Covert Affairs Preview: “Lady Stardust” 

Warning: Vague spoilers discussed; no specific plot points revealed.

Y’all know I have some seriously mad, bad love for Annie and Auggie and Eyal. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I love every episode of Covert Affairs, but I’m happy to tell you that the third season finale is a very, very good hour of TV.

This season has been a bit of an anomaly because Annie went way off the reservation and fell in love (whether she’s acknowledged that yet or not) with someone who wasn’t Auggie or Eyal, only to watch him die and have to come back from the edge of death herself. It hasn’t been the smoothest sailing.

It’s also been a whirlwind, and worldwide, season as Annie was often farflung from her home base, and physically separated from Auggie for most of it. We had to take it on faith that the finale would get us where wanted to go. And it does. Not completely, mind you, but it’s a great start.

The hook for the season finale is that Annie is trying to track down Khalid in the wake of Megan’s death. This takes her to Amsterdam, where Khalid trumps her with an unexpected hand, or so he thinks. She winds up at the American Embassy to regroup and get back on track. Once she has her team in place, she goes full-on court press after Khalid, with or without the agency’s support.

Also in the mix, Henry Wilcox is a free man, and that makes the Campbells rightfully very uneasy about what his agenda might be. He uses his powers for good to ensure that Jai is recognized by the agency, and he tips his larger hand to Annie, but not us, before the hour’s up.

Eyal makes Annie a very tempting offer, and she and Auggie finally, finally, finally have that conversation they’ve been chasing most of the season. Set your DVRs to run a couple of minutes over because it’s not a scene you want to have cut off. You will, however, be cursing the hiatus when the credits roll. Thankfully, Covert Affairs will be back next summer for its fourth season.

It’s a solid episode to close out the season, and it sets us up for a couple of very interesting arcs next year. As we exit season three, all of our principal characters are accounted for, which is a relief considering how we started. One plus this year is that we had Oded Fehr for most of the back half of the season–I hope we see as much or more of him in year four.

The Covert Affairs season finale airs Tuesday night at 10/9c on USA. Unfortunately, there is no marathon beforehand, and the whole season is NOT online. (USA does its fans a disservice by not allowing folks to rewatch the season running up to the finale. Not sure the rationale there when other USA shows get the pre-finale marathon treatment, and we had a mini-marathon before the back half of season three started.)