"I have a little story to tell you. A fairy tale."
The Endgame is a series that previously aired on NBC starring Morena Baccarin and Ryan Michelle Bathe.On the day that the FBI manages to bring in notorious arms dealer Elena Federova, New York City is rocked by a series of bank heists, and the FBI reluctantly brings in disgraced agent Val Turner for help, as Val and Elena have a history. As Val tries to figure out what Elena's real plans are, Elena tries to convince Val that they are on the same side.
On May 12th, 2022, it was announced that the show had been cancelled after just one season.
This series contains examples of:
- Amoral Attorney: Elena retains the services of corrupt attorneys who are willing to play ball with her.
- Armor-Piercing Response:Val: Kahlil's mine. You could have taken a billion out of it, but you blew it up. You're following that pattern here?
Elena: Keep asking good questions. - Asshole Victim: In "Judge, Jury and Executioner", Bigby died from smoking a cigarette laced with heroin (Elena's specialty). Elena made sure Bigby's delivery arrived shortly after, so Val would see him die. Though Val doesn't appreciate the gesture.
- Bait-and-Switch: Elena's story about a girl who was taught by her father to survive a cruel world. The audience was misled to believe the Russian girl Dochen'ka was Elena, when it was actually the girl inside the truck Dochen'ka blasted with a missile launcher. Elena let Dochen'ka stab her so she can grab the knife and throw it at Dochen'ka's father, then she breaks Dochen'ka's neck.
- Bank Robbery: The first episode sees Elena's goons seizing seven different banks in New York, all on the same day.
- Blackmail: Elena's men stole incriminating evidence against Attorney General Doblin hidden in a deposit box in one of the seven banks.
- Black Site: At the opening of the series, Elena has been captured by the FBI, and is being held at a hidden base in New York, Fort Totten.
- The Chessmaster: Elena is consistently 2-to-3 moves ahead of, well, EVERYBODY! The police, the FBI, the press, all from an FBI blacksite thanks to years of planning. Unfortunately for Elena, Lady Belok happened to be 1 step ahead of HER.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Val and Owen.
- Didn't See That Coming: Happens a lot actually.
- Dramatic Irony: In "Bury the Lede", a flashback shows Val and Owen together after returning from Argentina where he got shot, with Val saying she's worried she might lose him. Owen assures her that she'll never lose him.
- Driving Question: What is Elena's endgame?
- EMP: Lucas uses a EMP device to knock out the electronics in Fort Totten so that he can infiltrate it easily.
- Enemy Mine: Val and Elena work together to stop the Ghost in "Sleepover".
- Everybody Knew Already: When Owen is held by Elena, he asks how she figured out he was undercover for the CIA. Elena laughs that she knew before she and Owen ever met the first time and was using him all along.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: At the end of "All That Glitters", Val realize Elena's plan all along was to get the American people to distrust their government after exposing its corruption.
- Face Death with Dignity: Well...actually arrest, but when Joan realizes she can't talk her way out of being arrested for corruption, she simply stands up to button her jacket and comply while Val puts the cuffs on her.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Elena's pregnancy in the flashback of "Gold Rush".
- For Want Of A Nail: In the flashback of "#1 with a Bullet", Elena fired the bullet not to shoot Val, but to save her from being caught.Elena: I knew saving your life was the right thing to do.
Val: Saving my life? - Foreshadowing: One way to tell if something's about to go down concerning Elena's plans is to see people with checkered neck gaiters
◊.note - Hidden in Plain Sight: Invoked as the agents realize the gold was melted into buttons built at a prison to be transported easily right out under the noses of the authorities.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: In "Bury the Lede", Tyler Erickson smugly hands his comb over to Val, which she threatens to use as a DNA source to compare to the DNA under Ming Lee's fingernails.
- Hypocrite: Presumably Joan Bradbury, since Elena seems to know something about her. Earlier in the episode also, Joan accused Val of being a "dirty agent".
- I Did What I Had to Do: The man who placed the bomb in the church. He was hired by the Beloks, and he took the job to help his sick wife. But he was too late, as she died anyway, and he laments that it was All for Nothing.
- If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: In "Gold Rush", Owen tells Sergey if Val gets killed in the crossfire, he will kill both him and Elena.
- Killed to Uphold the Masquerade: In "#1 with a Bullet", Sergey had Horek poisoned so he wouldn't tell anyone that Sergey is alive. Unfortunately, he recovered, but luckily Horek doesn't suspect a thing. Except he did in "Sleepover".
- Large and in Charge: President Wright absolutely towers over all his subordinates.
- The Mafiya: Elena married into a Belarusian crime family and in the present is still the leader of a major criminal operation (she's Belarusian on her father's side it seems).
- Meaningful Name: Horek is a nickname, which is Ukrainian for ferret. Fitting since he's becoming bothersome due to recognizing Sergey.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Owen, when he accidentally killed Horek to protect Sergey in "Sleepover".
- Nothing Personal: What sets President Wright apart from Elena and Lady Belok is that he bears no particular malice toward his enemies despite being nearly as ruthless.
- Parental Abandonment: First Elena's mother died when she was little, and then her father was assassinated right in front of her.
- Parental Substitute: Elena's birth mother died when she was very young. When Sergey's family took her in, his mother was like a mother to her.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: At the opening of the series, Val has been stuck in increasingly low positions after reporting her husband to her superiors for suspected bribery.
- She Knows Too Much: In "Bury the Lede", they found the body of Ming Lee, who was killed by the Belok after Tyler Erickson called them to have her killed after finding out Tyler's connection to them.
- SWAT Team: The ESU is deployed by the NYPD when the spree of bank robberies were reported.
- The FBI's Boston Office, at one point, deployed its SWAT unit to help Val. Turns out that Elena figured that they would be deployed and had her men disguised as a SWAT unit to throw the FBI off.
- The FBI's HRT work alongside Val and other FBI special agents to provide a tactical advatange.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In "Judge, Jury and Executioner", Val confronted her mother's killer Bigby and calls him out for taking her mother away and ruining her life while crying. Bigby denies it and just tells her to "piss off" despite her revealing herself as a cop. Val calls him "pathetic" as she leaves.
- The Reveal: Elena was the one who framed Val's husband Owen as revealed courtesy of her Amoral Attorney in "Pilot".
- There Are No Coincidences: Spoken ad verbatim in "Bury the Lede":Val: If there's anything we learned from Federova, there are no coincidences.
Elena: That one there with a badly set broken nose and a star tattoo behind his ear.
Owen: And that means something to you?
Elena: No, except it's exactly the same as that man who walked in earlier.
Sergey: And they pretend not to no each other. Maybe they don't.
Elena: That would be some coincidence. And I don't believe in them.
[cue gun fight]
Anthony: What does that mean - "Come to the bank"?
Val: She's gathering a crowd.
Anthony: For what?
Val: I don't know, but there are no coincidences.
Anthony: (to Val) Don't say it. There are no coincidences. - Token Good Teammate: Abdel, among the group of people in Elena's hitlist. He operated the drone camera during the church bombing, and the rest of the targeted group threaten to have his and his parents' citizenship revoked if he reveals this to anyone. So when Elena and Sergey offered for him to join them, he accepted.
- To Be Continued: "Judge, Jury and Executioner" ends with this.
- Undying Loyalty: Louie is willing to blow himself up for Elena, until she tells him to stand down.
- Villains Never Lie: Elena claims she has always been truthful to skeptical Val. Despite never fully trusting Elena, Val begrudgingly acknowledges her honesty so far in "All That Glitters". Turns out, however, Elena did lie to Val about one important thing during their talks.
- We Are Everywhere: Elena's Skazka o Myortvoy Tsarevne forces are everywhere. Even in the FBI blacksite, one of their HRT operators is a double agent.
- Wham Episode:
- The end of "Gold Rush" shows that an explosive device disguised as a gold bar was planted in the Federal Reserve.
- In "All That Glitters", the smoke bomb went off, which set the sprinklers off, melting the gold... which is revealed to be gold-painted clay bricks.
- Wham Line: In #1 with a Bullet", Val finds out that Elena has been getting intel by morse code via phone.Val: Elena, the balance of power just shifted.
- Wham Shot:
- At the end of "Gold Rush", Elena reveals to Val that her mother's killer is still alive.
- "All That Glitters" has the agents stunned to find the vault of gold nothing but melted bars of clay. It turns out the President of the United States was the one who stole the gold a while ago, replaced it with clay bars for public morale and Elena was exposing it.
- Worthy Opponent: Brought up several times from people on both sides of the law.
- Elena finds Val this because she is one of the VERY few who can keep up with her mind games.
