As December is the season of holidays, fans are opting to watch non-serious and entertaining web series and movies. With the holiday season in the backdrop, Netflix's latest release The Recruit has made its way into the top 10 trending web series on the OTT web space in multiple countries including India. The Recruit was released on Netflix on December 16, 2022. The trailer of The Recruit promised a thrilling ride for fans and it is rightly delivering. Created by Alexi Hawley, The Recruit star cast includes Noah Centineo, Aarti Mann, Daniel Quincy Annoh, Vondie Curtis-Hall, and Kristian Bruun, among others in pivotal roles. The 8-episode web series ending has thrown a plethora of questions to fans and the most prevalent being who is Karolina and why she killed her mother Max Meladze. For those who haven't watched The Recruit yet, the character of Max Meladze is played by actress Laura Haddock and Noah Centineo (protagonist) plays the character of Owen Hendricks.
The Recruit storyline and who is Karolina
To understand who is Karolina, we first have to understand the storyline and events that took place in The Recruit. Owen Hendricks (Noah Centineo) is a kid straight out of law school, who finds himself thrown headfirst into the chaos of the CIA when he comes across a threatening letter (greymail) from a former asset by the name of Max Meladze (Laura Haddock). When Max threatens to expose the agency and its assets unless they exonerate her of a serious crime, Owen gets entangled in her web of danger, and he quickly discovers that he’s completely out of his depth. While Owen promises Max that he will get her out of the prison in exchange that she will not be leaking the CIA's secret information, the former asset has her own plans. However, seeing Max's proximity to the Russian Army generals, the CIA plans to rehire her into the operation and plant her as their asset again.
In process of planting Max into the Russian mafia again, multiple incidents took place. When Owens and Max arrive in Geneva, the CIA lawyer gets approached by a German girl in a bar. When Owen's plan fails to get Max a million dollar money through a Swiss bank account, she resorts to her plan B, and she asked Markus to let her access her safety deposit box. She didn’t have any money there, but she did have something that would help her gain leverage and negotiate with Kirill, the mafia ringleader. For years, Kirill was on the hunt to find the man with whom his wife was having an affair. That man was none other than the CIA case operator/officer, Xander Goi, and he didn’t live long after Kirill got a whiff of his affair. Max knew how the espionage world worked, and she was entertaining the possibility that maybe the killer would have come to kill her and Owen, and Xander, unfortunately, was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. So, Max and Owen went underground until they knew that nobody was tracking them down. All this time, a mysterious woman named Nichka Lashin, who was believed to be a Russian mafia enforcer, was keeping an eye on the proceedings.
Interestingly, Owen remembers that the girl who killed the CIA operative once approached him in a bar. In Geneva, Marta met Owen and tried to woo him, but Owen saw through her intentions and believed her to be an intelligence agent. The CIA believed that she was responsible for the death of Xander Goi, but as it was an independent issue with no connection to Max’s case, nobody followed up on her. Max was about to meet Lev Orlova and buy her way back into her country. Kirill had paid on Max’s behalf in return for the information she had given him. So, everything was set, and Max was getting hopeful that her dream of returning to her homeland might become a reality very soon. Dawn Gilbane had rigged the entire place when Max had gone inside to make a deal with Lev when unexpectedly, a gang of Russian Mafia arrived at the scene and started open firing. Lev thought that Max had betrayed him, and so his men attacked Max. Max had no clue what was happening or who those people were. Owen, who was asked to sit on the sidelines, couldn’t stop himself and jumped into action. Max killed Lev, but before doing that, she told him that she hadn’t betrayed him. Max and Owen once again made a near escape. Owen’s mental condition had taken a toll, and not even in his worst nightmares had he imagined that he would actually end up killing another human being. He asked Max to stop the car, as he just wanted to end his nightmare and go back home. Max pointed a gun at him and warned him that if he decided to leave her, she would be compelled to kill him.
When Owen left, Max informed Dawn Gilbane about it, and the very next moment, fans saw a car approaching her. Max thought that it was the CIA, but it wasn’t. Owen, on the other hand, had called Hannah, and he had decided to go and meet her. But before he could do so, he got kidnapped, and Hannah witnessed the whole thing happening in front of her eyes. Max and Owen had both been kidnapped by Nichka Lashin, a.k.a. Karolina, Max’s daughter, who was assumed to be dead all this time. Season 1 ended on a cliffhanger, and we never got to know how Karolina was still alive when Max had told Owen earlier that she had lost her.
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Who is Karolina? (Spoilers ahead)
Going by some theories, Max's daughter Karolina might be an agent of the KGB, the Russian secret service agency. However, nothing was revealed and The Recruit ends with Karolina asking Owen what is he doing with her mother after she killed Max point-blank. Another theory is revolving that Karolina is an asset of CIA hired by the Operations or let's say 'Not Bob'. Whatever might be the theory says, The Recruit 2 is expected to answer all the mysteries, till then fans can enjoy the spy-thriller on Netflix.