From its first moments, Apple TV+'s Tehran evokes an atmosphere of palpable suspense. A spy thriller that boasts Moshe Zonder, the writer of the first season of Netflix’s Fauda, as one of its creators, Tehran is a similarly serious-minded look at the conflict in the Middle East from the perspective of Israel and one of its enemies. In this case that enemy is Iran, where an Israeli Mossad agent goes undercover on a mission to take out the country’s nuclear capabilities. The tension never lets up over the first season’s eight episodes, making it easy to overlook issues like weak character development and questionable plot points. Meanwhile, setting the series almost entirely in Tehran, enables it to provide a fascinating glimpse into different perspectives on Iran from a range of individuals, including those loyal to the Muslim government, pro-democracy dissidents and Jews who emigrated to Israel but still consider Iran their homeland.
It’s this last element that does the most to set Tehran apart from other spy thrillers. While viewers are certainly familiar with the tropes of globe-trotting espionage stories, rarely do those stories provide much of a perspective on the cultures and citizens of the places they visit. In contrast, Tehran offers an on-the-ground look at the lives of individual Iranian citizens, showing the country is far from the monolithic menace it’s sometimes characterized as.
Nonetheless, the bulk of the story is told through the eyes of young Mossad agent and computer whiz Tamar Rabinyan (Niv Sultan), who was born in Tehran but fled with her family to Israel when she was a child. To carry out her mission in the country, she impersonates an Iranian citizen, but almost as soon as she gets started, everything that possibly could go wrong quickly does. This brings her to the attention of an airport security investigator, Faraz Kamali (Shaun Toub), whose single-minded devotion to his country’s security leads him to forego a planned trip to Paris where his beloved wife is scheduled to undergo brain surgery.
As things go further awry on Tamar's mission, she enlists the help of others who often find their lives in as much danger as hers. Meanwhile, Tamar isn’t always sure who to trust and doesn’t always obey orders, and as a result, often gets herself into ill-advised situations that have the potential to bring her to the attention of the Iranian authorities. Through it all, however, she still does what she can to follow through on her mission, even when she has to come up with an entirely new plan to make it happen.
Despite the large amount of time the show spends with Tamar, she remains something of a mystery, not least because, although she doggedly pursues the goal of her mission, the flashes of personality she shows don’t seem especially well-suited to the work she’s doing. Furthermore, while the show shares her family connection to Tehran, it never fills in the backstory of how Tamar came to be a Mossad agent. So, given the way she's written, Tamar can seem a bit inconsistent as one minute she’s a smart tactician and the next she’s fleeing from an ally who’s trying to help her or making a culturally inappropriate gesture to a security agent when she should know better.
Toub, as the man hunting her down, fares better, walking a fine line between his character's devotion to his country and his devotion to his wife. Plus, MCU fans will enjoy seeing the original Iron Man’s Yinsen in a very different role. Navid Negahban, who’s best known for playing Abu Nazir on Homeland, also turns in a noteworthy performance as an undercover agent who's built a life in Tehran.
It’s the spy story that takes center stage in Tehran, however, and the show keeps the tension high, while almost always leaving the viewer focused on what could possibly happen next. This makes the series compulsively watchable, even if viewers aren't all that invested in the central character. It should be noted the characters speak in three languages -- Persian, Hebrew and English -- so the show will require a significant amount of subtitle reading from many American viewers. Still, this contributes to its realism, as does its depiction of everyday Iranians, who all love their country but have different ideas about what path it should follow. This nuanced view of the title city wrapped in a taut thriller makes Tehran an absorbing experience that offers more heft than the average spy thriller.
Tehran stars Niv Sultan, Shaun Toub, Navid Negahban, Shervin Alenabi, Liraz Charhi and Menashe Noy. The first three episodes will premiere globally on Friday, Sept. 25 on Apple TV+, with new episodes premiering weekly, every Friday thereafter.