Quantico (TV series)

Series overview

FBI agent Alex Parrish is arrested for treason after a terrorist attack at Grand Central Terminal makes her the prime suspect. The story jumps between the present, where she is on the run trying to clear her name while her friendships fray, and flashbacks to her training at the FBI Academy alongside other recruits, each of whom has personal motives for joining. More violent attacks occur as she struggles to prove her innocence. In the second season, Parrish appears to have been dismissed from the FBI.

Flashbacks show her working undercover as a CIA recruit at a facility called The Farm to expose a rogue faction within the agency known as the AIC. In the present, a terrorist group called the Citizens Liberation Front stages a hostage crisis at a G-20 summit in New York City. Two weeks later, President Claire Haas and CIA director Matthew Keyes create a secret joint task force, led by Clay Haas, to identify eight conspirators who secretly orchestrated the crisis.

The third season takes place three years after the Constitutional Convention. Having lived quietly in Italy, Parrish is forced to return to the United States when Ryan Booth tells her that Shelby Wyatt has been kidnapped by an international arms dealer called The Widow.

To rescue Wyatt, Parrish and Booth recruit Owen Hall and Harry Doyle. Hall brings in Jocelyn Turner, a former FBI agent with past knowledge of the arms dealer. The team must retrieve Wyatt before time runs out, no matter the cost.

Production

Joshua Safran, the creator of Quantico, wanted to make a straightforward action series, a shift from his earlier soapy work on Gossip Girl and Smash. He drew inspiration for the main character, Alex Parrish, from a relative of his. Alex’s complicated family history haunts her, and Safran channeled his own confusion about that family member—someone who might be a pathological liar or involved with a government agency—into her quest to uncover the truth about her father.

Safran called the show a mix of sexy romance and political thriller, comparing it to a weekly, soapy version of Die Hard. He pitched the idea to ABC. In September 2014, ABC announced it had bought the concept from Safran and ABC Studios, with Mark Gordon producing, and described it as Grey’s Anatomy meets Homeland. A pilot was ordered in January 2015 for the 2015–16 season.

The network picked up the pilot with an initial 13-episode order. Strong ratings led ABC to order a full season in October, adding six episodes for a total of 19, with an option for more. That November, the season was extended to 22 episodes. In March 2016, ABC renewed Quantico for a second season, also 22 episodes.

Release

Quantico was originally set to air on Tuesdays at 10:00 pm, but a scheduling shake-up involving the show Of Kings and Prophets pushed it to Sundays at the same time. It first aired on ABC on September 27, 2015, and debuted that same day on CTV in Canada. Each episode runs about 43 minutes and was broadcast in both standard and high definition. The series landed on Australia’s Seven Network on October 11, 2015, and was later picked up by Alibi in the United Kingdom.

Season two premiered on September 25, 2016, and after its mid-season finale, shifted to Mondays at 10:00 pm starting January 23, 2017. The third season began on April 26, 2018, and after the show was canceled, ABC aired the remaining episodes as planned. Episodes could be downloaded from iTunes and Amazon Video, and were available on demand through Xfinity. For streaming, season one hit Netflix in multiple countries on August 23, 2016; season two followed in the U.S. on June 15, 2017; and season three arrived on September 2, 2018.

All three seasons were set to leave Netflix in September 2022. The first season came out on DVD and Blu-Ray in Region 1 on September 13, 2016, via Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment.

Reception

The first season of Quantico received positive reviews, with most critics praising Chopra's performance. Rotten Tomatoes reported an 82% approval with an average rating of 6.9/10 based on 56 reviews, with the consensus calling it ludicrously entertaining thrills from a well-balanced cast. Metacritic gave a score of 70/100 based on 25 reviews, indicating generally favorable reviews. The Newark Star-Ledger's Vicki Hyman called Quantico the best new show of the season and graded it an A, writing that it was taut and terrifically calibrated with at least one deadly effective twist.

David Wiegand from San Francisco Chronicle praised the plot as intricate and compelling and the characters as magnetic and mysterious. Robert Bianco of USA Today rated Quantico three out of four, calling its cast an appropriately diverse group brought to life by generally fine performances led by Chopra and Ellis, though noting that at times the show felt a shade mechanical.