History Main / DeepCoverAgent

* Invoked in ''Manga/SpyXFamily'', where agent <Twilight>'s latest mission to investigate an enemy politician requires him to get married and have a child, who is to attend the same school as his mark's son, Eden Academy. He takes the identity of Loid Forger, a psychiatrist, and adopts an orphan named Anya and marries a civil servant named Yor in order to keep up the cover.

Not to be confused with the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SXr6aUFP8U&feature=kp Rap Song.]] Add a sprinkle of NeuroVault, and you get the ManchurianAgent. Compare with CopiedTheMoralsToo, where a copy of a heroic character is created (often to be a spy on the heroes) but is unable to complete its mission because it received the heroic character's morals as well as their appearance.

* In ''TabletopGames/WerewolfTheApocalypse'', White-Eyes-ikthya is a former Uktena who joined the Black Spiral Dancers and now serves as a respected elder of the Trinity Hive. ''Caerns: Places of Power'' leaves it up to the storyteller whether White-Eyes-ikthya serves the Wyrm or is actually an Uktena deep cover agent.

They seem perfectly trustworthy. The All-American housewife, the happy-go-lucky office worker, or the fresh-faced agency recruit. They've got friends, jobs, and sometimes even families, barring their parents who [[ConvenientlyUnverifiableCoverStory died in a tragic bus accident]].

Deep down, however, they've got a dark secret: they're agents from another country or a rival organization, sent on a long-term secret mission, spending their free time (or even work hours) involved in CloakAndDagger business. In extreme cases, the agent might have been planted as a ''child'' and have lived their entire adult life in their host country, [[BrainwashedAndCrazy brainwashed]] into having [[PatrioticFervor total loyalty to their homeland]].

They're not immune to the [[GoingNative charms of their enemies' homeland, though]], and are sometimes in danger of {{becoming the mask}}, though oftentimes, their training makes them resistant to the temptation.

Not to be confused with the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SXr6aUFP8U&feature=kp Rap Song]]. Add a sprinkle of NeuroVault, and you get the ManchurianAgent. Compare with CopiedTheMoralsToo, where a copy of a heroic character is created (often to be a spy on the heroes) but is unable to complete its mission because it received the heroic character's morals as well as their appearance.

** [[spoiler: '''Cap himself''' was revealed in 2016 to be a HYDRA agent ''and always has been''. WordOfGod claimed this is the real Captain America and not a clone, copy, mind-control, ReverseMole, etc....and then the very next issue revealed that his memories had been altered.]]

* ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeed Undercover'' features the player, as a CowboyCop, going into deep cover as quickly as possible. This means, basically, that he becomes a reckless criminal, doing crazy stuff like street racing, car thefts and high speed police pursuits just to get in good with the criminals.

* ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeed Undercover'' features the player, as a cop, going into deep cover as quickly as possible. This means, basically, that he becomes a reckless criminal, doing crazy stuff like street racing, car thefts and high speed police pursuits just to get in good with the criminals.

Not to be confused with the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SXr6aUFP8U&feature=kp Rap Song]]. Add a sprinkle of NeuroVault, and you get the ManchurianAgent.

* Invoked in ''Manga/SpyXFamily'', where agent <Twilight>'s latest mission to kill an enemy diplomat requires him to get married and have a child, who is to attend the same school as his mark's son, Eden Academy. He takes the identity of Loid Forger, a psychologist, and adopts an orphan named Anya and marries a civil servant named Yor in order to keep up the cover.

** [[spoiler: '''Cap himself''' was revealed in 2016 to be a HYDRA agent ''and always has been'' . WordOfGod claimed this is the real Captain America and not a clone, copy, mind-control, ReverseMole, etc....and then the very next issue revealed that his memories had been altered.]]

* In ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'', Wally Squad Judges are heroic... well, Mega-City One [[LawfulNeutral justice]]... versions. They're plainclothes judges who live entire lives as ordinary citizens, and are notably the ''only'' plainclothes officers on the force. They're called the Wally Squad because being an "ordinary" Mega-City One citizen means [[CityOfWeirdos being insane]], and most of them have [[BecomingTheMask become the mask]] to some extent. Two strips have focussed on Wally Squad members: ''ComicBook/LowLife'' and ''ComicBook/TheSimpingDetective''.

[[folder:Film]]
* Ur-example -- the EvilMatriarch from ''Film/TheManchurianCandidate''.

* In the final book, it's revealed that [[spoiler:''the Harringtons'']] were originally deep-cover Mesan moles, who severed contact with their control after emigrating to Manticore and eventually forgot their origins. Their modern day descendants never even find out about it.

* In ''VideoGame/SplinterCell: Double Agent'', Sam is sent to infiltrate a terrorist group named John Brown's Army, and actually has to help them get materials for a nuclear weapon.

* In ''VideoGame/SplinterCellDoubleAgent'', Sam is sent to infiltrate a terrorist group named John Brown's Army, and actually has to help them get materials for a nuclear weapon.

* An extreme example occurs in ''Film/FaceOff'', in which the protagonist and antagonist assume each other's identities and infiltrate each other's lives.

* ''Literature/AlexRider'' has [[spoiler:Alex's father, John Rider, working undercover for MI6 as a Scorpia operative. He was so good at his job that nobody in Scorpia suspected a thing...until he and his wife try to get out of the business and raise Alex, leading to them both being killed.]]

* ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' has had at least two of these, both of whom had married sailors. One was a Korean agent who did a HeelFaceTurn after [[LoveRedeems falling in love]] with her husband and [[DeliverUsFromEvil having a baby]]. The other was a terrorist who ''murdered'' her husband.

* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'': In the ''Literature/XWingSeries'', Gara Petothel, after being disgusted by her superior's [[WeHaveReserves willingness to sacrifice the crew of a Star Destroyer]], arranges for his death to come a little sooner and sends out the evacuation order that he had been unwilling to make. Then she implements her backup plan, taking an identity as her superior's drugged-up unwilling mistress, and gets into an escape capsule. The New Republic gets her over an addiction to various drugs and sets her up with a modest job and apartment on Coruscant, where she secretly sends a message to Warlord Zsinj, her boss's boss, saying that she's in position and will keep doing what she's been ordered to do. She's a professional [[TheMole mole]] and has joined, served for long periods, and betrayed the New Republic before. This time, Wraith Squadron recruits her in a complicated scheme, and although she joins the squadron with the intent to betray it and bring down the Rebel hero Wedge Antilles, she gets sucked in by ThePowerOfTrust and how GoodFeelsGood, and [[BecomingTheMask becomes the mask]]. And for added awkwardness, falls in love with aq pilot who she'd betrayed in one of her previous infiltrations. Unfortunately, the Wraiths eventually find out about the AwfulTruth. [[spoiler:She's forced to flee to Zsinj and, since he thinks she was loyal to him all along she's able to infiltrate and sabotage his flagship, ultimately leading to his downfall.]]

* Protagonist Trystin Desoll of Creator/LEModesittJr's ''Literature/TheParafaithWar'', though his infiltration didn't actually last that long. Because he looks a lot like the vaguely-Aryan "revs," he gets put through heavy training to learn how to infiltrate their home planet. His training would've allowed him to stay indefinitely, but he carried out his assassination mission in about a week.
* In the TabletopGame/BattleTech novel ''Bred for War'', it's a DNA test performed by a (mostly unwitting) deep cover agent that leads to the discovery that the son of Thomas Marik, Captain-General of the Free Worlds League, has died of his leukemia and been replaced by a double while undergoing treatment in the Federated Commonwealth. This does not go over well (it starts a war, in fact), but in the end also clues the Commonwealth's ruler in to the fact that [[spoiler:'Thomas Marik' is ''himself'' a deep-cover agent -- his son was in fact his son, but 'his' older daughter's DNA doesn't match his at all. It's noted with irony in a later novel that he's also the best leader the Free Worlds League had had in at least a century.]]
* The movie and book ''{{Telefon}}'' have this as the primary plot driver. Communists wanted to cause havoc in America immediately prior to an invasion, so they took a few dozen people, hypnotized them extensively so they actually became average American citizens, living perfectly normal lives, until they heard the code phrase which activated them to go destroy some defense facility. The only problem was that they had been forgotten about for a while, so all of the defense facilities were obsolete and/or not being used, which confused the heck out of the American agencies who were wondering why perfectly normal Americans attacked things of absolutely no strategic or military value.
* Jos Musey from the ''Literature/WarchildSeries'' goes into deep cover aboard the starship Macedon. He learns a new accent and slang for the part, and acts the part of a soldier perfectly, even fighting against his own people.

* In the ''Literature/XWingSeries'', Gara Petothel, after being disgusted by her superior's [[WeHaveReserves willingness to sacrifice the crew of a Star Destroyer]], arranges for his death to come a little sooner and sends out the evacuation order that he had been unwilling to make. Then she implements her backup plan, taking an identity as her superior's drugged-up unwilling mistress, and gets into an escape capsule. The New Republic gets her over an addiction to various drugs and sets her up with a modest job and apartment on Coruscant, where she secretly sends a message to Warlord Zsinj, her boss's boss, saying that she's in position and will keep doing what she's been ordered to do. She's a professional [[TheMole mole]] and has joined, served for long periods, and betrayed the New Republic before. This time, Wraith Squadron recruits her in a complicated scheme, and although she joins the squadron with the intent to betray it and bring down the Rebel hero Wedge Antilles, she gets sucked in by ThePowerOfTrust and how GoodFeelsGood, and [[BecomingTheMask becomes the mask]]. And for added awkwardness, falls in love with aq pilot who she'd betrayed in one of her previous infiltrations. Unfortunately, the Wraiths eventually find out about the AwfulTruth. [[spoiler:She's forced to flee to Zsinj and, since he thinks she was loyal to him all along she's able to infiltrate and sabotage his flagship, ultimately leading to his downfall.]]
* ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' takes this to extremes; the Mesan Alignment has deep-cover families that have been in place for ''generations'', waiting patiently for the time to be right for Mesa to call on one of them.

* In the Creator/DaleBrown novel, ''Day of the Cheetah'', one infiltrates Dreamland to steal a highly secret prototype fighter.
* The titular Charm School of the Nelson [=DeMille=] novel of the same name is a school for Soviet recruits to learn to behave like Americans before being sent on deep cover assignments.
* In Creator/JohnLeCarre's ''Literature/TinkerTailorSoldierSpy'', (forcibly) retired agent George Smiley must investigate his former service to discover which of the top five men is actually a Soviet mole.

* ''Literature/AlexRider'' has [[spoiler:Alex's father, John Rider, working undercover for MI6 as a Scorpia operative. He was so good at his job that nobody in Scorpia suspected a thing...until he and his wife try to get out of the business and raise Alex, leading to them both being killed.]]
* In ''Colonel Butler's Wolf'' by Creator/AnthonyPrice, a Russian deep cover agent reveals himself to British intelligence after BecomingTheMask, but is killed by his former colleagues before he can explain what his mission was. The protagonists have to figure that out, and also whether there were any more deep cover agents sent on the same mission.

* Soviet agent Stirlitz, aka Maxim Issayev aka Vsevolod Vladimirov from Soviet TV show ''Series/{{Seventeen Moments of Spring}}''. He infiltrated the Nazis in 1930s and is a high-ranking security official who interacts regularly with top German leaders.

* ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'' has [[spoiler:Bobbi Morse]] who happens to be HYDRA's head of security. She has been there for a while prior to the second season. Being a head of security means that double crossing her organization would mean instant doom to any mole within it. [[spoiler:Turns out that she was sent there by S.H.I.E.L.D. to watch over Jemma Simmons in case things go south.]]
* In the ''Series/LoisAndClark'' episode "Super Mann", a star quarterback, country singer, and model are revealed to be deep cover agents from ''Nazi Germany''.
* Ingrid Bannister in the ''Series/MacGyver1985'' episode "The Enemy Within". She hypnotises her husband into telling her secrets on a frequent basis. Played by Lynn Holly Johnson, in case you're interested.

* The 1991 [[Creator/TheBBC BBC]] series ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleepers_%28TV_series%29 Sleepers]]'' was about two KGB agents who had been in Deep Cover for 25 years - when they're finally activated, they don't wanna do it. When it was aired on ''Masterpiece Theater'' it was advertised as "the first Masterpiece Theater Comedy."

* In ''Series/KamenRiderDragonKnight'', the reporter Michelle Walsh turns out to have been working for the No Men all along, helping them squash the rumours that other reporters were stirring up.
* In one episode of ''Series/{{Castle}}'' the bad guy turned out to be a Soviet DeepCoverAgent in the CIA who had gone rogue after the fall of the Soviet Union.
* The ''Series/{{Elementary}}'' episode "Dirty Laundry" has Franchise/SherlockHolmes figure out that the murdered hotel manager and her husband are, in fact, Russian spies and a friend of their family is their handler ([[spoiler:and the killer]]). Completely averts the AccentRelapse trope, as none of the agents or their handler drop their American accents (makes sense, considering they have lived in the country for decades). In fact, the husband and the wife didn't love each other but were ordered to conceive a child in order to allow him or her to grow up as a native-born American and a second-generation agent. However, the father refused to let his daughter get mixed up in this. One of the clues that led to Holmes discovering this is that the husband quit his job shortly before the company signed a government contract. The only reason someone would do this is to avoid a deep background check all government contractors must go through, which would quickly reveal the truth.
** Another clue was the father completely stepping out of the house to shake his hand instead of doing it over the threshold, a big no-no in Russian culture.
* An episode of ''Series/HumanTarget'' has Chance being hired by a man who claims his wife wants to kill him. Chance does a bit of investigating and realizes that his wife is a deep-cover Russian spy. He instructs the client to pretend that nothing is wrong and invite him to dinner. At dinner, Chance nonchalantly comments on the meal in Russian, and the client's wife unconsciously answers in the same language before realizing what happened. However, it turns out that she has grown to [[BecomingTheMask genuinely love her husband]] and wants to break ties with her handlers. Unfortunately, it's not as easy as it sounds. In the end, Chance helps her by shooting her in a non-vital area (but looks vital to an onlooker) in front of the handlers and helps the couple start anew somewhere else.
* A flashback in ''Series/TheEvent'' reveals that Sterling's wife was one. His superior found out the truth but wants to let Sterling redeem himself by shooting her. Sterling, however, decides to run away with her. He tells her that he knows and offers to run away. She tries to bolt but is shot by Sterling's superior.
* The FX series ''Series/TheAmericans'' is based around the Jennings, a married couple of deep-cover [[UsefulNotes/MoscowCentre KGB]] agents living in suburban America in 1981, at the start of the UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan administration, with an FBI agent moving in next door. Series writer Joseph Weisberg, who worked for the CIA in the early 90's, has said that the 2010 FBI bust of a Russian spy ring (see top) was a direct inspiration for him. ''Both'' of them seduce Americans for information.
** In Season 2 the KGB decides to recruit the US-born children of S-Directorate agents like the Jennings since these second-generation agents would be able to pass high level security checks that their parents could not. Thus they would be able to infiltrate organizations like the FBI or CIA. The Jennings are divided on the issue with Philip being vehemently opposed to the idea while Elisabeth thinks that it is their patriotic duty to support the plan.
* ''Series/{{JAG}}'': Harm's new neighbor, Meghan O'Hara, in "Washington Holiday" turned out to be a trained assassin, whose mission was to kill the Romanian king while in DC.
* One episode of ''Series/NCISLosAngeles'' has the team uncover a network of eight couples who were inserted into the United States by the Soviet Union to detonate nuclear bombs in the event of a war. However, the agent they speak with tells Callen that while, at first, they would have obeyed the order without question, after a while he and his now-dementia-stricken wife [[BecomingTheMask Became the Mask]] of a normal suburban American couple, and they even have an adult son who doesn't have a clue. Also an InUniverse example of a StereotypeFlip: The couple in question is black (recruited as children in Africa), since a black guy is the last person American counterintelligence would suspect as a Soviet agent.
* On ''Series/SevenDays'' an NSA office is bombed with one female agent named Rebecca vanishes and is considered the suspect. Sent back, Frank arrests her but the place is bombed a day earlier. Soon on the run, Frank and Rebecca must face a traitor within the NSA. After he's defeated, Rebecca vanishes again. Back at the base, Frank learns the "Rebecca" is actually a deep cover Russian agent, which was the reason she fled in the first timeline. She does leave behind a goodbye video to Frank in her true accent that still thanks him for his help and he has to accept it.
* Used as a punchline to the ''Series/ComedyPlayhouse'' episode "Lunch in the Park" (later remade as an episode of ''Paul Merton in Galton and Simpson's''). Two office workers (Stanley Baxter and Daphne Anderson in the original; Merton and Josie Lawrence in TheRemake) meet for lunch once every week, and have a rather clipped conversation, mostly small talk, but also with a suggestion they'd like to see each other more often but have to be careful of appearances. It looks like a ''Film/BriefEncounter'' sort of situation, until he hands her a microfilm, and Special Branch swoop in on the pair of them...
* In ''Series/{{Allegiance}}'', Katya O'Connor, her husband and their eldest daughter Natalie are all secretly Russian spies. The O'Connors' two younger children, one of whom is a CIA analyst, have no idea.

* On ''Series/OrphanBlack'', Beth's boyfriend Paul, as Sarah finds out soon after taking over her life, is secretly [[spoiler: a monitor for the DYAD Institute which created the clones. He turns out to be a DoubleReverseQuadrupleAgent for the military. In season 3, the Prolethian Mark is revealed to also be an agent for the Project CASTOR [[GovernmentConspiracy military conspiracy.]] ]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'', Perry the Platypus, aka Agent P, has an impenetrable cover identity as the boys' harmless pet, and everyone knows a platypus [[RunningGag doesn't do much]]. Even his evil nemesis Dr. Doofenshmirtz doesn't recognize him if he's not wearing his FedoraOfAsskicking, though that could be at least partly due to Doofenshmirtz being a DitzyGenius.

* Michelle in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'' appears to be your average Broker resident who Niko quickly forms a relationship with, but is secretly gathering information about him and Roman to give to her organisation, the [=ULP=], which in turn is just a cover for the HD Universe's version of the [=CIA=], the [=IAA=].

* Possibly the most iconic in gaming is the ''Franchise/MetalGear'' series' [[MagnificentBastard Revolver Ocelot]], [[TheRival AKA Major Ocelot]], [[IHaveManyNames AKA Shalashaska]], [[DoubleAgent AKA Adamska]], [[BrainwashedAndCrazy AKA Liquid Ocelot]]. He's so good at convincing people that he's on a given group's side that it doesn't become entirely clear who he really ''is'' working for (if ''anyone'') until after his death.

* A number of Obsidian Order agents (with even their own memories of home wiped from their heads) pop up in Series/StarTrek:DeepSpaceNine. Sloan also tries to convince Bashir that he is one working for the Dominion, in order to [[spoiler:test his loyalty as a potential Section 31 recruit.]]