Martha Plimpton Delivered the Twist ‘Prime Target’ Needed

I used to subscribe to the idea of “guilty pleasures” because couching my affection for Bravo and the major motion picture Showgirls in irony made me feel less embarrassed. The unspoken insistence that enjoying that stuff doesn’t represent my otherwise “good” taste feels fussy. We humans are contradictory and inconsistent creatures that can find pleasures of all brow levels from low to high. The brain has limits and sometimes it needs to rest. With what feels like a daily doom spiral of bad news, we get emotionally exhausted, and engaging with something stimulating or thought-provoking feels beyond the limit. It’s brain-rot TV season because we’ve earned it. And listen, I wish it was Gilded Age season too, but don’t worry, there are other high-concept candy bars on the table. Yes, there’s Paradise and Hunting Party and they are delicious empty media calories, but I must name Prime Target as the best fun-dumb series of the group, and so much of what’s making it pop is the delicious twist delivered by the radiant goddess we call Martha Plimpton.

Prime Target has weaved a tangled web in a breathlessly silly world: prime numbers are magic and if they’re researched right, they can unlock not only all cybersecurity but also maybe the secrets of civilization and the universe. I’m potentially overstating it, but every character reacts to the mere mention of prime numbers as if they’re nuclear weapons, so it feels appropriate. Brilliant and modelesque mathematician Ed (Leo Woodall) is on track to unlock the magic of prime numbers, and along with NSA spy Taylah (Quintessa Swindell), they avoid shadowy, armed goons who seem bent on taking them out. Peppered throughout the hijinks, we meet Plimpton’s Jane Torres, Taylah’s boss and head of Syracuse, the group of spies observing mathematicians all over the globe in case they go wild with numbers and destroy cybersecurity. Plimpton infuses Jane with an appropriate measure of world-weariness that suggests to the viewer that this character may be stressed but is doing her best to look after the Syracuse team and its mission. Even when Taylah’s radio silence causes other Syracuse members to doubt she’s alive, Jane is confident Taylah will call. A thousand flowers for Plimpton’s clipped politeness as Jane receives a smarmy government suit that brought Californian wine to Syracuse’s French office. She composes her face into the perfect mask of diplomacy but allows her eyes to spark with distaste and annoyance. We’re meant to stan this NSA queen that has to suffer this fool.

But then comes the turn. After Ed and Taylah hack into the shady Kaplar Institute, where the serious world-shattering math is studied, they find evidence that there’s a mole in Syracuse that’s feeding information to Kaplar. When Taylah calls Jane to deliver this news, Jane seems troubled and asks Taylah to come in for her own safety. She then turns to her aide and says, “We have a problem. She’s further ahead than I thought. She knows it’s someone on the inside.” Now this is the kind of dumb espionage farce I tune in for.

Truthfully, I was beginning to waver on Prime Target. The series was having a fine time with antics, but it was feeling a little diffuse without a great villain. Prime Target revitalized itself with the antagonist and the big twist it needed in one fell swoop and it’s all thanks to Martha Plimpton. What can I say, after I saw her in 200 Cigarettes, I’ll follow her into anything. She’s a chameleonic performer who’s always great in whatever she’s in and also an amazing Instagram-follow if you’re still hanging on there. As Jane, Plimpton brings the smiling-viper aura she conjured as Senator Judith Holt on The Regime where she sparred with Kate Winslet’s dictator. Woodall and Swindell are doing good work as hot dum-dums on the run, but with Plimpton as a traitorous antagonist coming for them, Prime Target can take on new energy. Having someone like Martha Plimpton as the villain-apparent gives the series the gravitas it sorely needs.