One of Prime Video’s biggest spy thrillers is back, and audiences are loving it.
Back with a higher episode count than its six-part first season and early viewer approval, the series is cementing itself among the streamer’s already stacked catalog of crime dramas and espionage thrillers, including The Agency, Reacher, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, A Spy Among Friends, and Jack Ryan, which is returning to Prime Video May 20, after the John Krasinski-led series ended with the release of the film, Jack Ryan: Ghost War.
Just two days after its premiere, Citadel‘s second season returned to a stellar audience score from Rotten Tomatoes, clocking in at 83% on the Popcornmeter. While the show has fewer than 50 ratings, the score is solid; it’s worth noting, however, that that number is likely to fluctuate as viewers continue to tune in over the weekend. And with just four reviews, it does not yet have a critical score.
Citadel follows Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra Jonas as Mason Kane and Nadia Smith, a pair of spies who try to recover their erased memories and find the truth behind a global conspiracy. Released on May 6, the show’s seven-episode second season is a departure from its first, dropping all seven episodes at once, as opposed to the weekly format the show followed the first time around. Season 2 picks up after the shocking revelation that Mason was the mole who destroyed the Citadel, having been manipulated by his mother, Dahlia Archer. After stopping a nuclear threat, both Nadia and Mason regain their memories, and while it’s a welcome moment, it’s then that Mason also comes to the realization that his wife, Abby, is actually Celeste, a fellow agent whose memory he had wiped out years earlier.
When the show returns, Stanley Tucci’s Bernard Orlick is assembling a new team, Mason and Nadia in tow, forcing the pair to work together again, despite Mason’s betrayal, as the team tries to tackle a dangerous man with mind-control technology. In addition to season 1’s returning cast, season 2 boasts some fresh faces, with Jack Reynor, Rahul Kohli, Matt Berry, and Gabriel Leone among the stars joining the Citadel universe.
Keeping in line with season 1’s memory-loss plot, the show transitions into a fresh storyline for season 2, and it seems to be agreeing with fans, with one RT audience review praising Tucci as the show’s unlikely action “hero,” and calling Citadel a great watch that “even has heart.” But a solid audience score may not be enough to secure Citadel’s fate, with Prime Video holding off on renewing the series for season 3 before its sophomore season arrived. It seems the streamer is banking on its continued viewership — literally — dropping a whopping $300 million to bring the spy thriller to the small screen.
As Citadel enters its first weekend on the streamer, it will be a waiting game for Prime Video to see if the show, which was originally released on April 28, 2023, gains the audience loyalty needed to make their investment in the globe-trotting series worthwhile, and if the critical success will follow.
Citadel season 2 is now streaming on Prime Video.
Release Date
April 28, 2023
Network
Prime Video
Showrunner
David Weil
