How best to explain Patriot ? The cult-favorite spy series, which premiered 10 years ago this week on Amazon and ran for two seasons, follows CIA operative John Tavner (Michael Dorman, years before his turn as a lovelorn astronaut on For All Mankind ) as he goes undercover at a mundane piping manufacturer in Milwaukee. As the pilot lays out, his mission is, in theory, simple: Get hired at the piping company, join the team on a regularly scheduled work trip to Luxembourg, and make a covert cash handoff there with an Iranian agent who will help secure a more U.S.-friendly regime.

Tonally, though, beneath the coat of tradecraft and international intrigue, the show is about as far from The Americans as you can get. John’s mission goes rapidly awry with a veritable Rube Goldberg machin

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