There’s no need to graymail your way into watching the first seven minutes of the Recruit Season 2 premiere, starring Noah Centineo as rookie CIA lawyer Owen Henricks. You can simply press play on the must-see video above ahead of the series’ return on Jan. 30, and find out just what happened to Owen after the lethal events of the Season 1 finale. As Centineo says, his character is having a “horrible” day on the job. 

But, the actor promises with a grin: “It’s all right. He can take it. Iron sharpens iron — what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” 

And the stakes for Owen will be higher than ever in The Recruit Season 2. The premiere clip jumps right into the action, as Owen is confronted with a trigger-happy Nichka (Maddie Hasson), the previously presumed-dead daughter of Season 1’s Max Meladze (Laura Haddock). Nichka brandishes a gun at a bloodied Owen, forces him into a hole, and beats him senseless into the dirt with shocking efficiency. It’s a lot for a new lawyer to handle — even if he works at the CIA on some of the agency’s most clandestine problems.  

Creator Alexi Hawley is excited for audiences to see how Owen pulls himself off the proverbial train tracks again as he deals with rebellious Agency assets (read: spies), blackmail, and an unexpected number of gunmen. “This show lives in propulsion,” he says. “So we immediately throw Owen in the deep end, which is where he’s the most fun. It seemed like a great way to start Season 2 — and then we just never let our foot off the gas.”

Although Episode 1 begins in Ostrava, Czech Republic, Owen’s legal adventures will take him around the globe in The Recruit Season 2. Centineo teases that Owen will be “blamed” for the chaos of Season 1. “In the fallout of that, he’s looking at a potential prison sentence — and the devastation of his career and his personal life,” the actor and executive producer says. His salvation might just arrive in the form of a single piece of mail from South Korea. 

“It’s another case, a top-secret one,” Centineo says. “It shoves Owen down the road of a potential way out of prison. And then he also gets shoved far deeper into the deep end.” 

As Owen travels to Seoul to unravel a life-threatening espionage situation, he soon realizes the greater danger just might be coming from inside the CIA. Along the way, he meets Jang Kyun (BAFTA nominee Teo Yoo), a South Korean intelligence agent who is more than meets the eye. “Jang Kyun is the catalyst behind a lot of cool action scenes,” Yoo reveals. “He’s a person who gives everything, who would die for what he believes in. He would go all the way for the person he loves.” But will Jang Kyun be a friend or foe for Owen?  

No matter what surprises lie ahead in The Recruit, Hawley says that Owen is ready for any curveball, despite his inexperience. As the writer points out, Owen is basically still in his first week at the CIA when Season 2 begins.   

“At the end of the day, Owen is a very smart guy. He just has some impulse control issues. Owen is the definition of ‘outside the box’ and the definition of ‘making it up as [he] goes along,’ ” Hawley says. “That’s maddening to some of his co-workers. And they try and sabotage him. But he still wins.” 

Will Owen continue to triumph in The Recruit Season 2? And how will Nichka, Jang Kyun, and the rest of Owen’s CIA frenemies factor into all the explosive twists and turns ahead? To find out, you’ll have to tune into the new season when it premieres on Jan. 30. Until then, keep coming back to Tudum for all your Recruit intel. 

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