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Amazon Prime Video’s ambitious Citadel universe expands this week with its second instalment. Titled Citadel: Diana, the Italian offshoot of the espionage-thriller franchise finds itself in the enviable middle-child position, unburdened by greater responsibilities, but also a little inconsequential. It isn’t good enough to revive the series, nor is it bad enough to put the final nail in its coffin. It is only if the upcoming Indian spinoff, Citadel: Honey Bunny, flops that red alerts will be sounded across the hallways of Amazon HQ. With expectations lowered to comically non-existent levels by last year’s debut season of the ‘mothership’ show, starring Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden, all that Citadel: Diana needed to be was passable. And fortunately for us all, it does an above average job of being average.
Made on a noticeably smaller scale than the original — this isn’t saying much, considering that Citadel remains one of the most expensive shows ever made, and literally everything else will appear slight when compared to it — Citadel: Diana is an odd series that devotes itself to perhaps the least interesting aspect of this entire franchise. In fact, Diana comes across as an incidental presence in her own show, which focuses instead on the internal politics of the Manticore secret organisation. This was the Spectre-like outfit headed by Lesley Manville’s character in the original, if you recall. It’s important that you do, because none of it would make sense otherwise.
Also read – Citadel review: Generic and uninspired, Priyanka Chopra’s Prime Video spy show is an epic mess
Matilda De Angelis in a still from Citadel: Diana.
But Citadel: Diana has little concern for whether you’d actually be interested in watching the bureaucratic back-and-forth between the leaders of Manticore’s French, German and Italian wings, as they wrestle for greater power among themselves. The show barrels forward anyway, thrusting you headfirst into exposition-heavy discussions about why the Italians were outcast from the larger organisation because of a past snafu. It falls on the sinister Zani family to re-establish themselves within Manticore — an outfit that was originally created to maintain world peace, but has been overrun by corruption.
At six episodes long, Citadel: Diana isn’t very long, but it certainly feels endless. The story jumps backwards and forwards in time, and is mostly told from Diana’s perspective. She works as a low-level Manticore agent in the year 2030, but a large portion of the proceedings is devoted to her back-story, which involves the death of her parents in a plane crash, and her subsequent angst at bringing those responsible to justice. It is revealed that Diana was recruited by Citadel — these are the good guys — to become a double agent within the walls of Manticore. She spent eight full years in this position, seemingly without making much progress.
The story kicks into motion when she stages the murder of a fellow agent, and attempts to cause chaos among the leadership. A dangerous McGuffin is introduced. The plot becomes more and more complicated. But Diana remains a supporting presence through it all. Matilda De Angelis is strong in the role, but she’s barely given anything to play with. Chained to genre cliches — Diana tough as nails, but also emotionally vulnerable — De Angelis is put through the motions, and allowed only a handful of scenes that feel rooted in human reality. Among the better ones is a sequence set in Sicily, where Diana finally begins to open up emotionally. Her companion on this trip is Edo Zani, heir-apparent to the Zani family empire, and not-so-secretly disapproving of his father’s ways.
Somewhat interestingly, the show presents the Zanis as a sort of mafia crime family, with Edo filling the Michael Corleone role. It is only in the show’s second half — far too late in the game, to be honest — that the writers unravel the more interesting sides of these characters. Because otherwise, our doorway into their lives was through their work as secret agents and clandestine kingpins, and not the other way around. The non-linear structure only makes things worse, because it doesn’t give you enough time to form any kind of bond with either Diana or Edo. Before you begin to understand where she’s coming from, the show launches her into a new escapade.
A still from Prime Video’s Citadel: Diana.
Because of Citadel: Diana’s uncertain timeline, and otherwise muddled aesthetic, it becomes unclear if we’re in a parallel reality of sorts, or if we’re simply being asked to take a leap of faith and accept the existence of magical technology. For instance, Diana is able to tap into any phone call simply by touching her ear and glancing in the direction of the person whose conversation she wants to eavesdrop on. A special lens with an Iron Man-style heads-up display is prominently featured as well, constantly providing Diana with important information about her mission. It’s another thing altogether that the sci-fi elements are too generic to be given any importance.
It is also curious that Citadel: Diana avoids presenting the usual sort of fan service — you know, cameos and the like. But that might simply be because the original show doesn’t exactly have any fans. Produced on a reported budget of $300 million (and supposedly made twice, after everybody decided that the first attempt didn’t cut it), the original Citadel represented the worst tendencies of the Russo brothers. They serve as executive producers on this series, hired, perhaps, to replicate their success at Marvel Studios. But a key reason why the MCU became the behemoth that it did was that each of its early movies felt like it was building towards something. But even with 12 episodes of storytelling now available to consume, it’s still unclear what the grand plan for the Citadel franchise is. Who’d have thought that the future of such a massive enterprise would ultimately rest on the shoulders of Varun Dhawan?
Citadel: Diana
Developed by – Alessandro Fabbri
Cast – Matilda De Angelis, Lorenzo Cervasio, Maurizio Lombardi, Julia Piaton, Thekla Reuten, Filippo Nigro
Rating – 2/5
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