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** The NID is an intelligence agency run from the Pentagon with a major corruption problem. For the first six seasons, the heroes regularly run into unauthorized operations run by rogue NID agents, who claim to be [[IDidWhatIHadTo taking whatever measures are necessary]] to secure the planet... but who in reality turn out to be working for a cabal of business interests looking to acquire and monopolize alien technology for their own profit, often at the expense of the Earth's actual interests and alliances. While the agency is eventually cleaned out in Season 6 and the NID agents that appear later are at least honest, they're still often in over their heads, do more harm than good, and require the heroes to clean up their messes.
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** The NID is an intelligence agency run from the Pentagon with a major corruption problem. For the first six seasons, the heroes regularly run into unauthorized operations run by rogue NID agents, who claim to be [[IDidWhatIHadTo [[IDidWhatIHadToDo taking whatever measures are necessary]] to secure the planet... but who in reality turn out to be working for a cabal of business interests looking to acquire and monopolize alien technology for their own profit, often at the expense of the Earth's actual interests and alliances. While the agency is eventually cleaned out in Season 6 and the NID agents that appear later are at least honest, they're still often in over their heads, do more harm than good, and require the heroes to clean up their messes.
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* Cassian from ''Film/RogueOne'' is an intelligence officer for [[LaResistance The Rebellion]], and while he's undoubtedly on the right side in the grand scheme of things he's also much darker and more ruthless than most ''Franchise/StarWars'' heroes, as his EstablishingCharacterMoment includes him killing a friendly informant purely because he knew that his source would have no chance of evading capture from TheEmpire, and [[HeKnowsTooMuch knew too much]]. He also nearly goes through with assassinating main character Jyn's father right under her nose until a last-minute change of heart.
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* Cassian Andor from ''Film/RogueOne'' is an intelligence officer for [[LaResistance The Rebellion]], and while he's undoubtedly on the right side in the grand scheme of things he's also much darker and more ruthless than most ''Franchise/StarWars'' heroes, as his EstablishingCharacterMoment includes him killing a friendly informant purely because he knew that his source would have no chance of evading capture from TheEmpire, and [[HeKnowsTooMuch knew too much]]. He also nearly goes through with assassinating main character Jyn's father right under her nose until a last-minute change of heart.heart.
** In ''Series/Andor'' we see that his predecessor Luthen Rael was this to an even greater extent. He is willing to use the same tools as the Empire to fight them, which even he views as making him little better than they are. He even admits aloud that his own ego, wrath, selfishness, and inability to yield are as much motivation for him as any desire to do good or any ideological opposition to the Empire's tyranny, possibly even more so.
** In ''Series/Andor'' we see that his predecessor Luthen Rael was this to an even greater extent. He is willing to use the same tools as the Empire to fight them, which even he views as making him little better than they are. He even admits aloud that his own ego, wrath, selfishness, and inability to yield are as much motivation for him as any desire to do good or any ideological opposition to the Empire's tyranny, possibly even more so.
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* While ComicBook/NickFury has had many heroic moments and a ProperlyParanoid attitude, he is also a hard-ass ControlFreak who thinks he and he alone is allowed to make the hard choices and know all the secrets and at least 50% of the time ComicBook/{{SHIELD}} has behaved like a SinisterSpyAgency is because Fury commanded it to. This behavior reached its nadir in ''ComicBook/OriginalSin'', in which [[spoiler:Fury assassinated Uatu the Watcher to steal his eyes, and with them, the Watcher's ability to see everything that happened in the universe]]. His ComicBook/UltimateMarvel alternate version was equally atrocious in attitude, although [[ClusterFBomb a lot more foul-mouthed]] in language and his Film/MarvelCinematicUniverse counterpart, while generally [[LighterAndSofter a more general-audiences portrayal]], is not above [[spoiler:[[BackFromTheDead resurrecting]] one of his top operatives through a top-secret and highly traumatizing procedure (one that said operative, Phil Coulson, made clear was against for moral reasons) and [[LaserGuidedAmnesia brainwashing]] him to forget it]].
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* While ComicBook/NickFury has had many heroic moments and a ProperlyParanoid attitude, he is also a hard-ass ControlFreak who thinks he and he alone is allowed to make the hard choices and know all the secrets and at least 50% of the time ComicBook/{{SHIELD}} has behaved like a SinisterSpyAgency is because Fury commanded it to. This behavior reached its nadir in ''ComicBook/OriginalSin'', in which [[spoiler:Fury assassinated Uatu the Watcher to steal his eyes, and with them, the Watcher's ability to see everything that happened in the universe]]. His ComicBook/UltimateMarvel alternate version was equally atrocious in attitude, although [[ClusterFBomb a lot more foul-mouthed]] in language and his Film/MarvelCinematicUniverse Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse counterpart, while generally [[LighterAndSofter a more general-audiences portrayal]], is not above [[spoiler:[[BackFromTheDead resurrecting]] one of his top operatives through a top-secret and highly traumatizing procedure (one that said operative, Phil Coulson, made clear was against for moral reasons) and [[LaserGuidedAmnesia brainwashing]] him to forget it]].
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* ''Franchise/IndianaJones'': Played with. Indy frequently crosses paths with spies, works for them, and has even been one in both world wars. However, he almost always ends up regretting it. His experience working for French intelligence in UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne mostly left him disgusted with the work and how it manipulated and destroyed people's lives for goals that were murky at best. His mission to retrieve the Ark of the Covenant in ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk'' was assigned to him by U.S. Army Intelligence, but as soon as he's carried it out, they take the Ark away and betray their earlier promise to let him and his museum study it. In ''[[Film/IndianaJonesAndTheKingdomOfTheCrystalSkull Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull]]'', his British war buddy George [=MacHale=][[note]]an [=MI6=] spy who was often partnered with him when he was in the OSS[[/note]] betrays him to the Soviets, and FBI agents have him blacklisted as a potential communist (though to his credit, Indy's former boss in the OSS does try to defend him). And in ''[[Film/IndianaJonesAndTheDialOfDestiny Dial Of Destiny]]'', the CIA turns out to be sheltering former Nazis and are duped for far too long into helping them recover a potentially world-changing artifact. And these are all examples that are supposed to be on ''his'' side! The less said about the agents of UsefulNotes/TheGestapo or UsefulNotes/MoscowCentre that appear throughout the series, the better.
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* ''Franchise/IndianaJones'': Played with. Indy frequently crosses paths with spies, works for them, and has even been one in both world wars. However, he almost always ends up regretting it. His experience working for French intelligence in UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne mostly left him disgusted with the work and how it manipulated and destroyed people's lives for goals that were murky at best. His mission to retrieve the Ark of the Covenant in ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk'' was assigned to him by U.S. Army Intelligence, but as soon as he's carried it out, they take the Ark away and betray their earlier promise to let him and his museum study it. In ''[[Film/IndianaJonesAndTheKingdomOfTheCrystalSkull Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull]]'', his British [=MI6=] war buddy George [=MacHale=][[note]]an [=MI6=] spy who was often partnered with him when he was in the OSS[[/note]] [=MacHale=] betrays him to the Soviets, and then FBI agents have him blacklisted as a potential communist (though to his credit, Indy's former boss in the OSS does try to defend him). And in ''[[Film/IndianaJonesAndTheDialOfDestiny Dial Of Destiny]]'', the CIA turns out to be sheltering former Nazis and are duped for far too long into helping them recover a potentially world-changing artifact. And these are all examples that are supposed to be on ''his'' side! The less said about the agents of UsefulNotes/TheGestapo or UsefulNotes/MoscowCentre that appear throughout the series, the better.
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** The portrayal of New Republic Intelligence over the course of the novels gradually shifts from a hard aversion of this trope to playing it completely straight. The spies we meet in the Rebellion and early New Republic eras (Bria Tharen, Winter Retrac, General Cracken, Iella Wessiri, all of Wraith Squadron) are very good at their jobs, dedicated to their cause, helpful to their comrades in the military or resistance movements, and, insofar as their job allows them to be, honest and honorable. ''[[Literature/XWingSeries Starfighters of Adumar]]'' shows us our first negative example, Tomer Darpen, an NRI officer who's plotting to help a local despot take control of an entire planet by force, in a plot that wouldn't be out of place for a Cold War era CIA villain. In the Literature/NewJediOrder series, the new NRI director, Dif Scaur, is behind the creation of a genocidal bioweapon meant to exterminate the entire Yuuzhan Vong species, something even Luke Skywalker and many of those resisting their invasion of the galaxy are horrified by. His successor in ''[[Literature/XWingSeries Mercy Kill]]'', Borath Maddeus, turns out to to be a crook who was part of a conspiracy to overthrow the government and restore the Empire. Since the novel ends with Face Loran, one of the heroes, being appointed Director, there's some hope that the trend may finally be reversing itself.
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** The portrayal of New Republic Intelligence over the course of the novels gradually shifts from a hard aversion of this trope to playing it completely straight. The spies we meet in the Rebellion and early New Republic eras (Bria Tharen, Winter Retrac, General Cracken, Iella Wessiri, all of Wraith Squadron) are very good at their jobs, dedicated to their cause, helpful to their comrades in the military or resistance movements, and, insofar as their job allows them to be, honest and honorable. ''[[Literature/XWingSeries Starfighters of Adumar]]'' shows us our first negative example, Tomer Darpen, an NRI officer who's plotting to help a local despot take control of an entire planet by force, in a plot that wouldn't be out of place for a Cold War era CIA villain. In the Literature/NewJediOrder series, the new NRI director, Dif Scaur, is behind the creation of a genocidal bioweapon meant to exterminate the entire Yuuzhan Vong species, something even Luke Skywalker and many of those resisting their invasion of the galaxy are horrified by. His successor in ''[[Literature/XWingSeries Mercy Kill]]'', Borath Maddeus, turns out to to be a crook traitor who was part of a conspiracy to overthrow the government and restore the Empire. Since the novel ends with Face Loran, one of the heroes, being appointed Director, there's some hope that the trend may finally be reversing itself.
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* ''Film/ThePatriot'': Invoked by Colonel Tavington, who calls Gabriel a spy and orders him to be hanged. In fact, Gabriel is an official, uniformed dispatch rider for the continental army, but Tavington doesn't care. He commits war crimes left and right, which does actually get him in trouble with his superiors.
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* ''Film/ThePatriot'': ''Film/ThePatriot2000'': Invoked by Colonel Tavington, who calls Gabriel a spy and orders him to be hanged. In fact, Gabriel is an official, uniformed dispatch rider for the continental army, but Tavington doesn't care. He commits war crimes left and right, which does actually get him in trouble with his superiors.
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* ''ComicBook/LargoWinch'': A consistent ethos throughout the series. The agents of various governments that appear from time to time are bad enough. However, the best example is probably the corporate spy who appears in the second story arc offering damaging information about one of Largo's rival companies. Largo is too disgusted to accept the help of someone who'd betray his employer, which his board of directors believe is putting HonorBeforeReason, ultimately convincing him to accept the spy's help. He's then vindicated when the spy turns out to be a FakeDefector, whose misinformation nearly destroys Largo's company.
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** Agent Stegler is an old-school agent who is depicted far more positively and shown to be a competent and honorable man, but the team is still reluctant about having to work together with him, and the last act of the comic has the few survivors from the main cast telling him to shove it when he attempts to recruit them again.
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** Agent Stegler is an old-school agent who is depicted far more positively and shown to be a competent and honorable man, but the team is still reluctant about having to work together with him, and the last act of the comic has the few survivors from the main cast telling him to shove it when he attempts to recruit them again. (Stegler's also shown to be pretty much the ''only'' member of the CIA with any of that competence or honor, which is why by the time we meet him, he's considered an outdated relic and a running joke by his peers and stuck in a dead-end career).
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* In ''Film/TheATeam'', Agent Lynch is an incompetent PsychopathicManchild CIA agent who goes rogue to steal money in the middle of a war. His team is also depicted as universally incompetent, so much so that sometimes it makes Lynch, who at one point gushes over footage from an airstrike by comparing it to ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'', look like the OnlySaneMan among them.
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* In ''Film/TheATeam'', ''Film/TheATeam'':
** Agent Lynch is an incompetent PsychopathicManchild CIA agent who goes rogue to steal money in the middle of a war. His team is also depicted as universally incompetent, so much so that sometimes it makes Lynch, who at one point gushes over footage from an airstrike by comparing it to ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'', look like the OnlySaneMan among them.
** What really makes it this trope is that he's treated not just as an isolated case but as representative of the entire CIA. Various characters recall having met CIA agents (also using the "Agent Lynch" moniker) in earlier war zones: none were impressed by them. If Hannibal's correct, the entire CIA leadership is in on Lynch's plans to steal and appropriate the engraving plates. And the appearance of another "Agent Lynch" at the end of the film to sweep the entire mess under the carpet strongly suggests that the problems his predecessor embodied will continue.
* ''Film/TheDeathOfStalin'': Lavrentiy Beria, the head of the NKVD (forerunner to [[UsefulNotes/MoscowCentre the KGB]]) may be the most extreme example on this page. He's been Stalin's executioner for years, responsible for carrying out the purges and tortures his boss orders while manufacturing whatever evidence is required to justify them. He's also a serial rapist whose victims include children as young as seven, and a {{Troll}} who enjoys playing mind games with his fellow Politburo members who have lived in fear of his power and the blackmail material he's amassed on all of them.[[note]]The last one is his least offense, but also the one that leads to his eventual downfall, as after Stalin's death, his peers finally decide they've had enough of him and arrange his removal and execution[[/note]] Given that ''all'' the Soviet leaders are shown to be power-hungry, self-centered, cowardly hypocrites with gallons of blood on their hands, the fact that Beria's brand of evil still manages to stand out from the pack is even more remarkable.
** Agent Lynch is an incompetent PsychopathicManchild CIA agent who goes rogue to steal money in the middle of a war. His team is also depicted as universally incompetent, so much so that sometimes it makes Lynch, who at one point gushes over footage from an airstrike by comparing it to ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'', look like the OnlySaneMan among them.
** What really makes it this trope is that he's treated not just as an isolated case but as representative of the entire CIA. Various characters recall having met CIA agents (also using the "Agent Lynch" moniker) in earlier war zones: none were impressed by them. If Hannibal's correct, the entire CIA leadership is in on Lynch's plans to steal and appropriate the engraving plates. And the appearance of another "Agent Lynch" at the end of the film to sweep the entire mess under the carpet strongly suggests that the problems his predecessor embodied will continue.
* ''Film/TheDeathOfStalin'': Lavrentiy Beria, the head of the NKVD (forerunner to [[UsefulNotes/MoscowCentre the KGB]]) may be the most extreme example on this page. He's been Stalin's executioner for years, responsible for carrying out the purges and tortures his boss orders while manufacturing whatever evidence is required to justify them. He's also a serial rapist whose victims include children as young as seven, and a {{Troll}} who enjoys playing mind games with his fellow Politburo members who have lived in fear of his power and the blackmail material he's amassed on all of them.[[note]]The last one is his least offense, but also the one that leads to his eventual downfall, as after Stalin's death, his peers finally decide they've had enough of him and arrange his removal and execution[[/note]] Given that ''all'' the Soviet leaders are shown to be power-hungry, self-centered, cowardly hypocrites with gallons of blood on their hands, the fact that Beria's brand of evil still manages to stand out from the pack is even more remarkable.
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* ''Franchise/IndianaJones'': Played with. Indy frequently crosses paths with spies, works for them, and has even been one in both world wars. However, he almost always ends up regretting it. His experience working for French intelligence in UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne mostly left him disgusted with the work and how it manipulated and destroyed people's lives for goals that were murky at best. His mission to retrieve the Ark of the Covenant in ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk'' was assigned to him by U.S. Army Intelligence, but as soon as he's carried it out, they take the Ark away and betray their earlier promise to let him and his museum study it. In ''[[Film/IndianaJonesAndTheKingdomOfTheCrystalSkull Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull]]'', his British war buddy George [=MacHale=][[note]]an [=MI6=] spy who was often partnered with him when he was in the OSS[[/note]] betrays him to the Soviets, and FBI agents have him blacklisted as a potential communist (though to his credit, Indy's former boss in the OSS does try to defend him). And in ''[[Film/IndianaJonesAndTheDialOfDestiny Dial Of Destiny]]'', the CIA turns out to be sheltering former Nazis and are duped for far too long into helping them recover a potentially world-changing artifact. And these are all examples that are supposed to be on ''his'' side! The less said about the agents of UsefulNotes/TheGestapo or UsefulNotes/MoscowCentre that appear throughout the series, the better.
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* ''Literature/JackRyan'': Depends which side the spies are on:
** On the KGB and Soviet side, this trope is played completely straight. Professional soldiers ''loathe'' the KGB, for the simple reason that it's constantly scrutinizing them for signs of disloyalty despite the fact that they're the ones shedding blood for the motherland, and looking for ways to seize prerogatives from them in war theaters despite the fact that they don't have enough training or experience to know what they're doing. The rest of Soviet society lives in fear of them, the populations of occupied nations mostly experience them as an endless fountain of war crimes, and even the leaders of the Soviet Union can't always rely on them, as we see at least one KGB director plotting to overthrow the president and take his place. Gradually, some benevolent examples appear, mostly Sergey Golovko, but the overall portrayal remains negative until the end of the Cold War.
** The portrayal of the CIA and other American (or allied) intelligence agencies is ''mostly'' an inversion. American spies, like soldiers or cops, are generally portrayed in an {{Eagleland}} Type 1 flavor as smart, dedicated, and patriotic public servants (though with a strong dose of GoodIsNotSoft). Even when the CIA ends up involved in morally questionable actions (as in ''Literature/ClearAndPresentDanger''), the blame is mostly laid on the politicians giving the orders rather than the spies carrying them out as best they can. However, that doesn't mean there isn't still some lingering distrust for them, or that this distrust is entirely unfounded. Front-line soldiers especially aren't always impressed by the information they get from the intelligence community, and are acutely aware that when it messes up, ''they'll'' be the ones who pay the price, which breeds some understandable resentment.
* The works of Creator/JohnLeCarre often lean towards this, all the more noticeably because their main characters are usually spies themselves. ''The Spy Who Came In From The Cold'' may be the harshest example, showing the lives spies are forced to lead and the kinds of moral compromises they have to make in the name of the big picture. The plot concerns [=MI6=] involving itself in a power struggle in the East German STASI between Hans Dieter-Mundt, a sadistic and opportunistic former Nazi, and his more ethical and idealistic deputy Jens Fiedler. TheReveal is that Mundt is actually on the British payroll, and the main character's mission is to discredit Fiedler before he has a chance to expose this. The speech he gives to his love interest justifying the operation is this trope in a nutshell:
--->'''Leamas''': What do you think spies are: priests, saints, and martyrs? They’re a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors too, yes; pansies, sadists, and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives. Do you think they sit like monks in London balancing the rights and wrongs? I’d have killed Mundt if I could, I hate his guts; but not now. It so happens that they need him. They need him so that the great moronic mass that you admire can sleep soundly in their beds at night. They need him for the safety of ordinary, crummy people like you and me.
** On the KGB and Soviet side, this trope is played completely straight. Professional soldiers ''loathe'' the KGB, for the simple reason that it's constantly scrutinizing them for signs of disloyalty despite the fact that they're the ones shedding blood for the motherland, and looking for ways to seize prerogatives from them in war theaters despite the fact that they don't have enough training or experience to know what they're doing. The rest of Soviet society lives in fear of them, the populations of occupied nations mostly experience them as an endless fountain of war crimes, and even the leaders of the Soviet Union can't always rely on them, as we see at least one KGB director plotting to overthrow the president and take his place. Gradually, some benevolent examples appear, mostly Sergey Golovko, but the overall portrayal remains negative until the end of the Cold War.
** The portrayal of the CIA and other American (or allied) intelligence agencies is ''mostly'' an inversion. American spies, like soldiers or cops, are generally portrayed in an {{Eagleland}} Type 1 flavor as smart, dedicated, and patriotic public servants (though with a strong dose of GoodIsNotSoft). Even when the CIA ends up involved in morally questionable actions (as in ''Literature/ClearAndPresentDanger''), the blame is mostly laid on the politicians giving the orders rather than the spies carrying them out as best they can. However, that doesn't mean there isn't still some lingering distrust for them, or that this distrust is entirely unfounded. Front-line soldiers especially aren't always impressed by the information they get from the intelligence community, and are acutely aware that when it messes up, ''they'll'' be the ones who pay the price, which breeds some understandable resentment.
* The works of Creator/JohnLeCarre often lean towards this, all the more noticeably because their main characters are usually spies themselves. ''The Spy Who Came In From The Cold'' may be the harshest example, showing the lives spies are forced to lead and the kinds of moral compromises they have to make in the name of the big picture. The plot concerns [=MI6=] involving itself in a power struggle in the East German STASI between Hans Dieter-Mundt, a sadistic and opportunistic former Nazi, and his more ethical and idealistic deputy Jens Fiedler. TheReveal is that Mundt is actually on the British payroll, and the main character's mission is to discredit Fiedler before he has a chance to expose this. The speech he gives to his love interest justifying the operation is this trope in a nutshell:
--->'''Leamas''': What do you think spies are: priests, saints, and martyrs? They’re a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors too, yes; pansies, sadists, and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives. Do you think they sit like monks in London balancing the rights and wrongs? I’d have killed Mundt if I could, I hate his guts; but not now. It so happens that they need him. They need him so that the great moronic mass that you admire can sleep soundly in their beds at night. They need him for the safety of ordinary, crummy people like you and me.
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** The portrayal of New Republic Intelligence over the course of the novels gradually shifts from a hard aversion of this trope to playing it completely straight. The spies we meet in the Rebellion and early New Republic eras (Bria Tharen, Winter Retrac, General Cracken, Iella Wessiri, all of Wraith Squadron) are very good at their jobs, dedicated to their cause, helpful to their comrades in the military or resistance movements, and, insofar as their job allows them to be, honest and honorable. ''[[Literature/XWingSeries Starfighters of Adumar]]'' shows us our first negative example, Tomer Darpen, an NRI officer who's plotting to help a local despot take control of an entire planet by force, in a plot that wouldn't be out of place for a Cold War era CIA villain. In the Literature/NewJediOrder series, the new NRI director, Dif Scaur, is behind the creation of a genocidal bioweapon meant to exterminate the entire Yuuzhan Vong species, something even Luke Skywalker and many of those resisting their invasion of the galaxy are horrified by. His successor in ''[[Literature/XWingSeries Mercy Kill]]'', Borath Maddeus, turns out to to be a crook who was part of a conspiracy to overthrow the government and restore the Empire. Since the novel ends with Face Loran, one of the heroes, being appointed Director, there's some hope that the trend may finally be reversing itself.
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* ''Series/{{Airwolf}}'': Either played straight or downplayed. TheSpymaster Archangel and his deputy Marella are usually portrayed as highly competent and driven by duty to their country. They have a great many rivals both within "the Firm" and without, however, who are either incompetent or corrupt and who tend to be more interested in careerism and bureaucratic turf wars than in serving their country. Furthermore, the fact that Archangel is a good and patriotic spy still doesn't mean he can be ''trusted''; the heroes are acutely aware that either they or the cause of justice could be deemed expendable in favor of what Archangel considers a higher goal.
--->'''Marella''': You know the arrangement we have with Hawke. We're on his side.
--->'''Dominic''': Yeah, that was yesterday. What about tomorrow? You people have a funny way of changing sides to suit your needs, you know.
* ''Series/TheATeam'': Not as hard as in the movie, but generally played straight. When CIA agents appear, they're almost always trying to coerce or manipulate the A-Team into carrying off some shady operation or other for them. This becomes the entire plot of the last season when General Stockwell, one of America's top spymasters, coerces them into working for him in exchange for a pardon. The team suspects from the beginning that he isn't being honest about this and is just stringing them along until they're no longer useful. We never learn his true intentions one way or another, but the season ends with them cutting ties to him.
--->'''Marella''': You know the arrangement we have with Hawke. We're on his side.
--->'''Dominic''': Yeah, that was yesterday. What about tomorrow? You people have a funny way of changing sides to suit your needs, you know.
* ''Series/TheATeam'': Not as hard as in the movie, but generally played straight. When CIA agents appear, they're almost always trying to coerce or manipulate the A-Team into carrying off some shady operation or other for them. This becomes the entire plot of the last season when General Stockwell, one of America's top spymasters, coerces them into working for him in exchange for a pardon. The team suspects from the beginning that he isn't being honest about this and is just stringing them along until they're no longer useful. We never learn his true intentions one way or another, but the season ends with them cutting ties to him.
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* ''Series/TheEqualizer'': Similar to ''Airwolf'' above, this trope varies between "downplayed" and "played straight." The main character, Robert [=McCall=], is a former agent of "the Company" (a common nickname for the CIA) who became disillusioned with his job, the moral compromises it required, and the emotional toll it took on him; his current career [[WeHelpTheHelpless Helping The Helpless]] is a way for atoning for the sins he committed as a spy. His former superior "Control," who's still in the Company, is generally portrayed as a competent but ruthless spymaster: the two maintain a tense but mutually beneficial relationship, with Control allowing Robert to borrow his assets from time to time in exchange for running the occasional off-the-books mission for him. Most of his peers in the organization are treated with far less respect, however, with Control's position often threatened by ambitious rivals who have neither his competence nor his moral compass.
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* ''Series/MacGyver1985'' is a rare example that averts this trope hard just as often as it plays it straight. A fair number of the American spies that appear in the series are corrupt, using their status to kidnap foreign heads of state, overthrow democracies, set up dictatorships, etc, often without the approval of their superiors and even if it means killing other Americans. However, the main character, as well as his boss and best friend, are themselves spies in Season 1, and for the rest of the series work for a private contractor that regularly carries out intelligence missions for the CIA and other government agencies, and throughout the series, plenty of the spies they work with also turn out to be honorable public servants. The overall portrayal essentially treats the intelligence community like any other career field: there are both good and bad people.
* Played completely straight in ''Series/MiamiVice''. One of the most common stock plots for the series is to have the heroes spend most of the episode trying to lock up the drug dealer, arms dealer, assassin, death squad, mercenary, deposed dictator, or other scumbag of the week... only for the man to be released at the end of the episode, because the CIA or an equivalent agency insisted that they were [[NecessarilyEvil too valuable an asset in the Cold War]] to be held.
* Played completely straight in ''Series/MiamiVice''. One of the most common stock plots for the series is to have the heroes spend most of the episode trying to lock up the drug dealer, arms dealer, assassin, death squad, mercenary, deposed dictator, or other scumbag of the week... only for the man to be released at the end of the episode, because the CIA or an equivalent agency insisted that they were [[NecessarilyEvil too valuable an asset in the Cold War]] to be held.
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* ''Series/StargateSG1'': Played fairly straight. The two main sources of spies throughout the series (not counting actual enemies) are the NID and the Tok'ra:
** The NID is an intelligence agency run from the Pentagon with a major corruption problem. For the first six seasons, the heroes regularly run into unauthorized operations run by rogue NID agents, who claim to be [[IDidWhatIHadTo taking whatever measures are necessary]] to secure the planet... but who in reality turn out to be working for a cabal of business interests looking to acquire and monopolize alien technology for their own profit, often at the expense of the Earth's actual interests and alliances. While the agency is eventually cleaned out in Season 6 and the NID agents that appear later are at least honest, they're still often in over their heads, do more harm than good, and require the heroes to clean up their messes.
** The Tok'ra are a resistance movement made up of former Goa'uld that's existed for centuries and tends to operate as a spy organization (in contrast to the Free Jaffa's more military approach). While their goals of overthrowing the Goa'uld are good, a combination of paranoia due to the need for compartmentalization and secrecy, and a high-handed attitude towards the "lower races", makes them very difficult to work with. They often withhold critical information from their allies, and are prone to manipulating them without their knowledge whenever a mission needs to be carried out that they don't want to undertake themselves, making them TheFriendNobodyLikes in the Earth/Tok'ra/Free Jaffa alliance.
** The NID is an intelligence agency run from the Pentagon with a major corruption problem. For the first six seasons, the heroes regularly run into unauthorized operations run by rogue NID agents, who claim to be [[IDidWhatIHadTo taking whatever measures are necessary]] to secure the planet... but who in reality turn out to be working for a cabal of business interests looking to acquire and monopolize alien technology for their own profit, often at the expense of the Earth's actual interests and alliances. While the agency is eventually cleaned out in Season 6 and the NID agents that appear later are at least honest, they're still often in over their heads, do more harm than good, and require the heroes to clean up their messes.
** The Tok'ra are a resistance movement made up of former Goa'uld that's existed for centuries and tends to operate as a spy organization (in contrast to the Free Jaffa's more military approach). While their goals of overthrowing the Goa'uld are good, a combination of paranoia due to the need for compartmentalization and secrecy, and a high-handed attitude towards the "lower races", makes them very difficult to work with. They often withhold critical information from their allies, and are prone to manipulating them without their knowledge whenever a mission needs to be carried out that they don't want to undertake themselves, making them TheFriendNobodyLikes in the Earth/Tok'ra/Free Jaffa alliance.
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* ''Videogame/Uncharted3DrakesDeception'': Katherine Marlowe is a borderline example. By now, the Hermetic Order she leads is more of an AncientConspiracy than a SinisterSpyAgency. However, it ''was'' founded by Queen UsefulNotes/ElizabethI and her spymaster Francis Walsingham as an intelligence outfit, albeit one with an unusual beat focused on the occult (and in particular the game's {{Macguffin}}, [[AdvancedAncientAcropolis Iram of the Pillars]]), and Marlowe still controls a worldwide network of spies and informants in the present day. She also definitely checks off the "despicable" aspect, being a ruthless manipulator who enjoys turning people against each other, has to use the heroes to lead her to her goal rather than find it herself, and is happy to leave her hired help to die as soon as they've [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness outlived their usefulness]].
