And you thought Lauren Reed was dead. Wrong.
Clearly Lauren did not die on “Alias,” way back when, because for one thing she’s back. Reincarnated with a different name, but she’s tougher than ever, kicking ass—and getting ass kicked.
I’m talking about Melissa George, the Aussie actress who was a regular on my once favorite thriller, “Alias,” in which Jennifer Garner starred as Sydney Bristow, spy girl with disguises so fabulous, they could make RuPaul weep with envy.
Well, George is back in another action thriller, “Hunted,” on Cinemax, playing Sam Hunter (Hunter is “Hunted,” get it?) a femme fatale (literally) who doesn’t get fabulous disguises but does get naked.
Sam works for a shadow group of elite spies who work for a private global intelligence firm called Byzantium.
Have you noticed that the only non-elite spies out there these days aren’t very elite and work for the State Department?
Anyway, in this new show from Frank Spotnitz (“The X-Files,” “Strike Back”), we meet Sam, who is having rough sex in a rough neighborhood in Tangier.
The next morning, she goes out with the rough-sex guy and, before you know it, she shoves him against a wall and takes a bullet to the head.
Rough Sex runs off, and assumes Sam’s dead but — lo! — it’s fake blood. Oh no! Not the old shot-to-the-brain-left-for-dead-in-Tangier trick is it?
After many more killings in a day, Sam hooks up with the guy with whom she has less rough sex, Aidan (Adam Rayner), and asks him to meet her in a cafe because she has to tell him something.
Oops. Before she gets to tell him her secret, killers come in and shoot her in the stomach and leave her for dead. With real bullets this time. Since Sam never knows the client she is working for at Byzantium, anything and everyone is suspect. Aidan? The client? Who?
Next thing we know, Sam’s not dead again, and hiding out in Scotland. Between her tragic past and uncertain future, Sam does not know who to trust.
Finally, she makes her way back to Byzantium headquarters in London. Are they the ones who set her up? If you love “Strike Back,” you’ll devour “Hunted.”