Treadstone Season 1 Series Review

Treadstone is a 2019 action/spy series about a CIA program by the same name geared towards the enhancement of human soldiers to become weapons of war. The Treadstone program, run by the CIA and spearheaded by some powerful overlords, trains, and programs individuals to become superhuman agents of war and corporate manipulation.

Treadstone Season 1 Series Review and Summary

This post is both a review and a summary of Treadstone Season 1. That is to say, it may contain spoilers.

John Randolph Bentley

The Treadstone program begins in 1973 with the brain-altering of a captured CIA agent from Berlin Station by the name of John Randolph Bentley, played by Jeremy Irvine. Bentley is the first Cicada, or the first subject of the Treadstone program along with several others who are worked on by Dr. Meisner, the lead doctor/scientist undertaking the program on behalf of Russia.

Dr. Meisner injecting something into John Bentley while he’s being trained as a Cicada. Source: USA Network.

Treadstone is super illegal and it is a program that is undertaken illegally, and later propagated by the CIA as a way to catch up after the Russians spearhead it.

Petra Andropov

Perta Andropov, alias Petrushka, played by Emilia Schule, is a Russian KGB spy who’s tasked with spearheading the program. She helps select the subjects and pick out those who turn out to be promising. She is intrigued by Bentley and she advocates for his inclusion into the program. She is under orders from Yuri Leniov, a KGB higher-up who is supervising the program.

Matt Edwards

Matt Edwards, played by Omar Metwally, is a CIA agent in the present time who stumbles across a Cicada and together with her boss, Ellen Becker, played by Michelle Forbes, uncovers the conspiracy of the Treadstone program. He’s tasked to go after a Cicada going by the name of Stephen Haynes, who goes haywire and is on a killing spree. Ellen later discovers that her boss CIA Director Dan Levine is in on the conspiracy.

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Doug McKenna

Doug McKenna, played by Brian J. Smith, is your average working joe. He works in a rig in the Arctic before coming across a mysterious woman after a barfight where he portrays some advanced fighting skills and superhuman strength.

Doug wakes up the next day after the encounter with the woman, with a picture of a target with a circle and 3 lines underneath, and an address in the back. He is a Cicada and the picture is his target package. As per the way the Treadstone program works, the circle and 3 lines trigger his programming and direct his assassination of the target.

Sam

Doug’s wife Samantha, or Sam, is a nurse and when a man comes to their home looking for Doug, and trying to eliminate him for failing to take out his target, she quickly puts him down. The man mentions her by name and Doug is confused as to why the strange man knows her name. Turns out that she’d been part of the Treadstone program and had worked on making Doug a Cicada before she fell in love with him and the two got married.

Tara Coleman

Tara Coleman, played by Tracy Ifeachor, is a journalist who lost her reputation after going after a story about a nuclear rocket termed ‘Stilleto Six’. Everybody thinks that the story is bogus and she loses her job and repute. She, however, comes across Matt Edwards who asks her to go and meet a North Korean general by the name of Kwon. General Kwon specifically asks for her and the CIA, through Edwards, asks her to go meet him.

General Kwon

Kwon, played by Tzi Ma, is a leader in North Korea whose knowledge of Stilleto Six endangers his life and that of his family. He asks Tara to head to Paris and get his daughter to the Ecuadorian embassy where she would meet the ambassador. The move is also to protect his daughter as the people who are after him will also likely go after her.

True to his suspicion, General Kwon is killed a few days later in North Korea by a Cicada by the name of Soyun Pak. Tara, despite being targetted by a few hitmen gets his daughter to the Ecuadorian embassy, where the ambassador hands her 500 million in cryptocurrency for her to go buy launch codes for the Stilleto Six nuclear rocket.

Soyun Pak

Soyun Pak, played by Han Hyo-joo, is a North Korean Cicada who is married to an up-and-coming military scientist by the name of Dae and the two have a son Jin-Woo Pak. Soyun is activated and goes on to assassinate General Kwon. Things later get sticky for her as her husband’s boss, Colonel Shin tasks her with a mission to go to China. He, apparently, is the one who put out the hit on General Kwon.

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Soyun Pak's cover is as a piano instructor — Soyun Pak’s cover is as a piano instructor who trains Shin’s daughter at first. Source: USA Network.

Colonel Shin

Colonel Shin is trying to instigate a coup in North Korea. He is in cahoots with Yuri Leniov as the regime change would mean that North Korea would be “open for business”. He gets General Kwon murdered and is in the process of purchasing the nuclear warhead on the Stilleto Six rocket.

The rocket has been lying in an underground bunker manned by Petra Andropov, now aged. Tara Coleman is also kidnapped and her friend is killed by Yuri’s men who are after the cryptocurrency she’d been given by the ambassador. The crypto completes the transaction and the nuclear warhead is handed over to Shin. Soyun is able to eavesdrop on Shin’s meeting with Yuri and heads to the US embassy to enlighten the CIA on the same.

Becoming Vincent

After the people behind the Treadstone program realize that Doug has malfunctioned and is not following his programming, they send out a cleaning team to get rid of him. The team fails and one of the program’s officials comes after him.

Doug and his wife Sam hatch out a plan for him to play dead and hopefully allow them to escape Treadstone. Source: USA Network.

Doug now also knows that his wife Samantha was part of the program and the two hatch out a plan for him to play dead and impersonate another Cicada by the name of Vincent. Doug does so and when he’s sent to kill a Colombian activist, hesitates. He, however, manages to make it look like he’d taken out the activist and, at the same time, his wife had gone back into the program to claim that he’d died.

Bringing Ellen into the Fold

CIA director Dan Levine, played by Michael Gaston, decides to bring Ellen Becker into the fold about the Treadstone program and those working on it. This is after things go wrong and Matt Edwards tries to elicit help from Interpol to deal with the conspiracy of the program.

Levine and the CIA manage to stop the meet between Edwards and an Interpol officer and try to kill him. Luckily, Ellen had elicited Tara, now discovered to also be a Cicada and sent after Yuri, to go help him. Tara had not managed to assassinate Yuri and she and Edwards go into hiding.

Matt Edwards and Tara Coleman. The two work together to uncover the Treadstone program. Source: USA Network.

Out of the Fold

Dan Levine is shortly after assassinated by an Indian Cicada who’d also been previously sent to kill Soyun Pak and failed. Ellen is whisked off her parking lot and taken to a US Senator, Wray’s house. There the senator brings her into a room with the higher-ups of the Treadstone program seated. She asks about Levine but the door is closed and she is now in the fold as Levine was taken out of the fold. The senator is among the overlords of the Treadstone program.

Our Rating

Treadstone is a very thrilling espionage series that is very interesting, especially for CIA and modern warfare nerds who will have their imaginations activated by the intricacies of the Treadstone program. The series is very entertaining and action-packed with some sweet action scenes. It is also complex enough that if you like spy movies, science, and technology, then it’ll be an interesting watch. We loved the series and rate it 8.5/10. Be sure to watch it and enjoy!

FAQ

Will there be a Season 2 of Treadstone?

Unfortunately no. Treadstone was discontinued after Season 1 as its creators, the USA Network, discontinued it due to a number of factors.

Why was Treadstone Canceled?

Perhaps the most pressing reason Season 2 of Treadstone was canceled was the emergence of streaming networks at the time, which made the USA Network pivot towards reality TV at the expense of some of its original series, including Treadstone.

Is Treadstone a Good Show?

Definitely. Treadstone is an especially good show for those who love spy series and science fiction relating to modern warfare technology and advancements.