expensive series ever produced with an estimated $300 million production budget that's largely credited with reshoots that were undertaken when the original showrunners were replaced with David Weil. With the first two episodes now available, Citadel certainly has scope and production value to spare, but it's all in service of a very safe and very generic spy thriller that feels like a remix of the "greatest hits" of the past 20 years' worth of spy movies.
It's honestly pretty hard to discuss much regarding Citadel because the first two episodes have basically been very standard scenes of exposition, macguffin chases, and fight scenes with very little that actually gives Citadel much of an identity of its own. While I did like Stanley Tucci giving some personality to his tech expert character Bernard Orlick by adding some punch to his lines, most of the cast aren't really given all that much to work with and as a result Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra Jonas just feel like placeholders in roles that could've been played by anyone and it'd hardly make a difference who you chose to play them.
Citadel just feels like time filler, albeit handsomely produced and competently made time filler. It's amazing how you have a series that not only has this level of financial backing but is coming from major producing powers and there's just nothing all that much to talk about in what's supposed to be a major hook to get viewers.
