TL;DR – This was a substantial improvement on Citadel’s first outing, and while it might still be struggling to find its feet, it is heading in the right direction.

Disclosure – I paid for the Amazon Prime service that viewed this series.

Citadel: Diana Review –

I was intrigued when the first announcement of this new sort of spyverse based around duelling Citadel/Manticore organisations with companies across the world creating their own shows in the greater lore. Well, it was a fascinating concept, and I love me a good spy show. Unfortunately, the first primary season was … a bit of a mixed bag, not helped by significant production issues behind the scenes. Today, we move to Italy to see the first major spin-off and see if this concept can truly be a global work.

So, to set the scene, we open with a young lady, Diana Cavalieri (Matilda De Angelis), killing someone before turning the gun on themselves to provide a wound in the arm. It is 2030 in Milano, and it has seen better days, with citizens feeling like a police state is being created one block at a time and the ruins of the Duomo being a constant reminder to all. Diana works at Manticore Italia Quatier Generale, the powerful criminal syndicate that has grown unchecked since they defeated the Citadel spy agency. But when your criminal syndicate is being run by many powerful families, friction and mistrust will naturally occur. We will be looking at the season as a whole from here, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

The one thing that separates Diana from the first season of Citadel is that I am not filled with frustration but with interest. There is always something going on to make you ponder what we are seeing. One of these is the way that they use language in the show. Because one of the prominent narrative undercurrents is the relationship between the three European Houses, you get people talking in French, German, and Italian. That is to be expected. But what I like was how they used language to show when power was shifting in a scene and how people change when they are code-shifting. Putting their meeting place in Switzerland was a nice touch for this.  

Once again, we get a fractured time system in the show, where we look at two different timelines and jump between them. It is a lot easier to follow because both of the timelines move in a counterpoint between each other, and we follow the flow rather than jumping around all the time. This does make it a touch predictable in that you will have a sense of what is going to go down vis-a-vis who killed the other brother. But that is preferable to a timeline that makes no sense. They also use hallmarks so you visually know where you are in the timeline at any moment. In some cases, that is just everyone dressed frumpily eight years ago. For Diana, it is her hairstyle that looks … look, I am sorry, it didn’t work for me. It always felt like someone didn’t attach her wig correctly and that it was sliding off during the action.  

This season does make some good use of the countryside to create a backdrop for all the action. For my life, I want to know what it was that they ziplined over in Sicily. I am sure the Italian and Swiss tourism boards will be happy with the representation and the less-than-subtle ‘you should come to visit here’ dialogue. But I cannot be mad because Mr. & Mrs. Smith did it just as well earlier this year. I will say that I never truly gelled with the musical score for the season, but I think that is just down to musical preferences. But the Sci-fi guns always felt odd with the electronic folly added, even more so when they pulled out the shotguns.

From a narrative perspective, I am not sure they are doing anything new here, but the work we did get was a solid outing. Even though we are playing across Europe, the story is a more contained family work about a duelling father and son trying to hold onto control in a system they are rapidly running out of power in. So, we get a lot of betrayals, backstabbing, manipulation, and some agitated French people by the end. This is counterpointed by Diana’s journey from activist to mole to trying to work when, as far as she knows, she is the last citadel agent left and is stuck behind enemy lines. It all works.

The main McGuffin for the season is this weapon that they all want but are all trying to keep from each other. A nanobot that can be used to spy on people who drink it and also maybe kill them is a solid enough hook. The season did peak in the penultimate episode when most of the manipulations came to a head, and Manticore France was crushed for trying to strongarm Italy. Part of this was due to dualling armed assaults from the past and 2030. It was an exciting way of keeping that momentum up. However, I am sad to say that I think the season floundered a bit in the finale episode. Everything felt more than a little rushed and ended on the most eye-roll-y of moments when Diana’s old Citadel hander Gabriele (Filippo Nigro) turned up alive.       

In the end, do we recommend Citadel: Diana Season 1? I think I would. It was still not a perfect season, but it was a substantial improvement. The singular focus and not having the baggage of all the worldbuilding lore to set up helped the show take off from the gates in a sprint. I hope all these regional Citadel shows keep building this Universe into something interesting.  

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen Citadel: Diana yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.    

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Citadel: Diana
Directed by – Arnold Catinari
Written by – Alessandro Fabbri, Gianluca Bernardini, Giordana Mari, Ilaria Bernardini & Laura Colella
Created by – Alessandro Fabbri
Based On – Citadel by Josh Appelbaum, Bryan Oh & David Weil
Production/Distribution Companies – Amazon MGM Studios, Cattleya, AGBO, Midnight Radio, Super Epic & Amazon Prime
Starring – Matilda De Angelis, Lorenzo Cervasio, Maurizio Lombardi, Julia Piaton, Thekla Reuten & Filippo Nigro With Giordana Faggiano, Daniele Paoloni, Marouane Zotti, Carlo Sciaccaluga, Bernhard Schütz, Jun Ichikawa, Sonia Bonny & Maxim Mehmet And Massimo Rigo, Maxence Dinant, Federica Enrica Contini, Pietro Pace, Martina Limonta, Marco Cacciola, Silvia Cohen, Brice Martinet, Laline Cafaro & Raffaele Matrone
Episodes Covered – Split in Two/Divisa in Due, War/Guerra, Together/Insieme, The Zanis/ Gli Zani, Attack/Assalto & Jupiter/Giove