Review: AppleTV+ is Betting “Prime Target” Satisfies Your Thirst for Conspiracy

***Caution. Spoilers ahead***

I don’t like conspiracy theories or their effect on the population’s increasingly puzzling news consumption. But a movie or television show with a big, fictional conspiracy? Sign me up. The new thriller “Prime Target” involves deadly intrigue around what the Brits call “Maths.” While none of us are on these character’s level, the show thankfully doesn’t make what’s going on difficult to follow. I’ve watched the first two of eight season-one episodes for this recap.

The show begins with a mother and young child buying ice cream at a shop in Baghdad. After the mother steps out to an ATM, a huge gas explosion from the shop rocks the crowded market. Thankfully, the child and proprietor survive, but the child is separated from mom by debris. As they try to reach each other, a sinkhole opens, and both sadly spiral downward. But the tragedy reveals they’ve collapsed into a well-preserved, ancient chamber. Hold that thought.

The show then introduces us to our lead, Edward Brooks (“The White Lotus” and “One Day’s” Leo Woodall), a Cambridge graduate student in math who we find out may be too brilliant for his own good. We see him rowing eights with his crew team. When they return to the dock, he whips out his always-with-him notebook and records their time on that run. Edward’s list shows continual improvement, but when the coxswain pays him a compliment, our mathematician complains about his handling of the boat. This is our first hint that Edward can be callously rude without much in the way of social skills.

Off to class in a room where one can just feel the centuries of history. Well-published Professor Robert Mallinder (“The Walking Dead’s” David Morrissey) is informing his postgrads that Cambridge has fallen behind in the rankings to schools like Oxford and MIT. He reminds them Cambridge was home to Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and Crick & Watson (DNA guys), to which Edward audibly mumbles the list also includes Oppenheimer, who “blew everything up.” This elicits some laughs and even a smile from Mallinder.

Afterward, Edward pays a visit to his mentor, Dr. Raymond Osborne. Edward is there to beg him to take on supervision of his graduate thesis, to which Osborne assures him Mallinder is brilliant. When Edward won’t relent, Osborne raises his voice with an insistent “I can’t!” It turns out that Osborne has retired from the Math Department because he is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

Dejected, he takes his thesis proposal to Mallinder, who compliments Edward by suggesting the thesis might be something a little too basic for someone of his intellect. Edward then challenges the professor by drawing “204” on the office chalkboard. Mallinder, reminding him that he too was once Osborne’s student, says, “This is supervision, not a prize fight.” But he humors Edward by going to the chalkboard to draw out the formula that adds up to 204 (3 number’s squares) that Edward had earlier tested Osborne with.

We then cut to a faceless pair of hands, observing the two from a camera in the corner of Mallinder’s office. Who could this be? And why are they taking a screenshot of what they are discussing, and forwarding it on to superiors?

Next, we meet Dr. Andrea Lavin (“Borgen” lead Sidse Babett Knudsen), a professor of antiquities, giving a walking lecture to her students at a museum. When her colleague Dr. Charan Nathoo walks in, she excuses herself for a second to discuss with him the exciting discovery in Baghdad. She tells him she has a colleague there who has invited her to consult on the excavation of the chamber.

Later at home, we see that Andrea and Mallinder are a couple. They discuss Edward and Mallinder’s uncertainty of how to win the boy over. Andrea suggests inviting him to dinner the next evening.

Meanwhile, the same evening, Edward is at the local campus pub reluctantly celebrating his friend Fiona’s birthday (he’d rather be working on his research), when he begins flirting with the Irish bartender, Adam. They end up on the roof of the building, where Edward tells him that the flock of Starlings they see swarming and shifting above them are following a mathematical pattern of some kind he would like to figure out.

The two sleep together, but Edward wakes up to work. When Adam also soon wakes, he begins to look at Edward’s notes and is told to stop. He inquires why Edward doesn’t just use a computer. “They’re too slow,” Edward arrogantly responds, not even aware of his pretense. He then coldly tells Adam to go, and then makes up, “I have family coming.” Adam assumes they don’t know Edward is gay, to which Edward blankly responds, “I’m not anything.”

Gag. While I realize the show is trying to tell me that Edward is either multi-faceted or an emotionless automaton, I don’t care. At this point, I’m not sure I want to hang with such an unlikable character for eight episodes or, heaven forbid, a Season two.

That evening, Edward joins the professors for dinner at their home. He is personable enough, but when Andrea shares photos of the chamber discovery, he sees what he thinks is a mathematical pattern etched into its walls and frantically begins to scribble in his notebook. When the notebook is too small, he asks if they value their white tablecloth and extends some massive formula out. After he leaves, Mallinder studies his research more, all under the watchful eye of the secret camera that’s been placed in his own home. The next day, Mallinder confronts Edward and clarifies with him that he can’t continue to pursue the prime number patterns and theories he’s proposing (And there we have it, the double meaning of our show’s title!)

In episode two (E2), Edward goes to Mallinder’s office to fetch his research. He’s rebuffed by security, as something has happened to the professor. Edward has a fit, saying Mallinder has stolen his research. That night, he climbs the ivy-covered walls to the office window and breaks in, only to discover the professor torched his research in a trash can. Furious, he disrespectfully goes into a rage, throwing the can of ash around, tearing down a bookshelf, and would likely have gone further had security not stopped him. He’s told he’s going to be expelled for this unless he apologizes for saying the research was stolen at such a sensitive time for whatever has happened to the professor (I know-ish. I’m just not telling you, the reader).

We also meet NSA Agent Tayla Sanders and her boss Olson, who are assigned to the European branch (staying in a nice, coastal town in Southern France) to monitor the continent’s 15 most brilliant mathematicians. As she later explains to a newly arriving colleague, Alex, that they can get or access a camera anywhere in the world. She tells Alex about the dangers of cyberattacks in an everything’s digital age, and contends the most dangerous people in the world right now are the “math nerds.”

My one critique here is that it is unclear to me why American NSA agents need to be physically located in France. If they can plant or hack any camera in the world, can’t they do it from the comforts of the old U, S of A? Tayla also rubs a bit with the same overly ambitious, defiant vibes Edward possesses.

We also learn about Safiya Zamil, a brilliant Cambridge math whiz of 30 years ago who was apparently on a similar path as Edward’s. What happened to her? Wouldn’t she have been famous by now after claiming in one newspaper article to have a mathematic breakthrough “that will change the world?”

There’s also the question of a mysterious Kaplar Institute, a member of which mysteriously comes to Edward’s door late one night, ultimately sliding a business card under the door. What is their role in this? And do they not understand an appropriate hour to drop by?

We are also left wondering if Andrea will make it to Iraq, given what’s happened to Mallinder. Will Dr. Nathoo go in her stead?

I’m going to stick with it because I hope Edward can become more sympathetic, and I genuinely want to know why this math research is so dangerous to the powers that be. You’ll have to judge for yourself.

And that’s what Todd’s watching.