Spies hold annual conferences. Who’d have thought? And they take their families along. What could possibly go wrong?

Harry and Helen take off for Mexico with their kids in tow. Because what spy couple doesn’t want their kids to meet all the other spies’ families? Needless to say, the situation almost immediately turns dire when bad-guy spies attack.

True Lies seems to want to be both edgy and funny. It ends up succeeding at neither. Albeit cartoon-style, there’s way too much gunplay and bloodshed for the show to be truly amusing. Conversely, there’s also way too much comedy – or, rather, ‘comedy’ (or at least, ridiculousness) – for viewers to take the danger seriously.

We get the kids trying to go drinking, but evidently even Mexican bartenders can recognize fake IDs, even U.S. ones. Ok, that line was kind of funny. Even though, it’s not as if the kid didn’t look about twelve years old. Luther ends up babysitting them while the parents are stuck doing battle and needing to make up excuses why they can’t go back to the resort.

Likewise Maria leads the other clueless family members on a ‘hike’ and must keep coming up with excuses to prevent them from returning to the main building as well. The gunfire? Fireworks, naturally, in the middle of broad daylight.

In an aside that makes as much sense as anything else in the show, the Omega group is on their own because the Mexican spies they were meeting managed to escape. Ok, kudos for escaping. But as the crises stretches out for hours, they never send for help or any kind of backup? Because? I guess spies don’t do that kind of thing.

The funniest thing about the episode is that we’re supposed to believe the family members remain as ignorant after this fiasco as they were before it began.

Verdict: Yeah, no. Just no. 4/10

Rigel Ailur

http://www.BluetrixBooks.com