Paramount+'s 10/10 Spy Thriller Makes a Controversial Change Ahead of June 21 Return

Paramount+ has nearly become synonymous with Taylor Sheridan‘s roster of hit shows, South Park, and CBS’ prime-time dramas. However, the streaming service also hosts several other shows and movies from its parent company, including some from defunct services. Before Showtime’s standalone streaming service was shuttered, it still had some hit shows, like The Chi and the Dexter spin-offs, that were folded into the Paramount+ brand. Also among those shows is the 2024 spy thriller The Agency, which delivered one of the best seasons of television, and it’s back for Season 2 this month.

This show had a slow start, which explains why critics were not impressed with the first season after watching a handful of episodes, giving it a 66% score on Rotten Tomatoes. “The Agency squanders its potential with slow pacing and a conflicted tone that seems to be at battle with itself,” Collider’s Nate Richard wrote in his review of The Agency Season 1. ScreenRant’s Felipe Rangel was more optimistic, saying that “Season 1 could end strongly.” Meanwhile, Matt Mahler of MovieWeb was thoroughly impressed by the show’s complexity and appreciated how it “doesn’t spoon-feed anything, and trusts viewers to pay attention and use their minds.”

That was close to two years ago, and Paramount+ has now unveiled the premiere date for the much-anticipated second season. The streamer is doing something different this time, dropping all ten episodes on June 21 at 3:00 am ET on Paramount+. It’s unclear why the second season is getting the binge-drop treatment when the first was released weekly. Binge-drops are divisive, but they work for some shows, so it remains to be seen how that will affect The Agency.































































Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz
Which Action Hero Would Be
Your Perfect Partner?

Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt

Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.

🎖️Rambo

🍸James Bond

🏺Indiana Jones

🔧John McClane

🎭Ethan Hunt

01

You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner?
The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.





02

You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel?
How you get there is half the mission.





03

You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do?
This is when you find out what someone is really made of.





04

The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest?
Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.





05

How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission?
Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.





06

Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them?
The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.





07

Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do?
Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.





08

What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace?
A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.





09

Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with?
No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.





10

It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now?
The last question is the most honest one.





Your Partner Has Been Assigned
Your Perfect Partner Is…

Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.

Rambo

Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.

James Bond

Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.

Indiana Jones

Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.

John McClane

Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.

Ethan Hunt

Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.

‘The Agency’ Season 2 Doesn’t Let Up

If The Agency‘s first season’s finale was epic, then Season 2 is a masterclass in entertainment. Paramount+ has already released the high-octane trailer for the upcoming season, which finds Martian (Michael Fassbender) back at London Station, haunted by his new status as a double agent and the inability to save his lover. While he might be crumbling on the inside, Martian has to remain in control to save Samia (Jodie Turner-Smith), who is now being held in captivity. Meanwhile, London Station knows things are not okay because there is a mole among them, and they will stop at nothing to root them out. Everyone is in trouble from all corners, and there are no guarantees about who will come out of this alive — not even Martian.

The Agency Season 2 drops on June 21 on Paramount+. Stay tuned for more updates.


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Release Date

December 1, 2024

Network

Paramount+ with Showtime

Showrunner

Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth


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