Citadel (Season 1) Episodes 1 & 2: Recap & Ending, Explained

Citadel (Season 1) Episodes 1 & 2: The new series Citadel, starring Priyanka Chopra and Richard Madden, premiered today on Amazon Prime Video. Created by David Weil, the show is a futuristic spy thriller that follows the lives of secret agents Mason Kane and Nadia Sinh. Their lives drastically change when in the midst of a mission, the two characters experience amnesia as a result of an ambush, which ultimately leads to a train explosion.

In the initial two episodes, Citadel lays the groundwork for the story of two agents struggling to uncover their past and identify their adversaries in a formidable criminal organization. Along with Priyanka Chopra and Richard Madden, the series features an ensemble cast including Stanley Tucci, Lesley Manville, Osy Ikhile, Ashleigh Cummings, Roland Møller, Caoilinn Springall, and Leo Woodall.

Citadel effectively portrays the age-old conflict between good and evil, with spies caught in the middle of this high-stakes game. The characters of Mason and Nadia embody the enigmatic and mysterious nature of espionage.

For now, Let’s quickly dive into the first two episodes of Citadel.

Citadel (Season 1), Episodes 1 & 2 Recap:

Episode 1: “The Human Enigma”

The episode opens with a mysterious woman (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) who seems to be a secret operative talking to her handler Bernard (Stanley Tucci). He tells her that all her toys (camouflaged weapons) are tacked-in and her mission is to pursue a man named Gregory (Lev Gorn) who has a ton of uranium in his position. All of them are on abroad on a futuristic train that is taking them through the Italian Alps.

Before the woman can get to Gregory, we also meet a mysterious man (Richard Madden) who feels like a close associate, and by the flirtatious air between them, we can make out that the two have some shared history that has now turned into cute beef.

She tells the man that this mission is hers and he should be a subsidiary that handles the flack. Gregory then proceeds to the other car with his handler following him. The woman follows Gregory while the man and then the handler get into a fight inside the bathroom.

In the car, we get introduced to the woman as Nadia – a top operative of a secretive agency called CITADEL. She points her gun at Gregory and asks him for the uranium. However, it turns out that Gregory had set her up and shows her how his organization has been slowly decimating CITADEL to the ground. The man and Nadia are probably the last agents left.

The entire car, at this point, stands up to crossfire, where the man and Nadia try to kill everyone. However, Gregory, who is heavily wounded, says that “Manticore” (the organization he works for) will find them even if they somehow escape. He then blasts himself with the bomb leading the train to blow up and derail into the river.

Next, we see the man waking up in a hospital in Bellagio, Italy. It feels like he has lost all his memories as the doctor tells him that he is suffering from retrograde Amnesia and that his name is Kyle Conroy. He tells him about the blasts on the train and how he got washed up.

8 years later, in Eugene, Oregon, we see Kyle is now leading a normal family life with a wife and a child. However, he occasionally has visions of Nadia and the train that blew up. In order to find more answers about himself and the woman that he has been seeing, he is seeking therapy. The doctor tells him that therapy would not help him figure out if he was a married man before the accident and that he should seek the help of technology to have better results.

In Virginia, U.S.A we meet Dahlia Archer (Lesley Manville) the UK Ambassador trying to intimidate Secretary McCulough (Peter Gerety) in relation to the Citadel X case. The secretary tells her that he doesn’t work for Manticore anymore but she threatens personal harm to him if he doesn’t help her.

She then calls twin assassins Davik and Anders (Rolland Maller), who are completing a job in Zurich, and tells them that she wants them to retrieve the Citadel X case that has been moved to a CIA black site at a shipping yard in Miami.

In Chicago, Bernard has three hostages at gunpoint as he wants them to tell him why Dahlia had a meeting with Secretary McCulough. One of them tells him that she has been looking for the Citadel X case because it will all lead to nuclear codes. Bernard then gets a notification about Kyle’s whereabouts, which leads him to track him down and take his whole family hostage.

The brothers get to the case in Miami, but since it is heavily coded, they are unable to open it. Dahlia, who is having an interview with the press, talks about how Great Britain will be in arms if someone threatens its existence. We also hear something about “the family” being pleased to hear about the case.

Bernard then tells Kyle that he was a spy working for Citadel before the accident happened eight years ago. He also tells him that his spy name was actually Mason and that he was one of the many operatives that worked secretly for the betterment of the people. The organization traces back to hundred years ago before someone within Citadel double-crossed them, leading most of the agents dead.

He also tells him about Manticore which is an organization that consists of eight of the wealthiest families from across the world who use their power to manipulate world events in order to gain more wealth and power. Additionally, he tells Mason that he called him there because Manticore has just stolen the Citadel X case, which consists of the codes of the most powerful nuclear weapons in the world.

He shares that Mason had a partner named Nadia Sinh, who possibly died after sending them a mayday call on the day of the accident. Bernard promises to make Mason remember her if he promises to help him with the case.

Episode 1 ends by showing us that Nadia survived the train crash eight years ago too.

Episode 2: “Spies Appear in Night Time”

Episode 2 begins with a wounded Nadia walking out of the train wreckage near the river. She tries to communicate with Bernard but is unable to, which is when Bernard initiates the backstop protocol. This basically means that Nadia’a memories will be wiped out in two-hour time. We then see her fighting her captive (the person who took her in) before her memories get wiped out. However, she is able to write a note that says, “Go to Valencia Asha” before that happens.

She inhabits her alternate identity, “Charlotte Vernon,” and drives off. The action then moves from Wyoming to New York as Mason decides to join Bernard to get to the case before the twins are able to open it. He sends him into a building where one of the twins is slowly unlocking the locks of the case, and his job is to basically get it before he can undo the final one.

Bernard keeps instructing him how to fight his way through, and Mason is surprised to see that he is able to do things he could never imagine. Mason is able to get the case before time, and he flees with it. In the meantime, one of the twin brothers sees Mason in action and is taken aback by his presence.

Davik (one of the twin brothers) then calls Dahlia about the case getting stolen. She gets mad and tells him that something like this would paint her – a broker for Manticore which is run by the families, in the wrong strokes. He tells her that the case was stolen by Mason Kane, but she doesn’t believe him initially. She then orders them to bring the case and Kane to her.

As Bernard and Mason are moving with the case in their possession, the brothers are pursuing them in their own car. Bernard tells Mason that they are not going back to Wyoming to his wife and kid because as soon as they did their little heist, all possible Manticore assassins are notified about Mason Kane’s existence. This act basically leads him to see Manticore to the very end before he returns back to his family. Bernard also tells him that his memories as an agent are inside the X case in a vial, and so are the locations of any other Citadel agents.

However, before Bernard can tell him anything else or Mason can inject memories, Davik shoots at their moving car, hitting Bernard as Mason flees all alone. When Mason is far away from all the shootings, he realizes that the ambush has destroyed his vial. Just then, the X case is able to trace one of Citadel’s agents, and it turns out that Mason now knows that Nadia is not dead.

Citadel (Season 1) Episode 2 Recap & Ending, Explained:

Mason then travels to Valencia, Italy, by tracing Nadia’s location from the X case. Davik also pursues him and reaches the restaurant where Nadia now works. When Mason tells Nadia that she is a secret agent for Citadel, she doesn’t believe him initially, but when he shows her the X case details, she gets a little apprehensive. Davik, on the other hand, is onto them and wants the case back. A fight between them takes place where Nadia gets beaten to a pulp before she injects the vial and drops Davik unconscious.

In her faded memories traces, we also see a memory that feels a little off. It basically finds Nadia talking to someone and telling them that Mason should not know about this. We get to know that there was some kind of secret that Nadia was hiding from Mason before the accident happened.

Davik calls Dahlia and tells her that he still doesn’t have the case. When she questions his incompetency, he tells her that Mason is not alone and that Nadia – another one of Citadel’s agents is also alive.

Is Bernard Dead?

After the ambush on the highway, we thought that Bernard was killed by Davik’s gunshot. However, the ending of Citadel Season 1 Episode 2 shows that Bernard is wounded but alive. He is now in Dahlia’s captivity, who plans to turn him into a Manticore confidante.

Citadel (Season 1) Episodes 1 & 2: Recap & Ending, Explained – Is Bernard Dead?