2024 is shaping up to be a great year for fans of spy dramas.
Already, we’ve gotten shows like FX’s The Veil, starring Elisabeth Moss and created by Peaky Blinders‘ Steven Knight — in addition to Prime Video’s absolutely stellar spy series Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which was a reimagining of the 2005 movie of the same name. Still to come this year are espionage-themed streaming releases like the Keira Knightley Netflix drama Black Doves, Season 2 of Jeff Bridges’ The Old Man, Prime Video’s Citadel: Diana (starring one of my favorite actresses, Italy’s Matilda De Angelis) — and Season 2 of Netflix’s very underrated Kleo, which is just days away as of this writing.
The latter is a stylish, Cold War-era drama about an ex-Stasi killer with a vendetta: She’s trying to figure out who or what was responsible for sending her to prison after a mission in which she killed a man inside a nightclub. The name of that East German spy is Kleo Straub, played with a Villanelle level of insouciance by Jella Haase, and by the end of the first season, she’s figured out why she was arrested.
But her problems have only multiplied.
In Season 2, debuting on July 25, Kleo is on the hunt for a red suitcase — the contents of which will play a role in the reunification of Germany as well as the post-Cold War reorganization of Germany and Europe, which is why Kleo is racing to find the suitcase before the KGB and CIA get their hands on it. The result is a six-episode season of spies and killers racing from Belgrade to Moscow, with Kleo once again dodging the predations of other spooks as the fast-paced story gets kicked up a notch.
In addition to the propulsive storytelling, Kleo’s synthy ’80s soundtrack, fashionable threads, spartan architecture, and dry humor add to the European vibes of this Netflix gem that even Stephen King has raved is “a breath of fresh air.” If you love spy dramas but haven’t checked Kleo out yet, do yourself a favor and rectify that immediately.
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