In ‘Tehran,’ heroes, villains blur lines
It isn’t too far into “Tehran” — an engrossing espionage drama series that’s from Israel, set primarily in Iran and now available in the United States via Apple TV+ — that you begin to wonder if you’re wrong and who the heroes and villains are.
Eventually, the reality hits you: There are neither heroes nor villains in “Tehran.” As in real life, “good guys” and “bad guys” are hard to find.
Every key player in the show, from its lead protagonist to its fascinating primary antagonist, is dedicated to his or her cause, and is willing to leap across ethical lines in the name of that cause.
“Tehran,” which debuted in Israel in June, began its U.S. run with the first three episodes being released on Sept. 25. Apple’s streaming platform is putting out subsequent installments one at a time over the next several Fridays.
Be aware that you will be reading subtitles for much or all of the series, with dialogue in Hebrew, English and Farsi. (Due to the characters’ accents, even the English can be hard to understand at times, so enabling the closed captioning is a good idea.)
The engrossing first hour is packed with character introductions and table setting.
We meet the central character, Tamar Rabinyan (Niv Sultan), a hacker with Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, as her commercial plane from Amman, Jordan, to New Delhi, India, is rerouted to Iran due to an issue with the engine. A Jewish woman who was born in Iran but grew up in Israel, Tamar ventures into the city following a nifty identity switch with another woman at Tehran’s airport.
Her mission is to worm her way into the city’s electrical system to exploit a back door into Iran’s military operations. She needs to knock out radar defenses long enough for a bombing operation to be executed.
Of course, there are complications from the beginning, and Tamar soon requires the help of her handler in Tehran, Masoud Tabrizi (Navid Negahban), aka “The Eagle.”
Tamar also long has cultivated a source in Tehran, a dissident and fellow hacker, Milad (Shervin Alenabi), with whom she has been talking on the dark web, each of them using aliases.
Both Tamar and Milad are young and attractive, so we are all but assured a romance will blossom. How Tamar truly feels about Milad, though, is something you’ll be kept wondering about until deep into the season — and even then it’s complicated.
Most standing in the way of Tamar succeeding is Faraz Kamali (Shaun
Toub), a high-ranking, dedicated and smart Iranian intelligence operative. The show’s most compelling character, he is never made to be sadistic or vindictive, as so many MiddleEastern figures in TV shows are.
Yes, he’ll call someone he’s interrogating a “zionist pig” and use all the leverage against that person he has, but he won’t inflict pain on him or her merely because he can.
He is humanized from the beginning by an enduring love for his wife, who is traveling to Paris for brain surgery. Faraz is brokenhearted in the first episode when work responsibilities at the airport keep him from accompanying her to France.
After the show’s strong start, you wonder as its roughly eight hours proceed if some subplots are little more than means for writers Moshe Zonder and Omri Shenhar to keep the larger story afloat until the final stretch.
However, seemingly every one has lasting implications in the respective journeys of Tamar and Faraz.
Sultan and Toub bring emotional complexities to their respective characters that really adds to them.
As determined as Tamar is, Sultan reminds us that she ultimately is a young and caring person, and that it’s not always easy for her to do what’s required.
Similarly, as dedicated as Faraz is to his country, he’s more devoted to his wife, which will come into play as the season progresses and which Toub really sells through his performance.
Unfortunately, Sultan and Toub have almost no screen time together, but a few scenes shared by Toub and Negahban are terrific.
“Tehran” saves its best for last, offering a nail-biter of a finale. A revelation early in that final hour turns things murky not only for Tamar but for viewers, as well.
All will become clear before “Tehran” delivers an ending that, while not a cliffhanger, leaves open the possibility of the show continuing. ( That “Tehran” ultimately does not leave you hanging is especially refreshing considering many episodes do in a somewhat-annoying fashion.)
“Tehran” has many of the hallmarks — and tropes — of spy fiction, and you will have to suspend your disbelief at times. Nonetheless, it is a smarter-than-average series, so more of it would be quite welcome.