After the third episode of Citadel, it can be safely said that Priyanka Chopra is the heartbeat of the thriller series streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Executive-produced by the Russo brothers, the first two episodes established the basic plotline – spy organisation Citadel has been felled by Manticore, a syndicate formed by eight wealthy families from around the world to protect their interests.

The third episode, despite being low on action, keeps you hooked by slowly unfurling Nadia Sinh (Priyanka Chopra) and Mason Kane’s (Richard Madden) past and their life together. Here are the highlights of the third episode ‘Infinite Shadows’.

Nadia Sinh is a one-woman army

If there’s anyone comparable to Priyanka’s Nadia Sinh, it is Angelina Jolie’s Jane Smith from the 2005 action film Mr. and Mrs. Smith. After regaining her memory in the second episode, Nadia is in full Citadel spy mode. From disabling tracking devices, finding a safehouse, bandaging a wounded Mason in a steamy scene and tracking down another lost Citadel agent, Nadia single-handedly does everything one can think of.

The second episode also gives a glimpse of how she and Mason had met for the first time during a mission in Iran. Her past, however, is fast catching up. After Mason and Nadia make plans to get information via an old friend of Mason’s, the mission goes awry when Mason finds out that Nadia has been lying to him.

(L-R) Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra in Citadel Prime Video

Bernard Orlick is captured

Citadel’s tech whiz Bernard Orlick, played by Stanley Tucci, was captured towards the end of the second episode. Manticore head and the British ambassador to the US, Dahlia Archer — played deliciously by Lesley Manville — tortures Orlick for information while eating a red velvet cake. Manville makes Dahlia Archer a terrifying antagonist who doesn’t flinch even once from taking extreme measures of torture. After getting Orlick’s teeth pulled out, gagging him with a rope and beating him up, Dahlia asks her right-hand and Manticore spy Anders Silje (Roland Møller) to tap into his brainstem.

The spies discover several secrets

The appeal of Citadel lies in the mystery surrounding almost every single character. Nadia and Mason take shelter in a Citadel safehouse in Spain only to discover that a former ally, who may be key to stopping Manticore, is held in a black site facility in Morocco. While the two set out on a mission to break into the black site facility, Mason discovers that Nadia and he shared a more intimate relationship than what she has told him.

The second piece of information — of Nadia being accused of selling out Citadel — shakes him to the core. But the most intriguing twist for us comes at the end with Orlick revealing to his torturer Anders — in order to save his life – that Anders’s former lover is still alive and is in fact the current wife of Mason Kane.

More shocking discoveries definitely await us over the next couple of weeks. Manticore’s purpose and objective, Citadel’s downfall and the real motives of the key characters should make up the remaining three episodes of Citadel.