剧情不算复杂，主要就是两条线，跟《The Wire》的纷繁支线相比那是简单得多。节奏也还好，没有太多尿点，能够吸引人一直看下去。两条线上都有反转，但最大的反转从第一集就一开始埋了，却故意留到最后，也算是比较明显的亮点，虽然我到第四集的时候就已经猜出来了（难道是因为自己看美剧太多，已经能预测到常见套路了？）。唯一有点遗憾的是，以经典剧的标准来要求，总觉得少点什么，也许是惊爆点和惊爆程度稍微弱了一些？当然其中一些角色的表演也差强人意，仿中国口音也的确弱智，所以最后豆瓣和IMDB都在7.5分左右也算公平。
因为篇幅不长，我就把自己不看字幕纯听然后写故事梗概的习作贴在这里了，供没有完全看懂的人参考。可能会有一些错漏，因为没有刻意回去一一校听。
Main line - illegal deal between Australia and China
Australian student Sabin Robbs is arrested in China, after she protests for "free the Tibet", and burns herself with fire.
Rogue agents between Australia and China have come to a deal that China can send operatives with diplomat immunity to arrest anti-China dissidents in Australia, in exchange for Sabin's coming back to Australia. But for some reasons, Sabin is still detained in a safe house as if in China.
As an ASD operative, Dan White has been undercover in a group of anti-China dissidents, with name of his dead friend Max Dalgetty. They hack into systems of Australian government, and get the video file of ASD officer Dancer escorting Sabin back to Australia. Being chased, Dalgetty swallows the sim card with the encrypted video file, jumps off a bridge, and is drown to death.
Harriet Dunkley is a senior political journalist in the Daily Nation. One morning, she sees Dalgetty's dead body by a lake shore, and starts to look into it, with her sensitive instinct. She gets to know a police Brimmer in the investigation. She also asks Kim, who has changed sex from her husband to her best friend, working in ASD for help. After realizing Dalgetty's phone has two sim cards, Kim locates the other one, and gets it back from a youth. She takes the sim card out of ASD, and tries to crack it by herself. After she watches the video and realizes Dancer was behind, Dancer has already been on his way to kill her.
While digging into Dalgetty's death, Harriet runs into different dissidents in that group, as well as Zheng from China responsible for the dissident control operation. She writes a story about disappearance of anti-China dissidents by people from China on Australia soil, but could not stop those dissidents from being taken away in trucks anyway.
With Harriet's story on Sabin and pressures from Sabin's mother, there is a formal escort of Sabin back to Australia. But Sabin knows she has been sent back here weeks ago, from sound of magpies around the safe house. From Sabin's descriptions, Harriet connects dots together, and suspects the illegal deal between both governments, for which she publishes a shocking story, risking herself from being put into prison.
While Dancer is helping her to escape out of the country, she suspects Dan was an undercover operative, after listening to his past recording. After reading Dan's profile that Dancer gets for her, she now knows Dan is an ASD operative under Vaughn, and suspects Kim's death was a cover-up for Dan's death, most likely by Australia government itself. From a video recording of Vaughn's speech that Harriet provides, Sabin identifies the man in her escort was Dancer instead. Almost at the same time, Brimmer also confirms on this shocking finding, after finding out the sim card hidden by Kim in a motel, and watching the video file.
Harriet drives a car with Dancer to where he killed Kim, and confronts him about what he has done. When Dancer is about to kill her, Brimmer comes to save her on time.
Side line - Australia's pose between US and China
Defense Minister Mal Paxton has a past history that he was arrested 20 years ago in China, and he has kept romantic relationship with Weng Meigui, who is now the wife of Chinese Ambassador for Australia. For Australia's strategy in south sea, there is apparent discrepancy between him and Attorney General Bailey. While he is suspected as a spy to China for the past history, he seems to work for best interest of Australia in his decisions. On the other hand, Bailey has been working closely with US, while spying on China.
Bailey has come up with a Safer Australia act for unlimited surveillance and interrogation, in the name of national security, but Paxton turns it down without any hesitation. Later one day, the aircraft control system is attacked, and some airplanes start to lose radio contact for quite a while, before the communication comes back itself. Without any direct damage, it seems like a message to Australia government.
By tracking IP address, the cyber attack seems to originate from China. But soon Paxton realizes it was Bailey's play to get the Safer Australia act passed more easily. After confronting the radar operator that has changed his testimony for the accident, Paxon asks the general working with Bailey to resign, with evidence of his working with US in the cyber attack. While he is still working to remove all people involved in the conspiracy, Bailey threatens him with fake testimony on Rankin's death, and manages to get the act passed eventually.
Paxton confirms that Bailey has been spying on China, by sending a fake message from a burner phone to his phone about new assignment on Chief of Defense, for Weng to steal the information from his phone and pass it on, and getting the same fake message out of Bailey's mouth the other day. While he confronts her on the spying, she threatens him to resign tomorrow, with photos of both him and Weng as evidences of his spying for China. After being exposed, Weng is called back to China, but is killed by Zheng on her way to the airport.
Ending - The enemy of my enemy is my friend
With the newly effective Safer Australia act, Harriet is still arrested after going home. After his resignation, Paxton plans to fight back. As they share the same enemy, he asks to help her by paying her legal defense fee. New fights are yet to come in the next season.
