Sleeper Cell

Also known as Sleeper Cell: American Terror.

A miniseries showing between 2004-2006, starring Michael Ealy, Oded Fehr and Henri Lubatti.

It concerns Darwyn al-Sayeed, a Muslim FBI agent who infiltrates a terrorist cell; fair enough, but this show also deals with the terrorists' motives and psychology, providing insights into their backgrounds and motives, as well as their relationships to each other and their families.

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Tropes used in Sleeper Cell include:

• All Jews Are Ashkenazi: Averted by Faris al-Farik, an Arab terrorist who successfully poses as a Sephardic Jew and blends in at a local synagogue.
  • Actor Oded Fehr is actually Jewish; not only that, but Israeli.
• Anyone Can Die: Ray Fuller and Patrice Serxner, two of Darwyn's bosses, are killed as is Darwyn's love interest Gayle. Even Darwyn himself may not be exempt from this trope as he is left wounded in a street at the end of Season 2. It is not confirmed if he survived.
• Armoured Closet Gay: Salim, an Al-Qaeda terrorist from Season 2, is very devout and very violent. He is revealed to be a closeted homosexual. In the finale, as he prepares to attack the Rose Bowl, he invites along a man he'd been having an affair with, intending to take him along in the blast.
• Arranged Marriage: Salim's parents arrange a marriage between him and a Muslim woman. However, the woman is too Westernized for his taste. She drinks alcohol, wears Western clothes, does not stick to halal food, and believes in religious tolerance between different sects of Muslims.
• Black and Gray Morality: Ken Walls is a Muslim extremist who trains soldiers to fight for the insurgency in Iraq. However, he only targets the American military, which he views as a legitimate target, and refuses to help Farik hurt civilians, leading to a violent confrontation between him and the cell. Apparently it had been a point of contention between them in the past.
• Blofeld Ploy: In the first episode, Farik claims that a member of his cell is a traitor, possibly referring to FBI spy Darwyn. However, he was actually accusing Bobby Habib.
• Bolivian Army Cliffhanger: The series ends with Darwyn lying in the street riddled with bullets but not quite dead.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Tommy Emerson's video from before the big terrorist attack, calling his mom and dad "failures as parents" which drove him to become a Muslim extremist.
• Mr. Fanservice: Yes, this show deals with the extremely serious subject matter of terrorism. Michael Ealy and Oded Fehr are still freaking hot, with Fehr in particular benefitting from the fact that Evil Is Sexy.
• Fake Nationality: The Arab Farik is played by the Jewish Israeli Oded Fehr. The Bosnian Illija is played by the half-French, half-Italian American Henri Lubatti. The Frenchman Christian is played by the American Alex Nesic. The Iraqi Salim is played by the Iranian Omid Abtahi.
• Flopsy: Done not for money but to delay the terrorists.
• Hollywood Atheist: Bob, Farik's interrogator in Season 2, is sort of a Hollywood Atheist. Raised a devout Christian as a child, Bob died for twenty minutes after a drowning accident and saw no afterlife. After that experience, he became an atheist. Farik is not swayed in the least by hearing this.
• I Banged Your Mom: Christian did it with Tommy's mom. And bragged about it in his face, causing them to get into a fight. Then claimed it was a joke when Farik intervened.
• Interservice Rivalry: Like nothing else. The various wings of government, the police and foreign policy all stand in the way of a truly effective counter-terrorism strategy.
• Jurisdiction Friction: Gail's well-meaning concerns threaten Darwyn's case in the first season when she tells the LAPD she thinks he's a terrorist. It comes to a head when the LAPD moves to arrest him and Patrice is forced to reveal his identity as an undercover FBI agent, dispersing the LAPD just in time to avoid blowing his cover.
• Sacrificial Lamb: Abdullah "Bobby" Habib. Presented as one of the main members of the cell but executed by Farik for being a "traitor" who bragged about their plot to his uncle at the end of the very first episode.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Tommy and Christian.
• Western Terrorists: Type V. Only one of the terrorists in the Season 1 cell is Arab. The others are a white Frenchman, a white Bosnian, and a white American. The Season 2 cell includes a Hispanic American and a white Dutch woman.
  • Truth in Television: all those examples were based on real terrorists.
  • White separatists also make an appearance, trading explosives to the cell for Afghan cocaine. They also appear to draw parallels between them and Al-Qaeda. Christian, a former skinhead, claims that he was once a lot like them. The leader of the white separatists answers that Christian is still like them.