Riz Ahmed’s Sharp Amazon Comedy About Identity and Fame

When it comes to referendums on national identity, few are more arbitrary than the periodic debate over who should play James Bond in the next cinematic adaptations of Ian Fleming’s venerable spy franchise.

Like candidates for the Supreme Court, Bond-obsessed pundits fall into two camps: strict constructionists, who believe that every descriptive word in Fleming’s books must be adhered to directly (even though Fleming died in 1964 and, according to some media reports, the world has changed since then); and loose constructionists, who figure that Fleming wrote about spycraft and geopolitical relations in a time before cell phones, the invention of chicken tikka masala or common acceptance of the Big Bang, so maybe it’s acceptable if James Bond doesn’t directly resemble Hoagy Carmichael.

The question of “Who will play James Bond?” invariably becomes as much “Who gets to be considered to play James Bond?” And that, in turn, becomes very close to “Who gets to be considered sufficiently British to play James Bond?” And finally “Who is British?”

The progression of those questions is at the heart of Riz Ahmed‘s new six-part comedy series, Bait.

Presenting as TV’s latest entertainment industry satire, Bait is ultimately less like Hacks or The Studio or The Franchise and more like Disney+’s Wonder Man (mixed with a dash of Baby Reindeer), in which the main character’s dream of taking on a franchise-leading role in a blockbuster becomes a proxy for unresolved trauma and a desperate need to find a place in a world that has tried to exclude him.

Like its main character, Bait is a series that feels like it’s constantly on the verge of a breakthrough, constantly on the edge of finding a next gear either satirically or emotionally. Instead, it’s more interesting and worthy of admiration than necessarily great, but you can see the greatness on the periphery. (This, incidentally, was also how I felt about Wonder Man. It’s a tough genre to get right, apparently. But I probably prefer the deeper aspiration of Bait and Wonder Man to the more fulfilled, but limited aspirations of The Studio.)

The pilot, written by Ahmed and directed by Bassam Tariq, begins with Ahmed’s Shah Latif freezing up partway through an early audition for James Bond.

“Tell me, when it’s just you all alone, how do you live with yourself? Do you even know who you are?” Shah’s audition co-star, playing what is presumably a Bond Girl, asks him.

The existential question, the driver for the entire show, causes Shah to freeze. He screws up the audition. A production assistant shows him out of the studio, leading him out the back door because a paparazzi photographer is perched at the front. Light bulb coming on in his head, Shah feigns that he forgot something, ditches the assistant and exits through the front door.

By the time he gets to dinner with his family, Shah’s phone is blowing up with rumors that he might be the next James Bond.

Shah’s parents, Tahira (Sheeba Chaddha) and Parvez (Sajid Hasan), are hopeful but skeptical. His brother-cousin Zulfi (Guz Khan) hopes that Shah’s newfound fame will help boost his Uber-for-Muslims rideshare business. His sister-cousin Q (Aasiya Shah) is excited and somehow never mentions in six episodes that she shares a name with a beloved 007 character.

His agent Felicia (Weruche Opia) sees this as the potential climax of a career that has included more failures and near-successes than actual success.

The Internet is…the Internet, and soon Shah is facing escalating threats and disapproving media coverage, including a column by his ex (Ritu Arya’s Yasmin), arguing that a Pakistani-British man playing James Bond won’t erase the character’s neo-colonial stench, so why bother?

And Shah? Well, he isn’t sure what to think. Growing up in a London plagued by decades of anti-immigrant sentiment in general and anti-Pakistani sentiment specifically, he has a lot of internalized self-hatred and easily triggered memories of bullying and abuse (to say nothing of all of the times he’s been confused for Dev Patel).

The series takes place over a four-day period between Shah’s disastrous first audition and the unexpected callback that he received as a result of the media attention, a period that includes Eid al-Fitr, the conclusion of Ramadan.

This makes it an opportunity for Shah to take both personal and professional inventory, to think about what it would mean to play James Bond and what it means to be Pakistani in contemporary London.

It’s a big swing, and probably a bigger swing than six half-hour episodes can contain — especially when it becomes clear that the Latifs have a family history of mental illness that dovetails uncomfortably with Shah’s newfound determination to believe that the implausible might be possible. Reality for Shah becomes tenuous, which is less than ideal when you’re going through the biggest days of your life on an empty stomach.

Ahmed, co-showrunner Ben Karlin and directors Tariq and Tom George have built the four days and six episodes around a number of pivotal events, including a podcast taping with an unexpected star, multiple family gatherings, a museum gala for the opening of a controversial exhibit and a semi-romantic evening spent on East London’s Brick Lane (one of several distinctive neighborhoods given a vibrant showcase).

Big events add opportunities for zaniness that’s recognizably comedic, in addition to bringing in some recognizable guest stars. Himesh Patel (Station Eleven) and Nabhaan Rizwan (Kaos) are fittingly dapper as Shah’s professional and familial rivals, respectively, two men with the Bond-ian confidence that Shan lacks. Rafe Spall is unexpectedly funny as a security expert who responds to a threat at the Latif house, with the strong suggestion that he wants the prestige of offering his services to the next Bond.

What the zaniness also does sometimes, though, is make it hard for Bait to live with some of the dramatic elements that it introduces and then rushes away from. Some of the psychological complexities are audacious, and I kept wondering how much the show would follow through with certain decisions, with the answer always being “very little.” It says the things it wants to say, but says them quickly, especially in a finale that ties several thematic elements together a little too neatly.

Ahmed has given himself a challenging role, one that clearly has certain autobiographical elements even if the bigger picture isn’t autobiographical at all (though Ahmed would make a fine James Bond). He has excelled in dramatic roles going back to The Night Of and Sound of Metal, but it’s nice to see hints of the comic chops he displayed back in Four Lions, especially in his scenes with Khan, who finds an undercurrent of anger to Zulfi’s entrepreneurial desperation.

The best episode for Ahmed, and my favorite episode in the series, is the fourth — basically a two-hander with Arya — as Shah’s frustration with Yasmin’s column becomes a brief East London odyssey that lets them each air grievances about their relationship. I really liked Arya in The Umbrella Academy and Polite Society and this is a small, but thoroughly appealing part.

Amazon isn’t calling Bait a limited series and the finale is conclusive enough, but the show is so close to the brink of being something special that I wouldn’t mind if Ahmed wanted to reopen the narrative, and his character’s spiritual wounds, to see what could still be uncovered. It’d be especially fun to get a second season timed for whenever Amazon is finally ready to reveal the next James Bond, who’s unlikely to actually be an actor like Shah Latif.