There are more dangerous spies around the world. The story began with the woman who rocked the United States throne, Erica Shepard. Erica is a former CIA agent, now known as the most famous traitor in American history, serving a life sentence at Supermax. Erica appears to be carrying out a national mission on the order of a man named Keaton, an FBI agent he will recruit to help track down a dangerous criminal.
Grading on that curve, "The Enemy Within" doesn't bring much new to the party but offers enough polish on this earnestly played, tried-and-true formula so as not to be, unlike some of these shows, its own worst enemy.
Familiarity can be fun, I don't dispute this. But life is far too short-and the TV landscape far too crowded-to play spy games I've already played dozens of times before.
It isn't the worst in the network's line of dramas featuring generic intelligence operatives forced to team up with morally and ethically compromised partners best kept in containment.
Carpenter and Chestnut solidly play their roles, but Enemy Within doesn't crackle the way The Blacklist did in early episodes. There's nothing particularly special going on here, and it's hard to muster the enthusiasm to say much more than that.
