Netflix’s Treason season 1, episode 5 recap: A complicated plan gone wrong

At the end of the last episode of Treason, Adam, Kara, and Maddy have put together a plan to expose the blackmail strategy Angelis has been employing. They need to reveal that Adam is not a traitor; while trying to get him immunity for the treason that he committed.

Yes, those last two seem to contradict each other, but it’s been a complicated show.

Treason season 1 episode 5 recap: A complicated plan gone wrong

Maddy sneaks a message to prime minister potential Audrey Gratz, asking to meet her. She tells Gratz about the files and explains that’s where the information about Gratz’s mother came from.

She asks Gratz to give Adam immunity if they can get the files to her. She refuses at first, but later concedes and agrees to go along with the idea.

Meanwhile, Adam and Kara contact Malik to find out the location of the files. Malik is reluctant to help as well, but Adam says that he is the best person to assume control of MI6 if Angelis is outed.

He convinces Malik that he isn’t the double agent that he’s being assumed to be, and Malik gives them the location of the files. Upon arriving at the shipping yard that Malik gave, Adam and Kara see the files being destroyed.

However, the agents doing the destroying are digitizing each file first. This ends up being a good thing, as Adam and Kara only have to grab the single hard drive containing all of the digital files, rather than having to figure out how to take possession of an entire roomful of files.

Kara sneaks in to steal the hard drive while Adam checks to make sure the rest of the area is clear. Before grabbing the hard drive, Kara first searches for Baku in the files to try and find who was responsible for the death of her men.

The hesitation results in Kara getting caught, and the stealth mission turns into an action mission as she tries to wrestle the hard drive free from the MI6 agents. Adam meanwhile runs into Maddy, who had come to see if she could be helpful now that her part of the mission was done.

Kara ends up getting the hard drive, but the CIA arrives. Dede gets the drop on Adam, pointing her gun at him.

Dede yells out for Maddy to give up the files, promising that she’ll go easy on Adam. Kara tries to stop Maddy, but she breaks away with the hard drive containing all the files.

Adam tries to stop her, Dede reacts, and shoots Adam, killing him. Maddy and Kara escape with the files, but Adam is dead.

Treason season 1 episode 5 recap: What to do with the files?

Maddy calls Grantz, who tells her to give the files to Angelis, saying it’s the best way to put everything behind them. Kara disagrees and encourages Maddy to expose the truth.

Meanwhile, back at MI6 headquarters, Angelis tells Malik and Patrick that Adam has been killed. He tells them that Kara is the one that killed Adam and plans to put pressure on the Russians to disavow her for the killing that she didn’t do.

Angelis plans to tell the intelligence committee his version of the events at a special meeting the next day. Kara calls the Russians to offer them the files on the hard drive, but it turns out that the call is part of a plan cooked up by Kara and Maddy to reveal the plot to the world.

Maddy shows up with the hard drive the next day at the intelligence committee meeting, as Martin Angelis is detailing his falsified version of what happened. As she approaches, Patrick tries to stop her and take the files.

He lies to her by saying that Adam had told her to take them from her before he died. His lies are exposed, and it proves that he is the real double agent that Adam had been accused of being.

Maddy arrives in the room, and Grantz decides to hold up her end of the bargain. She puts the blackmail files into evidence, and reveals Adam, not as a traitor, but as a hero who tried to root out corruption in the UK government.

Outside, Patrick bumps into Kara on the way to his car. He doesn’t notice until he finds a picture in his pocket of Kara and her men in Baku.

The very men whose death he was responsible for. He also finds poison in his pocket as well, meaning that Kara’s quest for vengeance is complete.

Angelis is arrested, and Kara tells Maddy that she plans to return to Russia. Maddy is reunited with her children and holds them close as the series comes to a close.

Treason season 1 episode 5 recap: In conclusion…

Maybe it’s the nature of the type of show this is, but it felt like every moment of the episode was teasing the big twist, that felt like it had to be just around the corner. Why did Maddy show up at the shipping yard?

And how did she even know where to go? She has to be the secret villain all along!

But why did they just kill the main character with half the episode still to go? He’s not really dead?

So, the twist is that he’s the real villain! But why was Kara so confident that Adam wasn’t the double agent?

It’s because she knows more than she’s letting on! She’s been behind everything this whole time!

Of course, none of that ended up happening. In the end, this final episode was kind of lackluster compared to the four that were building up to it.

Rather than building on what’s come before, this episode feels a lot more like housekeeping and checking off a list of what has to happen by the end. We’re teased about a double agent in this show, so how about Patrick?

He’s as good a pick as anybody else. Sir Martin Angelis needs to have his comeuppance, so we’ll expose his files and then he can get arrested.

Offscreen. It’s like the plot points of the story got resolved, but the emotions didn’t get a satisfactory conclusion.

It doesn’t ruin the show as a whole, but it does give the show a feeling of disappointment, knowing that it wraps up on a bit of a sour note. In a way, it ends up feeling like episode 4 is the true climax of the series.

It makes sense why the teaser scene at the very beginning of the show came from episode 4 and not episode 5. Because it turns out, everything the whole show was building to, happened one episode earlier than the finale.

What did you think of Treason season 1 episode 5? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

You can watch Treason season 1 on Netflix.