Company, The

An uncompromising look at the history of the CIA

This three part TV series first broadcast in the US in 2007 is based on Robert Littel's critically acclaimed blockbuster The story seamlessly weaves together history and fiction to create a multigenerational saga of the CIA—known as "the Company" to insiders.

Racing across a landscape spanning the legendary Berlin Base of the '50s, the Soviet invasion of Hungary, the Bay of Pigs, Afghanistan, and the Gorbachev putsch, The Company tells the thrilling story of agents imprisoned in double lives, fighting an amoral, elusive, formidable enemy—and each other—in an internecine battle within the Company itself.

THE COMPANY, stars Chris O'Donnell (Scent of a Woman, Grey's Anatomy), Alfred Molina (Frida, The Da Vinci Code, Spider-Man 2) and Michael Keaton (Live from Baghdad, Cars), amongst others and is a TNT production.

Episode 1 - A Divided Germany

It is January 1954 in West Berlin. Brilliant CIA operative Harvey Torriti (Alfred Molina), code-named Sorcerer, and his young assistant, Jack McAuliffe (Chris O’Donnell), code-named Apprentice, make contact with a man who seeks to defect with his family from East Germany. In exchange, he offers Sorcerer the name of a KGB mole working in MI6. The Sorcerer agrees to the plan and arranges for the defection to take place. Unfortunately, however, the KGB gets wind of the plan and interferes. As a result, it becomes clear to Sorcerer and to CIA counter-intelligence specialist James Jesus Angleton (Michael Keaton), code-named Mother, that it was the MI6 mole who gave away the information. But who that mole is remains unknown.

Episode 2 - Hungary

Jack McAuliffe is in Hungary. It is 1956, and the Hungarian uprising is in its infancy. His contact is Elizabet (Natascha McElhone), an English woman whose husband was killed by the Allamvedelmi Hatosag (AVH), the Hungarian secret police, and whose daughter was taken and put into a special camp. She now works with the resistance and takes Jack to meet Arpad Zelk (Misel Maticevic), a poet who heads it up. But Jack’s message from the CIA is not one Arpad wants to hear. Jack tells him that the CIA wants the uprising to be postponed until better plans can be laid to prevent war between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. Jack tells Arpad about the Soviet tanks poised to move into Hungary should the uprising go forward.

Episode 3 - The Fall of The Soviet Union

The CIA gets a “walk-in” a Russian diplomat named Kikushkin (code-name Pinnacle) who wants to defect. At first, the CIA doesn’t want to believe him, but when he starts to reveal information about Sasha, the possible KGB mole working within the CIA, they agree to investigate his claims. Angleton is especially active in the investigation and eventually narrows down his list of subjects to just one name: Leo Kritsky. Despite Leo’s protests of innocence, he is arrested and placed into a cold and miserable cell, his only drinking water coming from a toilet.