History Series / CovertAffairs

* BlindIdiotTranslation:

* BilingualBonus: In "Letter Never Sent" part of the Stockholm train station is covered by a banner. In Swedish it reads "Dasg för ett hröseltest?", basically something like "Tiem for a hreaing test?"... -Maybe they should throw in a ''[[SarcasmMode spleling test]]'' while they're at it.
Also, the tall Finn in the heavy sweater is swearing and complaining (in Finnish-accented Swedish) about having to "climb like a monkey" to fix his lamp.
Oh, and Copenhagen is generally pronounced wrong on this show.

* BlindIdiotTranslation: In "Letter Never Sent" part of the Stockholm train station is covered by a banner. [[BilingualBonus In Swedish]] it reads "Dasg för ett hröseltest?", basically something like "Tiem for a hreaing test?"... -Maybe they should throw in a ''[[SarcasmMode spleling test]]'' while they're at it.
** Oh, and no, Arthur, you can't turn Copenhagen into ''København'' just by pronouncing it with an "aah" near the end. It's actually closer to "cuh-ben-houn".

* EloquentInMyNativeTongue: In "Letter Never Sent" Annie and Danielle's [[BilingualBonus Swedish]] is almost impenetrable. Of course, they only spent one year in the country as kids. Contrast with the tall Finn in the heavy sweater; he's swearing and complaining ([[BilingualBonus in Finnish-accented Swedish]]) about having to "climb like a monkey" to fix his lamp.

* EloquentInMyNativeTongue: In "Letter Never Sent" Annie and Danielle's Swedish is almost impenetrable. Of course, they only spent one year in the country as kids. Contrast with the tall Finn in the heavy sweater for a BilingualBonus, he's swearing and complaining (in Finnish-accented Swedish) about having to "climb like a monkey" to fix his lamp.

* CunningLinguist: Annie speaks, well, at least 6+ languages fluently: English, Russian, German, Spanish, Hebrew, and Portuguese, and she knows enough Turkish "to get by." (Her French may or may not be in this category, as the only time she's used it, her cover was an American expatriate.) It's one of the reasons she was recruited into the CIA. She also apparently knows at least some Italian as well, because in one episode she has to trade an Italian journalist for an American spy and she completely understands his ranting and even responds in Italian. She also understands Arabic, but she can only speak the cuss words. Estonian is her only weakness as she knows only the cuss words and not much else. Also, her Swedish is ''rather hard!'' to decipher.

** Augie probably qualifies, seeing as how he's spoken, what, ''arabic, spanish, French'' and ''Chechan'' so far on screen.

* BrokenBird: Annie spent most of her life putting up emotional barriers, and when she finally let them down and fell in love, her paramour left in the middle of the night with nothing more than a note. And so, she explains, she keeps her guard up. [[spoiler:And in season 5, we see that she has been experiencing panic attacks and this is what delayed her return to the States for four months.]]

* BlindIdiotTranslation: In "Letter Never Sent" part of the Stockholm train station is covered by a banner. In Swedish it reads "Dasg för ett hröseltest?", basically something like [[BilingualBonus "Tiem for a hreaing test?"]]... -Maybe they should throw in a ''[[SarcasmMode spleling test]]'' while they're at it.

* BlindIdiotTranslation: In "Letter Never Sent" part of the Stockholm train station is covered by a banner. In Swedish it reads "Dasg för ett hröseltest?", basically something like "Tiem for a hreaing test?"... -Maybe they should throw in a ''[[SarcasmMode spleling test]]'' while they're at it.

** [[Adorkable Adorkable]] Eric Barber seems to have a crush on Annie, but when rumors start circulating about Annie and Auggie getting together romatically (-there was even a betting pool!) he's just happy for his two friends.

** There's a very brief music snippet in "Communication Breakdown" that sounds like part of the X-Files theme song.
** In "Bang and Blame", Auggie's fake cover when he's pretending to be faculty at a student training cocktail dinner is one Dr. Stephen, neurosurgeon, similar if not the same as one Dr. Stephen Strange. Their backgrounds are similar too.

** "The wake up bomb" is possibly the first researched, non-eye rolling appearance of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETA ETA]] in American TV fiction. There is mention of the group being in its last throes and going through a third truce in a decade; Annie gets herself and the CIA involved by accident[[note]]She meets a guy in a bar who turns out to be a former member being monitored by Spanish intelligence, and the Spanish demand an explanation from the CIA after photographing them together[[/note]], with the CIA trying to stay on the fence; and the NecessaryWeasel of having ETA plotting attacks on American soil, out of Spain and France (a big no-no through its history) is justified as it being the work of a splinter cell who wants to force the rest of the organization back into fighting.[[note]]Even then, the two targets are that former member and a Spanish diplomat against whom the cell's leader has a personal ax to grind, not American targets per se. Contrast this with ''[[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/Intelligence2014 Intelligence]]'' and its throwaway reference to the CIA killing half a dozen [[LatinoIsBrown conspicuously dark]] "Basque terrorists" who have done "attacks on Spain and the United States", as if that happened every tuesday.[[/note]] The actors even make an effort to speak Basque, some with better accents than others.
* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Series/{{Alias}}'', so much so that several elements have been directly lifted from that show - most notably Jai Wilcox's father being a MagnificentBastard of a [[TheSpymaster Spymaster]] and his mother being a double agent.
** Also, like ''Alias'', it takes until season 2 before [[spoiler: Annie is shown directly killing someone]].
** The executive producer of the show is Doug Liman, who is also responsible for ''The Bourne Trilogy.'' In one of the preview videos before the show debuted, he likened the show to seeing what happened to Jason Bourne in between the movies.

As per USA formula, Annie is surrounded by a cast of quirky characters: [[TheSmartGuy Auggie Anderson]], a field agent who was blinded on a mission and now works MissionControl; [[HandsomeLech Conrad Sheehan]] (only in the pilot), Annie's superior agent; [[BelligerentSexualTension Joan and Arthur Campbell]], the respective head of the Domestic Protection Division and CIA itself (and troubled married couple), [[TallDarkAndHandsome Jai Wilcox]], who follows in his CIA legend dad's footsteps, and Annie's sister [[HeyItsThatGuy Danielle]], who doesn't know of her life in espionage.

* GeekyTurnOn: Auggie met his ex Natasha at a laundromat where she was reading ''{{Snowcrash}}''.

* TheBechdelTest: Pass.

* BathroomBreakOut: While Annie escorts a prisoner he tries to escape this way, [[spoiler:but [[GenreSavvy Annie]] already waits for him outside the window.]]

* GenreSavvy: Escorting an outed Italian operative after being forced down in Argentina, they stumble across a farm;
---> "And this is when you steal some poor hapless peasant's vehicle; his only worldly possession." (Averted when [[spoiler: Annie buys the truck instead of stealing it]].)

* CombatPragmatist: Sort of brought up in "Bang and Blame" by the CIA training instructor. When asked to escape from a building and offered a weapon to do so, all of the recruits pick up a gun and shoot their way out. Annie on the other hand takes a gun... to break a glass box that contains a map of the building. She then disappears on the course and walks back into class via the exit. The instructor promptly chews the rest of the class out and explains (much like [[BurnNotice Michael Westen]]) that guns are a last resort. The best weapon is your mind.

** 1x04, "No Quarter", shows the problems with this; as ''BurnNotice'''s Michael Westen once noted, it's easy to become paranoid, interpreting even innocent gestures as evidence of a threat.

* TortureAlwaysWorks: Averted, as in the sister show ''BurnNotice''. In Season 4, [[spoiler:Annie tries to [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique torture]] an operative who turns out to be TooKinkyToTorture and actually gives her ''tips''. The situation ends up with the guy dead, shots fired, no information gained, and both her and her sidekick forced to leave. It probably didn't help that Annie's training is mainly in HUMINT, not interrogations.]]

** [[spoiler:But the bus came back for Eyal in the fourth season (briefly).]]

* Augie probably qualifies, seeing as how he's spoken, what, ''arabic, spanish, French'' and ''Chechan'' so far on screen.

''Covert Affairs'' is a USANetwork SpyDrama, starring Piper Perabo as trainee CIA agent Annie Walker, who is suddenly roped into actual field work.

Covert Affairs has four seasons aired in the past. A fifth season is now airing in North America; the first episode came out on July 24, 2014.

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* InSeriesNickname: Several characters have spontaneously come up with "[[AnnieGetYourGun Annie Oakley]]". Somewhat ironic as up until "Bang and Blame", Annie technically hasn't completed gun training yet. Calder is "the Sheriff", and Auggie is known as "Mingus".

* InSeriesNickname: Several characters have spontaneously come up with "[[AnnieGetYourGun Annie Oakley]]". Somewhat ironic as up until "Bang and Blame", Annie technically hasn't completed gun training yet.

** Eyal Levin's past life as a doctor is revisited in 5x04, when Annie goes to him for a consult on a heart infection, which she picked up from getting shot by Lena.