Citadel Review: Prime Video's High-Octane Spy Thriller

The Russo Brothers Are Back, And This Time They're Producing

Anthony and Joe Russo, the directing duo behind some of the most celebrated Captain America and Avengers installments, have built a reputation for knowing exactly how to stage a fight scene and keep an audience gripping the armrest. Their work on the Marvel Cinematic Universe earned them a loyal following, and in 2023 they stepped into a new role with the Prime Video series Citadel, this time serving as producers rather than directors.

You might know them from the films they directed, including The Gray Man and Extraction, the latter starring Chris Hemsworth as a fearless black ops mercenary. Their production company, AGBO, produced Extraction, cementing their hands-on approach to bringing high-octane stories to the screen. As for The Gray Man, the brothers directed it but were not credited as producers.

Now with Citadel, the Russos have applied their signature style to a globe-trotting spy thriller that borrows the best elements of James Bond, Jason Bourne, and the Mission: Impossible franchise. The series dropped its first two episodes on April 28, 2023, with the remaining four episodes rolling out weekly, a release strategy that gives fans time to speculate and digest each twist. The first season runs six episodes total, and the production budget reportedly exceeded $200 million, a figure that shows in every frame of the lavish set pieces and international locations.

Richard Madden, who you may recall from Marvel's The Eternals, stars as agent Mason Kane, while Priyanka Chopra Jonas plays Nadia Sinh. The two leads share a chemistry that keeps the tension simmering beneath the explosions, and their dynamic anchors the series as it jumps between continents and timelines.

For anyone who has missed the kind of action that doesn't let up, Citadel delivers exactly that. The Russos have a knack for balancing spectacle with character, and this project gives them a canvas big enough to play with both.

Meet Mason Kane and Nadia Sinh, Spies With a Memory Problem

The first two episodes of Citadel drop you straight into a mission gone sideways, with Richard Madden as agent Mason Kane and Priyanka Chopra Jonas as his partner Nadia Sinh. For a few thrilling minutes this looks like a Mr. and Mrs. Smith remake, two spies who might be more than partners. Then everything explodes.

Madden, whom you might remember from Marvel's The Eternals, plays Kane with that coiled intensity he does so well. Chopra Jonas, a Bollywood superstar making her Hollywood mark, matches him beat for beat. Their mission goes wrong in spectacular fashion, and the two are separated in the chaos. But here's the twist that sets this apart from every other spy story: they both suffer massive memory loss. The Citadel spy agency collapses around them, and our heroes can't even remember who they are, let alone who sent them.

The show plays with your expectations beautifully. You settle in expecting a slick couple-of-spies caper, and then the rug gets pulled. These aren't agents with a plan; they're people trying to piece together fragments of a life they can't recall. It's a device that adds genuine mystery to the action, because every fight scene carries the question: is this person an enemy, or a former friend they've forgotten?

This much happens within the opening stretch of episode one, so no spoilers here. But it does signal that the six-episode first season intends to stay packed. The production budget reportedly exceeded $200 million, and you can feel it in every frame.

There's also something refreshing about the release schedule. The first two episodes arrived together on April 28, 2023, with the rest rolling out weekly. That old-school approach gives you time to theorize with friends between episodes, something binge-drops killed off. For a show built on memory and mystery, that weekly gap feels less like a wait and more like part of the fun.

A $200 Million Action Rollercoaster That Feels Like a Movie

Citadel hits the ground running with a production budget that reportedly exceeds $200 million, and you can feel every dollar on screen. The first season is a tight six episodes, and the action is relentless from the very first minutes. It is like someone shook up James Bond, Jason Bourne, and Mission: Impossible in a cocktail shaker and poured the result straight into your living room.

The money went somewhere you can actually see. Every frame, every stunt, every location feels expensive in the best way. The production team clearly did not hold back, and the show has a polish that makes it feel closer to a theatrical release than a streaming series. Comparisons to The Gray Man are inevitable, and they are not wrong. The pacing is similar, the scale is similar, and the sheer spectacle is similar. This is not a slow burn. It does not ask for your patience. It asks for your attention and rewards it immediately with set pieces that would not look out of place in a summer blockbuster.

You know the pedigree behind the camera. The Russo brothers, the duo behind some of the most acclaimed Captain America and Avengers films, know how to stage chaos with clarity. They also produced Extraction, the Chris Hemsworth vehicle that became a surprise hit on Netflix. Their fingerprints are all over Citadel. The action is not just loud. It is legible. You always know who is where, what is at stake, and why the fight matters.

That budget also buys you casting. Richard Madden, who you might remember from The Eternals, plays agent Mason Kane. Priyanka Chopra Jonas, a star who moved from Bollywood to Hollywood, plays Nadia Sinh. They have chemistry, and the show is smart enough to put them in situations where that chemistry gets tested by explosions and gunfire.

The release schedule is worth noting too. The first two episodes dropped together, and then the remaining episodes arrived weekly. That choice gives the show something many streaming series have lost. It gives you time to talk about it, to speculate, to build theories with friends between installments. It makes the experience feel like an event rather than a binge.

Why Weekly Episodes Might Be the Best Decision Prime Video Made

Prime Video dropped the first two episodes of Citadel on April 28, 2023, and then did something almost radical in the streaming era: they made everyone wait a full week for episode three. In a landscape where entire seasons vanish onto platforms in one go, that choice feels like a deliberate throwback, and honestly, it works beautifully for a show this dense with twists.

The all-at-once binge model has a hidden cost. When you burn through six hours of television in a single sitting, the details blur together, and the water-cooler moment evaporates before it even starts. Citadel's weekly cadence forces a different kind of engagement. You finish an episode, the credits roll, and suddenly you are sitting there turning over what just happened, trying to piece together how Mason Kane's fractured memory fits into the collapse of the Citadel spy agency.

That anticipation is exactly what the showrunners seem to want. The first season runs just six episodes, and with a production budget reported to exceed $200 million, every frame carries weight. Spacing those episodes out gives the audience time to appreciate the craftsmanship rather than swallowing it whole. You notice the practical effects, the locations, the way the action sequences are staged, because you are not rushing toward the next episode out of pure momentum.

There is also something social about the weekly model that the binge format killed. Friends who watch together actually stay in sync. Theories get traded between episodes. A stray detail in episode two, something Nadia Sinh says in passing, becomes fuel for a week of speculation before episode three arrives. That shared experience, the collective guessing game, is part of what made television exciting long before streaming existed.

For this Citadel Prime Video review, the weekly release strategy deserves real credit. It respects the material and the viewer's attention span in equal measure. The show asks for about forty minutes of your time each week, and in return, it gives you something to look forward to, something to chew on, something to talk about. That is a trade worth making.