The spy drama for America 250

The first thing to know about "TURN: Washington’s Spies," is that it is not homework.

Yes, it is about the Revolutionary War. But this is not a documentary, and it does not feel like one.

It is a dramatic series filled with intrigue, betrayal, drinking, sex, violence, secret codes, double-crosses, moral compromise and the constant fear that one wrong word could get someone hanged. Anyone worried that a Revolutionary War drama might feel stiff, dutiful or educational in the worst sense of the word should know that TURN is anything but.

Originally airing on AMC from 2014 to 2017, "TURN: Washington’s Spies" is based on Alexander Rose’s book, "Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring." The series follows Abraham Woodhull, played by Jamie Bell, a Long Island farmer who becomes part of the Culper Ring, a secret intelligence network working on behalf of Washington and the Patriot cause.

And while the accents, costumes and 18th-century setting might make some viewers assume they are in for something mannered and polite, TURN is not "Downton Abbey" with muskets. It is darker, more violent and far more suspenseful. The taverns, farms, prisons and battlefields of the series feel dangerous.

The series makes intelligence work feel ingenious and risky, from coded messages and invisible ink to dead drops, aliases, forged identities and even early military technology, including a submarine.

A soldier has a chain of command. A spy lives in a more dangerous moral wilderness. He may be loyal to a cause, but he is often alone in the moment, improvising, deceiving, manipulating and deciding how far he is willing to go.

The series understands that espionage requires agency. Woodhull, Caleb Brewster, Anna Strong and the others are not simply following orders in formation. They are making choices in shadows, often without knowing whether those choices will save the cause or corrupt it.

At one point, the Patriots manipulate a man into serving their purposes by doing something horrific and allowing him to believe the enemy was responsible. Strategically, it is clever. Morally, it is ugly. And when the deception comes to light, the damage is not only tactical. It is human.

Another powerful example comes through Benjamin Tallmadge, who, after being wounded and separated from safety, finds himself dependent on the mercy of a widow whose loyalties he does not know. Vulnerable and afraid, Tallmadge, played by Seth Numrich, hides behind a false identity, presenting himself as a clergyman. An intimate relationship develops between them and when he finally reveals who he really is, the betrayal is devastating.

What makes the scene more than a romantic complication is what we learn about her past. Her husband was killed by Patriots, not in some grand battlefield moment, but in the brutal desperation of war, when men fighting for liberty were also plundering supplies to keep an army alive. For her, loyalty is not a philosophical argument about independence or empire. It is grief. It is the face of the men who took someone from her.

That is one of the things TURN understands so well. People do not always choose sides because they have read the best pamphlet or made the cleanest ideological calculation. They choose because of what the war has done to them, who protected them, who betrayed them, who fed them, who frightened them and who broke their trust.

That is precisely why TURN feels so relevant as America approaches its 250th birthday.

We often talk about political division today as though Americans invented it in the age of cable news and social media. TURN reminds us that the country was divided from the beginning. The Revolution was not merely a war between Americans and the British Crown. It was also, in many places, a civil war among neighbors.

Patriots and loyalists lived beside one another. Families were split. Communities were filled with suspicion. People watched what they said, wondered whom they could trust and feared that the wrong loyalty could cost them their property, freedom or life.

The show also reminds viewers why some founding-era grievances became constitutional principles. The Third Amendment, which bars soldiers from being quartered in private homes in peacetime without the owner’s consent, can seem remote today. In TURN, it feels anything but. The presence of soldiers in homes, taverns and farms makes the war intimate and invasive. The conflict does not remain on a battlefield. It comes through the front door.

One of the great strengths of TURN is that it does not reduce the Revolution to a clean story of good Americans against evil British oppressors. The Patriot cause is presented as just, but the British are not all fools or monsters. Some are ruthless. Some are cruel. But others are intelligent, disciplined and honorable.

Major John André, played by JJ Feild, is one of the show’s most fascinating figures. He is an enemy of the Revolution, but he is not written as a stock villain. He is cultured, perceptive and capable of recognizing the humanity of those fighting against him.

That contrast becomes even sharper in the show’s treatment of Benedict Arnold, the Judas of the Revolutionary War. If André is the honorable enemy, Arnold, played by Owain Yeoman, is something else entirely. TURN makes him a character you love to hate: vain, wounded, self-pitying and ultimately treacherous.

What makes the portrayal especially fascinating is that the British do not exactly admire him either. They may use him, but they do not fully respect him. Historically, that rings true. Arnold escaped to the British, received a commission and fought for the Crown, but he never became the celebrated figure he imagined himself to be.

John Graves Simcoe, by contrast, is the closest thing TURN has to a true villain. Played by Samuel Roukin, he is sadistic, obsessive and often terrifying. And yet even here, the series refuses to make history completely tidy. The series’ closing epilogue reminds viewers that the historical Simcoe later became the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada and played a role in ending slavery there.

That does not redeem the character. It complicates him. And that is the point.

The same complexity surrounds Anna Strong, one of the show’s heroines, played by Heather Lind. She is brave, resourceful and essential to the Patriot cause. She is also a slaveholder. Her relationship with Abigail, an enslaved woman in her household who becomes crucial to the spy network, is often portrayed with affection and mutual regard. Viewers can decide for themselves how persuasive that portrayal is. But the contradiction matters either way: Anna can risk everything for American liberty while still participating in a system that denies liberty to another woman living under her roof.

Abigail, played by Idara Victor, may be fictionalized, but she becomes one of the show’s moral centers. She is asked to serve causes and people who do not fully serve her in return. By the end, her fate is tied to one of the Revolution’s most painful realities: for many enslaved people, the British offered a clearer path to freedom than the Patriots did. The country that declared liberty did not yet know how to extend it to everyone claiming it.

The series gives real presence to William Lee, George Washington’s enslaved valet played by Gentry White, who at times functions almost as a gatekeeper to the commander in chief. Lee’s proximity to power is striking. So is his lack of freedom. He can stand beside Washington, serve him, protect access to him and still remain owned by him.

That is what makes TURN more than a patriotic adventure. It understands that the Revolution’s contradictions were not abstract.

Men spoke eloquently of liberty while slavery still existed in the colonies. Some who fought for independence denied freedom to others. At the same time, the language of the founding would become the moral weapon later generations used to challenge slavery, segregation and injustice.

The show is also smart about the way legends are made. In TURN, Washington says outright that Nathan Hale’s famous line — “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country” — was invented to inspire the cause. Whether that exchange happened exactly that way is beside the point. The series is showing something true about revolutions: they are fought with muskets, spies and armies, but also with stories. A fragile cause needs heroes, martyrs and words people can rally around.

That is where TURN is at its best.

It is not really a show about powdered wigs and battlefield speeches. It is a show about the hidden work of a republic struggling to be born.

That is also what makes Netflix’s decision to remove the series this month so frustrating. At the very moment Americans are preparing to mark the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding, one of the best television dramas about the Revolutionary War is disappearing from one of the country’s largest streaming platforms.

If AMC intends to bring TURN home and showcase it more prominently through its own platforms, the timing would make sense. But however viewers find it, "TURN: Washington’s Spies" deserves renewed attention.

We live in a time that encourages moral simplification. We are often asked to sort people quickly into categories: hero or villain, patriot or traitor, good or evil. But a self-governing people need a more mature imagination than that.

A republic requires citizens capable of holding complexity. It requires people who can tell the truth about the past without losing gratitude for what is noble in it. It requires the humility to recognize that flawed people can still build something worth preserving.

That is why "TURN: Washington’s Spies" belongs in the conversation around America’s 250th anniversary.

Two hundred and fifty years after we declared our independence, that story is still worth telling. And TURN tells it very well.