The Recruit
Genre	Spy–adventure Comedy-drama
Created by	Alexi Hawley
Starring	Noah Centineo Laura Haddock Aarti Mann Colton Dunn Fivel Stewart Daniel Quincy Annoh Kristian Bruun Vondie Curtis-Hall
Music by	Jordan Gagne
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	8
Production
Executive producers	Alexi Hawley David Bartis Doug Liman Gene Klein Noah Centineo Charlie Ebersol Adam Ciralsky
Producers	Hadi Nicholas Deeb Agatha Barnes Marc David Alpert
Production locations	Montreal, Quebec Los Angeles, California Vienna, Austria
Cinematography	Bernard Couture Pierre Jodoin
Editors	Damien Smith Adrienne McNally Sang Han
Running time	50–58 minutes
Production companies	Hypnotic Perfectman Pictures Entertainment One
Release
Original network	Netflix
Original release	December 16, 2022

The Recruit is an American spy–adventure television series created by Alexi Hawley for Netflix. The series follows Owen Hendricks (Noah Centineo), a CIA lawyer who becomes involved in massive international conflicts with dangerous parties because an asset tried to expose her relationship to the agency. The series was released on Netflix on December 16, 2022.^[1][2][3]

Synopsis[edit]

Fledgling lawyer Owen Hendricks, who has just started working for the CIA, has his life turned upside down when he encounters an asset who demands exoneration from the agency. Once she tries to expose her long-term relationship with the agency, he becomes entangled in convoluted international politics. As Hendricks negotiates with the asset, he finds himself at odds with menacing individuals and groups, risking his life as he tries to fulfill his duties.

Cast[edit]

Main[edit]

• Noah Centineo as Owen Hendricks, a CIA lawyer
• Laura Haddock as Max Meladze, a former CIA asset who is in prison for beating a shady trucker to death
• Aarti Mann as Violet, Owen’s co-worker who messes with Owen
• Colton Dunn as Lester, another co-worker of Owen’s and Violet’s partner in crime
• Fivel Stewart as Hannah, Owen’s roommate and ex-girlfriend
• Daniel Quincy Annoh as Terence, Owen’s other roommate and friend
• Kristian Bruun as Janus Ferber, Owen’s overstressed colleague who reluctantly helps Owen out
• Vondie Curtis-Hall as Walter Nyland, Owen’s boss and the CIA’s general counsel

Recurring[edit]

• Angel Parker as Dawn, CIA operative doing a black op in Yemen
• Victor Andres Trelles Turgeon as Talco
• Byron Mann as Xander, a senior case officer
• Kaylah Zander as Amelia, another colleague of Owen’s who is interested in Owen romantically

Episodes[edit]

Each episode of The Recruit bears CIA-like initials in their title. The codes, which are not unlike the multitude of acronyms for different divisions and projects that Owen Hendricks must understand in his role within the agency (codes Owen acknowledges at one point he has trouble keeping up with), represent a line of dialogue from their respective episodes.^[4][5]

Production[edit]

Development[edit]

It was announced that Netflix acquired an unnamed espionage drama on April 28, 2021, with Entertainment One backing the production.^[1][2][6] Dubbed Graymail, the project was created by Alexi Hawley, executive producer of several popular procedural drama series, such as Castle, The Rookie and its spin-off.^[1][6][7][8] Alexi, in turn, served as its executive producer and showrunner. Alongside Hawley, Noah Centineo; Doug Liman, Gene Klein and David Bartis of Hypnotic; Adam Ciralsky and Charlie Ebersol of P3 Media also joined the project as executive producers.^[9][10][11] The project was set as eight part one-hour television series.^[2][10][12] It was unveiled on September 28, 2022, that Alexi Hawley, George Ghanem, Amelia Roper, Hadi Deeb, Niceole Levy, and Maya Goldsmith served as the series writers; meanwhile, Doug Liman, Alex Kalymnios, Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour Jr., and Julian Holmes directed the episodes.^[13]

Casting[edit]

When the production was announced on April 28, 2021, Noah Centineo was unveiled as the lead character of the television series.^[1][2] More castings were revealed on November 12, 2021, with Aarti Mann, Daniel Quincy Annoh, Vondie Curtis Hall, Kristian Bruun, Laura Haddock, Colton Dunn and Fivel Stewart joining the main cast alongside Centineo.^{[3][9][10][12]} In addition, Byron Mann, Angel Parker, and Kaylah Zander were also announced in recurring capacities for the series.^[9][10][14]

Filming[edit]

Principal photography for the series reportedly took place in Montreal, Quebec, and Los Angeles, California, on October 25, 2021.^[7][8][14] The filming had reportedly wrapped on March 28, 2022.^[14]

Release[edit]

The Recruit premiered globally on Netflix on December 16, 2022.^[11]

Marketing[edit]

The series^[15] was promoted during Netflix TUDUM Global event on September 24, 2022, on YouTube.^[3][11][16] Additional info, including its release date and official title, were unveiled at the official website of the event.^{[11][12][17][16][18][19]} First official trailer for the series was released on YouTube on November 16, 2022.^[20]

Reception[edit]

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 70% approval rating with an average rating of 7.1/10, based on 23 critic reviews. The website’s critics consensus reads, “The Recruit may not be the freshest chip off the old block, but it employs Noah Centineo‘s considerable charms to highly watchable effect.”^[21] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 60 out of 100 based on 12 critics, indicating “mixed or average reviews”.^[22]

Richard Roeper of Chicago Sun-Times gave the series 3 out of 4 stars and said, “Noah Centineo makes a likable lead on the flashy, funny series.”^[23]