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Main Characters
Danny McNamara
Danny McNamara (portrayed by Matt Barr)
- Badass Bookworm: He's a ridiculously well-educated and well-read lawyer who's well-versed in arts and antiquities but he prefers using his knowledge to be a rough-and-tumble investigator and adventurer.
- Berserk Button: It turns out he has one when criminals insist they aren’t rats... because he turned his father in to stop a murder, and his dad’s refusal to testify himself is why he’s still in jail.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Danny can't seem to help from doing the right thing. Jay describes him as someone who "has to save beautiful, broken things."
- I Am Not My Father: Danny deliberately structured his life to make it nothing like that of his father Patrick, a corrupt cop who went to jail for an art heist.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Turns out the reason why Reese became the closest thing he has to a father figure instead of his actual dad is because Danny turned in his father when his dad was about to kill someone to cover up a theft. Dad eventually agreed he made the right decision.
- Informed Flaw: He dresses quite nicely but Lexi considers his day-to-day style to be a little scruffy.
- The Paragon
- Pop-Cultured Badass: In comparison to Lexi, he can’t help but gleefully spout quotes and references whenever they would apply.
Lexi Vaziri
Lexi Vaziri (portrayed by Sofia Pernas)
- Action Girl
- Big Eater: She's constantly eating and other characters, particularly Chuck, complain about how she clears out their refrigerators.
- Classy Cat-Burglar: She's a high-end thief who uses her looks and charms to steal from extremely wealthy people while dressed to the nines.
- Deadpan Snarker: As many don’t trust her, she often resorts to this.
- The Determinator: No matter how many times she’s knocked down, she will just keep going.
- In the Blood: Turns out her mother was an Action Girl as well... and a member of the Brotherhood and Fabi’s partner.
- Loveable Rogue: But of course!
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Completely misses most of Danny’s references. Even when visiting Casablanca, she has to look up clips of the film to get some of them.
- Secret Legacy: Eventually, Danny figures out from an inscription in the Brotherhood’s crypt that Lexi descends from someone important to the plot: Cleopatra and Antony.
- Walking Armory: Carries plenty of weapons and lock picks on her.
- You Killed My Father: Farouk blew him up with a bomb right after Danny had set him up in Witness Protection. Lexi’s response to finding out that Farouk is still alive is to pursue him for free with Danny.
Supporting Characters
Gwen Karlsson
Gwen Karlsson (portrayed by Katia Winter)
- Action Girl
- Beware the Nice Ones: She’s usually pretty polite, but there’s a reason she’s an agent.
- Inspector Javert: A mild version - she’s arrested most of the heroes at various times while rigidly ahdering to proper procedure and the law. She lightens up, though.
- Properly Paranoid: She’s not too keen with working with some of the characters, considering that they all eventually end up doing less-than-legal things she’s correct.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Technically neither Danny nor Lexi are law enforcement so she fills the role.
- Rogue Agent: When she realizes Fabi is hiding things, and that the local police isn’t telling her everything.
- The Stoic: To the point Lexi describes her as a robotic terminator.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: A comedic example when she partners up with Lexi to infiltrate Italian Police Headquarters, and is clearly irritated and uncomfortable with Lexi’s exuberance.
Aiden Shaw
Aiden Shaw (portrayed by Michael James Shaw)
- Accent Relapse: Played with, in that Shaw loves to maintain his
Fake Brit accent with just about everyone, but often drops it around Danny and Lexi. - Butt-Monkey: Aiden is on the receiving end of a lot of pain and humiliation. In the premiere alone, he has his entire operation dismantled, gets stuffed in a trunk, gets shot, is forced to hide in a coffin, and is poisoned.
- Fake Brit
- Loveable Rogue: What he eventually morphs into as he starts to become somewhat more dependable as an ally to the heroes and starts making himself somewhat more useful.
- Nice Guy: Most people who don’t know his true history seem to think he is one.
- Only Sane Man: After getting involved with Danny and Lexi, this is how he sees himself.
- Sacrificial Lion: Tries to do this, he complains when he ends up surviving.
- Starting a New Life: Why he eventually decides to willingly join Danny and Lexi when he could have left.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Danny eventually starts softening up to Aiden and going along with his antics.
Simon Hardwick/ Karim Farouk
Simon Hardwick (portrayed by James Callis)
- The Chessmaster: How he fits into the Big Bad Ensemble - He gave Rasheed Hegazi his own name to use as a nom de guerre and advised him how to adjust his tactics and strategies while acting as his financier. This allowed Hegazi to become a much greater threat targeting Hardwick/Farouk’s father Jay Reece, while keeping Hardwick/Farouk out of the firing line of his own proxy war.
- Cooperation Gambit: He recognizes Danny as former FBI, but decides to approach him anyways.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Turns out that his overall objective is revenge on the man who abandoned his mother to a low death from “mummy cancer.” Yes, Jay didn’t intend to abandon them, but it’s all academic now.
- Evil Mentor: He was this to the man who later becomes Karim Farouk.
- Knowledge Broker: Knows more than everyone else, and generally skilled at using that info to his advantage.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: From a regular archaeologist who Farouk tortured for a year to a well connected and even more well informed smuggler who kills Farouk.
- We Will Meet Again: Says this at the end of Season One.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The real reason Simon shot Farouk.
Dr. Ana Castillo
Ana Castillo (portrayed by Alicia Coppola)
- Adventurer Archaeologist: She is introduced looking for the tombs, and successful.
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: The reason why she wasn’t killed by Karim when her team is ambushed.
- Lady of Adventure: When told the wealthy Reece was looking for her, Lexi first thought Castillo was this.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: After the trauma she is put through, she believes there was a curse on the tomb.
- Oh, Crap!: When her team is ambushed by Farouk, and later when she learns the truth of his origins.
- Sacrificial Lamb: After realizing the truth about Farouk she is poisoned by Reece.
- The Smart Girl: She is the one heading the research team.
Father Chuck Donnelly
Chuck Donnelly (portrayed by Mark Gagliardi)
- Let's Get Dangerous!: He’s not combat trained at all, but will head to danger for his friends.
- Plucky Comic Relief: He’s a frequent source of humour.
Captain Bruno Fabi
Bruno Fabi (portrayed by Antonio Cupo)
- Dark Is Not Evil: Dresses in dark clothes, in some ways still considered a good guy.
- Graceful Loser: He wasn’t happy with Lexi and Danny forcing his hand, but he allies with them pretty quickly.
- Good Is Not Nice: Played with, he has good intentions but his methods are definitely questionable as he straight-up murders a traitor at one point.
- Hero Antagonist: Starts out as this, but eventually becomes an ally.
- Knight Templar: He is trying to keep the tombs safe.
- Sacrificial Lion: He is killed trying to help Danny and Lexi.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Willing to kill anyone who approached the tombs or betray the Brotherhood.
Karim Farouk/ Rasheed Hegazi
Karim Farouk (portrayed by Oded Fehr)
- Authority Equals Asskicking: He is often with his men on the field.
- Arch-Enemy: Lexi and Danny sees him as this.
- Disc-One Final Boss: Assumed to be the Big Bad of the season, but is killed halfway through.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Has a sick niece who he often visits, Danny and the others almost catch him when they exploit this.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": It’s revealed “Karim Farouk” is actually a name he adopted after being radicalized, but everyone else still calls him this.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: He used to be the definition of victim, until he became radicalized.
- The Heavy: How he fits into the Big Bad Ensemble - he was recruited by the real Farouk to run his operations more directly against Jay Reece and to assume his name in exchange for greater financing of his terrorism. The real Farouk also implies this one still operated somewhat autonomously, more as a partner than a henchman.
- Never Found the Body: At one point everyone thought the Egyptians killed him, which leads to Not Quite Dead or him potentially Faking the Dead.
- Tall, Dark, and Snarky: He is a leader and setup to be a Big Bad so he definitely has a few choice words.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Whatever his true intentions are, Karim sees himself as an Egyptian patriot fighting against the superpowers of the West.
- Would Hit a Girl: Has no problem doing this to Dr. Castillo and Lexi.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: After the scientist he hired succeeds in his task, although the man was also trying to extort Karim for more money. Later, he is killed because Simon thought the same for him.
Others
Jay Reece
Jay Reece (portrayed by John Larroquette)
The wealthy philanthropist sponsoring the search for the tombs of Antony and Cleopatra.- A Father to His Men: Danny has the greatest respect for him, and Reece’s employees are all very loyal.
- Cool Old Guy: He’s very helpful, and considering his wealth, it’s very much this.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: What his enemies claim he is, they’re right.
- Hidden Villain: How he fits into the Big Bad Ensemble - he’s actually the one behind the death of Lexi’s father and then imprisonment of Danny’s father, and his men are still an active threat in their pursuit of hiding his connection to both Farouks.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Considers his actions as such.
- Mole in Charge: Lexi suspects this of him.
Alessandro
Alessandro (portrayed by Julian Richings)
The leader of the Brotherhood of Serapis.- Cool Old Guy: As played by Julian Richings.
- Due to the Dead: Makes a point of retrieving the bodies of his people and giving them a fitting burial.
- Evil Old Folks: He approves and even encourages the Brotherhood’s more brutal methods.
- I Gave My Word: He promised Lexi’s mother he will never tell her the truth, so for a time Lexi was suspicious of his organization.
- Nebulous Evil Organization: Before the truth is revealed, he was seen to represent one.
- Secret Legacy: Implies most of the Brotherhood recruit from family members.
- The Man Behind the Man: He is the one issuing Fabi’s secret orders.
Asim Massod
Asim Massod (portrayed by Patrick Sabongui)
The representative from Egyptian Intelligence who was in the original task force to catch Karim Farouk.- Dirty Cop: Is suspected of being one, of the national intelligence variety.
- Heroic Sacrifice: With elements of Redemption Equals Death as Danny only realized he was innocent right before he gets killed.
- Not What It Looks Like: He notices how suspicious Danny is of him, Danny tries to tell him otherwise.
- Red Herring: He originally appeared to be the leak in the team.
- Sacrificial Lion: He dies trying to find the truth, doing his best to help Danny.
Agent Harper
FBI Agent Harper (portrayed by Conrad Pla)
The FBI agent working the case of Danny’s father.- It's Personal: The case of the missing paintings.
Flashback
Colonel Steiner
Colonel Steiner(portrayed by Dirk Plonissen)
The man who first discovered and took Cleopatra’s tomb.- Harmless Villain: Only in the sense that this guy is long dead.
- Those Wacky Nazis: He was part of the Nazi operation to find the tombs.
Reza and Jamila Vaziri
Reza (portrayed by Mohamed Marouazi) and Jamila (portrayed by Shiva Negar)
The deceased parents of Lexi Vaziri.- Sacrificial Lamb: Both are killed at different times by enemies.
- Your Days Are Numbered: Jamila knew being part of the Brotherhood was dangerous, and Reza accepted witness protection because he knew Farouk will come after him.
Zara Farouk
Zara Farouk (portrayed by Paniz Zade)
The mother of the man who will introduce the world to Karim Farouk.- Meaningful Name: Her name is what starts an investigation into the Farouk family.
- Walking Spoiler: It’s hard not to talk about her without spoilers.
