Bow To The Queen! NBC’s The Endgame Is A Dynamic Crime Thriller That Will Always Keep You Guessing

The Endgame series is a winding, weaving drama that almost makes you forget who the real bad guy is. Starring Morena Baccarin as Elena Federova, the internationally renowned mercenary/brilliant criminal mastermind who has made a killing in dealing black market weapons and who is also a very dangerous woman wanted by top men (and women.) In a bout of very bad (maybe) luck, Elena finds herself a captive of the US Government who really wants to lock her up for the whole dealing-in-guns hobby she persistently pursues but is willing to make a deal with Elena if she gives up all of her international contacts. Of course, that won’t happen but within the first 15 minutes of the pilot, it’s obvious that the government has messed with the wrong woman not just because she’s all that and a bag of chips, but because she knows something deeply disturbing and criminal that two out of the three officials who are trying to intimidate her have done, and knows exactly how to out them in the most public way possible.

At the time Elena was arrested, she had already orchestrated an ingenious plan to take over several banks in NYC, including the Federal Reserve, for reasons that only she knew. As each bank fell into the hands of her trained accomplices, it was obvious the only person that could figure out Elena’s endgame was FBI agent Van Tuner, a principled agent who was very familiar with Elena’s motives and tactics but who wouldn’t become compromised by Elena’s motives and tactics. Val was also on the FBI’s naughty list for crimes her husband committed and was serving time for, so she wasn’t exactly their go-to person for them to ask for an assist. As Agent Turner tries to pry information out of Elena, the women find they share a bond of tragedy with Elena losing her family (and eventually her husband Sergey Vodianov played by Costa Ronin) to mob violence and Val losing her mother to gun violence.

The bond frays soon though when Elena starts using Val’s past as a means of manipulating her into unintentionally helping the brilliant merc with her plan which involves a lot of things like outing a popular news anchor for a crime he committed, while nearly killing an innocent bank hostage who had a direct connection (but not a criminal one) to the crime said anchor was responsible for. From here on out it’s clear that nothing is as it seems, nothing is a coincidence, and those who you thought you could trust you can’t. It’s a series that is built on layers and layers of plans intended to set things in motion that might or might not end in the death of innocent lives but more importantly to Elena, the truth she is trying to communicate to the American people will get out: the lies, the criminality and the corruption that is being covered up by the mainstream media, the US Government, the FBI, etc and they will love her for it.

The Endgame airs Mondays at 10/9 pm C on NBC