Series / X Company

The men (and one woman) of X Company.

"Camp X was a highly secretive and elite international spy school during World War II. It was the first spy training facility in North America, and it was located in the last place you’d expect: on a farm near Whitby, Ontario."

— The CBC website's article on Camp X.

X Company is a Canadian/Hungarian historical drama television series aired by the CBC, which aired on February 28, 2015. It is created by Mark Ellis & Stephanie Morgenstern, who were the creators of the TV series Flashpoint. Two season have aired with the third and final season airing in Canada starting in January 2017.

It is 1942 and Nazi Germany has been able to occupy most of Western Europe. Due to this, the Allied Powers have decided to make Camp X as the main base of operations for them to train various military personnel from the various Allied nations. Duncan Sinclair, an officer in the Canadian Army, is in charge of running the covert camp near Lake Ontario in Canada, which is safe from Axis retaliation. He oversees the base's operations, from training prospective recruits to handling intelligence from its agents stationed in occupied territory. Currently, Sinclair is running a covert operation with a team of Camp X-trained agents in France in order to sabotage Nazi efforts from holding onto the country.

The show can be watched from Netflix. But so far, it's available for those based in Canada. In the U.S., the first season is available on Hulu, and the show has been airing on the Ovation network.

The TV series is based on the exploits of Camp X in Allied military operations to defeat Nazi occupation in Europe.

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This show features examples of:

• After-Action Healing Drama: A big plot point in both "In Enemy Hands" (where Harry has been seriously wounded) and "Creon Via London" (where Tom has been seriously wounded).
• Age-Gap Romance: While the characters' ages aren't given, if we go by the actors' ages, Siobahn is ten years older than Harry, and Neil is twelve years older than Miri.
• All There in the Manual: The official CBC website has more details on the backstories of the people involved in Camp X.
• Almost Dead Guy: Despite having his throat slit, Charlie the courier in "Quislings" manages to give Aurora the verbal key to the microdot before dying.
• Anyone Can Die: Seems to avert this at first, since the team has many unlikely escapes. But a child character is killed in the season one finale, few of the new characters in season two survive the season, and between the season two finale and the first four episodes of season three, three major characters (Tom, Miri, and Harry) die.
• Anywhere but Their Lips: Neil gives Aurora a very sweet kiss on the forehead in "Naqam."
• Arms Dealer: The Poitiers-based Union Corse in "Kiss with the Devil". Neil is less than delighted to work with them because one of them killed a police officer before the Nazi occupation of France and because they can betray them to anyone at a high price.
• Balcony Escape: In "La Verite Vous Rendra Libre," Alfred gets out of the Fabers' apartment (where he's been breaking into the safe) via the window when Franz gets home.
• Big "SHUT UP!": Alfred in "Quislings." Since it's Alfred, he doesn't actually say shut up, but his loud, "Stop it! Stop it right now!" in the middle of Tom and Neil's heated argument serves the same purpose.
• Bittersweet Ending: Many. They are shown to tell the viewers that being a special operations agent is serious business.
  • "Pilot" has the team taking out the SS Polizei reinforcement heading for Villemarie. But Rene was taken out by SS soldiers with a gunshot wound and it's not know if he's alive or dead.
  • "Trial by Fire" has the team completing a successful mission to bring back a RAF pilot back to Britain. However, one of their assets (a Jazz singer from America) has lost one of her band members after he died in Vichy Police custody.
  • "Walk with the Devil" has the girls in the hospital saved by Aurora and Alfred. They, however, were not able to save Mayor Bellaire's niece since she was still in the hospital's custody.
  • "Into the Fire" has the team escaping with successful assassinations made with getting a VIP out of occupied France. However, Alfred is detained by the SS and locked up by the Gestapo. René was shown to be alive and well, but also locked up.
  • "Sein Und Schein" has René killed by Aurora via mercy kill so that the SS won't apprehend him due to complications from torture.
  • "Black Flag" has the team pull off an assassination on a high-ranking Wehrmacht officer, but the SS decides to frame French villagers for his death instead of admitting that a Gestapo officer was the culprit courtesy of a frame-up job.
  • In the series finale, the team's final mission is a success but at a dear cost. Sinclair and Faber both die. The war still has years to go and millions more will die.
• Black-Tie Infiltration: In "Black Flag," Tom, Harry, and Neil attend the opera (in tuxedos) because it's the one chance they have to kill a high-ranking Nazi official.
• Bookcase Passage: Miri hides the British P.O.W.s in a passage behind a cabinet in the church.
• Bottomless Magazines: Averted. The series shows the characters reload their weapons once they're out of ammo during gunfights. Since they can only carry limited ammunition, the agents quickly run out if they are forced to engage in a longer firefight.
• Call-Back: In "Kiss of Death," Harry and Neil mock Tom misbuttoning his vest after apparently fraternizing with the French call girls. In season two, Tom does the same to Neil as his shirt is improperly buttoned after he spends the night with Miri.
  • It's subtle, but Alfred rubbing grass between his hands after Harry's death in "Promises" is a call back to season one, when Alfred has Harry rub grass on his hands to get rid of the smell of gunpowder and Harry says the grassy smell reminds him of playing baseball.
  • Aurora and Alfred use "bijou" as a code term-of-endearment in season one's "Sixes and Sevens." In season three, Aurora says "bijou" to Alfred in an attempt to alert him that she's in trouble when Heidi brings her to the train depot.
  • The series finale is full of call-backs to the series premiere, including Aurora wearing a yellow dress, Neil and Tom/ Alfred garroting guards to take their places, and someone emotionally using an explosive to kill someone and dying in the process.
• Cannon Fodder: The four Canadian soldiers Alfred recruits for the team's mission in "August 19th."
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Prisoners in Gestapo custody are mercilessly beaten. Rene has broken glass forced into his skin and has gasoline poured down his throat.
• Les Collaborateurs: Vichy France. Also its officers in the national police and in the Gendarmerie.
  • A mission in "Quislings" has the team take out the Gestapo's French informants in order to weaken their information network in occupied France.
• Conveniently Timed Distraction: While the explosion of the train in "Walk With the Devil" was planned as an act of sabotage by the team, it also ended up serving as a convenient distraction to help the girls escape from the "school."
• Costume Drama
• Crapsack World: It takes place in France and Poland in World War II, so...
• Cry into Chest: Tom's death in "August 19th" leads to Harry crying on Neil and Neil later crying on Aurora. And actually Neil cries into Tom's dead chest, too.
• Cyanide Pill: The German spy in "Quislings" kills himself via a cyanide pill hidden in his tooth when Alfred attempts to apprehend him.
• Dead Guy on Display: Leo, in the pilot episode.
• Death of a Child: This series never shies away from this. Ulli, Ben, the little boy at the school
• Delivery Guy Infiltration: Aurora and Alfred gain access to a shady Nazi "school" (which turns out to be a breeding program) by disguising themselves as workers for a laundry service there to deliver clean sheets and pick up dirty ones.
• Double Entendre: The propaganda flyer Tom and Krystina draft in "Last Man, Last Round" is full of these...
  Tom: Attention, soldiers. Cut out this paper heart and show your little heart when you're back on leave in the Fatherland. Pin it proudly to your chest and the National Women's Alliance of Patriotic Love will be waiting. All the wives, sweethearts...
  Krystina: Sisters
  Tom: ...sisters of Germany will be offering their tender services to stiffen your resolve.
  Krystina: Keep your spirits up?
  Tom: Yes, and raise your big, strong, German...
  Krystina: Flag?
  Tom: Flag. And all you've got to do is get your heart on.
  Krystina: Heart on? You think that'll work in German?
• Dressing as the Enemy: A tactic used by the agents (except for Aurora) to disguise themselves as German soldiers when needed in occupied Europe.
• Dwindling Party: In season two, the team starts recruiting more fighters as they prepare for a major operation. However, a German attack kills most of the recruits and as the operation starts going off the rails, the others are also killed one-by-one. The team is briefly reinforced but the Germans catch up to them and the reinforcements start dying. This culminates with Tom dying.
• Eat the Evidence: Alfred eats a tiny photo of Aurora after being captured by the Nazis.
• Embarrassing Cover Up: Oster orders the reprisal against French villagers in "Black Flag" to hide the fact that a Gestapo officer tried to take out a Wehrmacht officer so that the rank and file won't have reason to take on the Gestapo, a fact that was staged by the team.
• Everybody Hates Mathematics: Neil's eight-year-old niece Mags sends him a letter expressing her hatred of maths.
• Everyone Knows Morse: Well, they are spies. It comes in handy. While Harry is typically the radio communicator, various members of the team have been known to send Morse messages to one another via flashlight and whistling as circumstances demand.
• External Combustion: Harry takes out a German train full of munitions and explosives by rigging the cargo to explode once he and Neil were able to get it out of St. Antoine in "Walk with the Devil".
• Forced to Watch: Once Faber realizes Alfred isn't likely to break while tortured himself, he's forced to watch while Rene is tortured. Rene warns him this is coming, since Rene previously had to watch while the woman who helped him, Brigitte, was tortured.
  • David with Pete in season three. He talks.
  • Sinclair ends up killing himself because he knows the Nazis will torture William in front of him, and that he will break.
• Foregone Conclusion: In season two characters are excited about an upcoming invasion of Nazi-occupied France by allied forces. It will only be a raid-in-force and the Dieppe Raid will be a disaster for the Allies.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: Largely averted. Rene, Tom, and Harry are all mentioned multiple times by various characters after their respective deaths.
• Frameup: Used by the team in "Black Flag" to frame a Gestapo officer for an assassination attempt on a Wehrmacht officer.
• Framing the Guilty Party: The team frames a Gestapo officer for the murder of a Wehrmacht general. The Germans fall for it but decide to frame the Resistance for the assassination anyway.
• Hassle-Free Hotwire: How the team frequently acquires cars. Harry hotwires a car when they need to go look for Aurora in "Kiss of Death," Neil hotwires one in "Creon Via London," presumably one or the other acquires their getaway car this way in "Black Flag," and Neil hotwires a car for him to follow Aurora and Heidi in "Naqalm." It is the 40's, so cars were easier to hotwire.
• He Knows Too Much: The reason Neil kills Rolf.
• Inspired by…: The pilot episode that showed the young girl's trouble with the Nazi officer in charge of Villemarie was based from the stories of Morgenstern's stepmom, who had survived Nazi occupation when she was eight years old.
• Germanic Efficiency: After Miri talks about hating Germans and then says she comes from the moon, Neil jokes that he should have known that Germans had invaded the moon since the tides are so punctual.
• Goggles Do Something Unusual: Harry makes Neil a pair of eyeglasses that contain a lock-pick in "Trial by Fire."
• Grievous Bottley Harm: Neil hits his opponent with a wine bottle in "Quislings."
  • The doctor hits Tom with a pitcher in "Nil Nocere," which almost knocks him out.
• Hairpin Lockpick: Aurora attempts this in "Naqam," but then she drops the hairpin. We see her reach for another one, but considering she's still locked up in the next scene, it apparently doesn't work.
• Held Gaze: Aurora and Alfred after the latter is captured by the Nazis and the former is supposed to shoot him.
• Hollywood Healing: While some bruising and scars do carry over from episode to episode, overall the agents heal unrealistically quickly. Tom gets shot in the stomach, yet if you pay attention to the timeline, he's back in France in a little over a week and the scars he shows Klaus and the German doctor look much more healed. Meanwhile, Alfred gets repeatedly hit like a pinata during his Gestapo torture session— over fifty times, and probably more than that— and is perfectly fine to walk across the country a day or two later.
• Just a Stupid Accent: Both averted and played straight. To avoid an enormous amount of subtitles (and actors having to sound fluent in languages they weren't fluent in), it was decided in season one that the Germans would speak German with subtitles while the French would just speak English with French accents. This continued in season two (necessitating Evelyne Brochu to speak some German), although Sabine and Helene switch to English fairly quickly in their friendship. In season three it was decided to do away with subtitles altogether and just have everyone speak English with various accents, presumably to keep Brochu from having to do a ton of scenes in German and Jack Laskey to have to master Polish. However, it's also unclear when certain characters are supposedly speaking the language and when they might actually just be using an accent, as in when they are pretending to be French but speaking to someone German and (accented) English might be their common language.
• Kansas City Shuffle: The team makes the Germans believe that they have discovered a plan by the Resistance to free prisoners held by the Gestapo. The Germans call in reinforcements and quickly ship the prisoners to Berlin. This gives the team the opportunity to attack the relatively lightly guarded convoy rather than having to stage a Suicide Mission attack on Gestapo Headquarters.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: The co-pilot in "Trial By Fire." We never get to find out what his wife said would happen if women ruled the world.
• Kissing Under the Influence: Aurora and Faber in "The Hunt." (Well, Faber's really drunk, anyhow. Aurora is more upset and self-destructive.)
• Kiss of Death: Aurora kills a Nazi torturer by putting a poison pill in her mouth, kissing him, and forcing the pill into his mouth.
• Last-Minute Hookup: Aurora and Alfred finally have sex in the penultimate episode.
• Loose Lips:
  • When some Americans arrive to train in Camp X, Krystina gives them a tour and quickly gets them to spill both personal and military information. Their commanding officer is not amused and promises that all the men will be retrained on operational security.
  • Sabine Faber meets a German widow living in Paris and the two women quickly become friends. The "widow" is actually Aurora and she is able to gleam enough information from the conversations for the team to successfully assassinate a German general.
• Lured into a Trap: The attack on a SS officer in "Pilot" was used by team to call on SS Polizei reinforcements. They then used the opportunity to ambush them by blowing up the bridge with explosives.
• Make It Look Like an Accident:
  • The initial plan to take out the train in "Walk with the Devil". It failed though, but the team was still able to pull it off.
  • Faber kills Forst but makes it look like he was actually killed earlier in the ambush.
• Man Bites Man: Neil's opponent in "Quislings" bites him during their fight.
• Man Hug: Neil pulls Tom into one after Tom returns from his injury in "Nil Nocere." Tom kind of ruins the moment by pretending that the hug exacerbates his wound.
• Men Don't Cry: Frequently averted throughout the series, by Neil, Alfred, Faber, Harry, Rene, and Sinclair.
• Mercy Lead: Neil asks for one from Dugard in "Schein und Sein," but doesn't get it.
  • Averted in "Remembrance" as well, when Edsel doesn't give Neil and William any kind of lead despite being the one to let them escape.
• Multi National Team: Camp X trains military and civilian personnel alike from various Allied Power nations.
• Mugged for Disguise: Tom and Neil do this to the German guards on the bridge in the pilot.
  • Rolf the radio operator gets his clothes taken by Tom in "In Enemy Hands."
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Averted. Stephanie Morgenstern writes this article to explain that the production crew has worked hard to avoid this.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: A French factory has been converted to make weapons for the German army. Tom gives the factory owner an ultimatum: he can help the Resistance sabotage the factory equipment or the British airforce will bomb the factory into the ground.
• Oh, Crap!: Faber has this reaction when he realizes that the security leak that got a German general killed, was actually Faber's wife.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: In "Creon Via London," after Harry is told that the Nazis have a description of him, he hilariously swaps out his wire rimmed glasses for a pair with thicker frames, as though this somehow makes him unrecognizable. A few episodes later, when confronted with a wanted poster of himself, he simply takes his glasses off.
  • The team in general does not really bother much with disguises. To be fair, most of them have not been photographed, but even Alfred, whose photo was circulated on a wanted poster, manages to attend a Nazi gala in season three where his only disguise is a pair of glasses.
• Poisoned Weapon: Harry laces the nails in his bomb with arsenic, which is what kills Brandt (rather than the explosion itself).
• POWCamp: Alfred goes undercover in a German P.O.W. camp in "Last Man, Last Round" in order to rescue some British prisoners.
• Preclimax Climax: Aurora and Alfred finally have sex in the penultimate episode of the series, right before Aurora heads off to assassinate Voigt.
• Prisoner Exchange: What Janowski proposes when he kidnaps Faber. Unfortunately, the prisoners he requested are all already dead, so it doesn't really work out.
• Put Down Your Gun and Step Away: In "Kiss of Death", the team was forced to do this when a SS soldier uses a Hungarian physicist as a human shield. But once he was about to shoot Harry, Neil steps in and kills him.
• The Quisling: "Walk with the Devil" had Mayor Marie Bellaire in St. Antoine when the team investigated her on whether she can be trusted. It pays off when she helps them take out a supply train full of munitions and explosives.
  • Also said title for the 7th episode, serving as a Title Drop.
• Relationship-Salvaging Disaster: The bombing in "Friendly Fire" causes Aurora and Alfred to reconnect (and have sex).
• La Résistance: The French Resistance guerrilla forces were still active in fighting Nazis and their collaborators.
• Right Under Their Noses: The team frequently does this, as does Rigaud in season three.
• Room Disservice: Tom uses this guise to "borrow" a very important briefcase in "Kiss of Death."
• Shown Their Work: The weapons, clothes and vehicles are examples of what you should expect in 1942. However, some viewers noted errors with some of the Wehrmacht/SS uniforms, including insignia from Sinclair's uniform.
  • "Pilot" showed the correct insignia of the Free French forces. It also showed the map of occupied France, including those under Italian control.
  • "Walk with the Devil" showed an accurate Aryan propaganda poster in the St. Antoine hospital.
• Sickening "Crunch!": In a show with a lot of Neck Snap s, this is heard often.
• State Sec: The Schutzstaffel.
• Suicide Attack: Josee in the pilot.
  • Klaus attempts this in season two, but is thwarted.
  • Franz in the series finale.
• Super Breeding Program: "Walk with the Devil" had a mission where the agents infiltrated a German-run hospital in St. Antoine where French women were selected and kept there to "help" with the creation of an Aryan race.
• They Call Him "Sword": The Bleeder
• Thwarted Escape: The penultimate episode of the series has Neil nearly escaping Nazi headquarters thanks to Sinclair only to be surrounded by soldiers and recaptured.
• To Absent Friends: Neil, Aurora, Alfred, and Harry toast Rene, tom, and Miri at the end of "One for the Moon."
• Train Job: The Polish Resistance pulls one in "Promises."
• Undercover as Lovers: Aurora and Alfred pretend to be a couple multiple times in the first season. In "In Enemy Hands," Tom also pretends to be Aurora's (German!) lover on the spur of the moment (he literally strips a German soldier that they're holding prisoner in the basement and makes his entrance in about sixty seconds) when German officials start to get suspicious while searching the house the team is hiding in. And in "Night Will End," Aurora pretends to be Neil's (highly pissed off) wife.
• Vehicular Sabotage: Neil nicks the gas line on Heidi's car in "Naqalm."
• Very Loosely Based on a True Story: While the operations shown on TV are fictional, the show is based on the exploits of Camp X and its contribution for training soldiers from various Allied nations in special forces operations in occupied Europe. Most of it falls under here because the Official Secrets Act (at the time) made much of its activities classified from the public eye for many years.
• Voiceover Letter: Tom at the end of "August 19th."
• Vulnerable Convoy: The transport of Alfred, Rene, and the other high-value prisoners in "Night Will End." The team specifically manipulates the Nazis into moving them because it will be easier to attack the convoy than Nazi headquarters.
• Waistcoat of Style: It's the '40s, so there are a lot of vests. Alfred and Tom frequently look particularly good in them...
• What Happened to the Mouse?: We never find out where Tom and Neil take the Jews they save at the end of "Into the Fire," or what happened to little Elias, who got left behind in the apartment.
• What Would X Do?: Referenced twice in terms of Tom, after his death. In "One for the Moon," Harry asks the team what Tom would say and then outlines his plan to disrupt the radio broadcast of Hitler's speech, while in "Frontiers," Neil says, "What would Tom do?" to Alfred to encourage him to flirt with Irena to further their mission.
  • Neil also asks Edsel "What would Faber do?" in "Remembrance."
• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: As Tom points out to Neil in "Creon Via London," they can't go to a French hospital since they're known terrorists.
• Zip Me Up: Aurora to Alfred in "August 19th."