Madeline Pratt (No. 73)

Send an Encrypted Message to the Men

Ah… Madeline Pratt. Season 1, Episode 14.

What a woman. Irresistibly duplicitous, effortlessly elegant, and pathologically self-serving—like Mata Hari and a cobra had a baby and left it on the steps of the Smithsonian with a forged passport and a taste for danger.

You see, Madeline and I have… history. Not the pleasant kind. The kind where you wake up missing your Rolex and your pride. So when she resurfaces, sashaying into the FBI requesting Liz Keen’s help to steal an artifact—a Syrian statue that just so happens to contain coordinates to a nuclear stockpile—well… color me intrigued.

Naturally, it’s a con. She’s after something else entirely, and poor Agent Keen is dragged into the den of thieves, masquerading in cocktail dresses and half-truths, while I get to relive the nostalgic thrill of a good old-fashioned heist—with a dash of betrayal and just a whiff of cyanide.

But here’s the twist, Harold—because there’s always a twist—Madeline’s deception opens the door to something far more dangerous than a stolen antiquity: the kind of chaos that powerful men would kill to keep buried. And wouldn’t you know it… she still has the key.

So pour yourself a drink, dear viewer, and watch closely. In the end, everyone wants something. The question is—what are they willing to steal to get it?

Ah, Madeline… you never did return my painting.