Elisabeth Moss’ ‘The Veil’ Is the Silliest Spy Show in Years
The Veil tells a story that audiences have heard numerous times before—and in infinitely better fashion. A spy saga that requires one absurd leap of faith after another, hinges on inconsistent and unbelievable characterizations, peddles ridiculous plot twists, and loves clichés more than the French adore baguettes, this six-part FX limited series (premiering April 30) from Peaky Blinders mastermind Steven Knight and star Elisabeth Moss is something of a unicorn, in that it boasts not a single original, convincing, or compelling element. To endure it is to risk baldness from all the outraged hair-pulling it inspires.
In a refugee camp on the Turkey/Syria border, Adilah (Yumna Marwan) is fingered by others as a famed female ISIS commander who goes by many nicknames, including the “Djinn of Raqqa.” This attracts the attention of the globe’s intelligence agencies, and results in Imogen (Moss)—an MI6 operative working with France’s DGSE agency and, in particular, her former boyfriend Malik (Dali Benssalah)—being sent to the outpost to learn if Adilah is “the most wanted woman in the world.”
Thanks to an attempt on Adilah’s life and some even more oh-so-convenient developments, Imogen gets Adilah out of the camp alive, and as they take to the road, they bond over their fondness for poetry and Shakespeare. Adilah additionally explains that she’s a single mother who once dreamed of becoming an engineer before circumstance led her into European modeling. While she won’t divulge how she subsequently landed in a refugee camp, she does confess that she covets a reunion with her adolescent daughter Yasmina (Keyla Bara).