Tehran (TV series)

''Tehran'' () is an Israeli spy thriller television series created by Moshe Zonder for the Israeli public channel Kan 11. Written by Zonder and Omri Shenhar and directed by Daniel Syrkin, the series premiered in Israel on 22 June 2020 and on 25 September internationally on Apple TV+. Featuring dialogue in Hebrew, Persian, and English, the series follows an Israeli Mossad agent of Iranian Jewish descent on her first mission in Iran's capital Tehran, which is also the place of her birth.

The series was renewed by Apple TV+ for a second season in January 2021. The second season, starring Glenn Close, was released on 6 May 2022. On 8 February 2023, it was announced that the series had been renewed by Apple TV+ for a third season, with Hugh Laurie joining the cast. It was released on 9 December 2024 on Kan 11, but not on Apple TV+.

At the 49th International Emmy Awards held in November 2021, ''Tehran'' received the award for best drama series, becoming the first Israeli series to win this award.

Plot

Season 1

Protagonist Tamar Rabinyan, a young Jewish woman born in Iran but raised in Israel, is a Mossad agent and computer hacker on an undercover mission in the Iranian capital to disable a nuclear reactor. Her objective is to take down the Iranian air defences for long enough to enable the Israeli Air Force to bomb a nuclear plant, and so prevent Iran from obtaining an atomic bomb. When she arrives in Iran, she switches identities with Zhila Gorbanifar, a Muslim employee of the local electric company. In Zhila's place she enters the electric company station and connects to the computer network. Then she tries to cut electric power to the Iranian radar system, to facilitate an ongoing Israeli Air Force attack. Her mission fails because her boss, who thinks she is Zhila, tries to rape her and is killed in the ensuing struggle. After escaping, Tamar goes into hiding. Being born in Iran and having moved to Israel when she was six, Tamar now discovers her local roots, goes to see her aunt, and befriends Iranian pro-democracy activists. Meanwhile, she is hunted by Faraz Kamali, head of investigations of the Revolutionary Guards.

Season 2

Prior to being smuggled out of Iran to start a new life in Canada, Tamar accepts a mission to rescue one of the Israeli pilots captured after the failed reactor mission. At the hospital where the pilot is being held, she encounters Marjan Montazami, a British psychotherapist and local agent for Mossad, who aids in her escape. Tamar's aunt is executed for assisting her, and a devastated Tamar agrees to stay in Tehran with Milad to undertake a new mission: the assassination of Qasem Mohammadi, who has been promoted to head of the Revolutionary Guards. Tamar works to gain access to Mohammadi by getting close to his son, Peyman. Faraz Kamali continues his relentless pursuit of Tamar, but finds himself compromised as Marjan begins working as a psychotherapist for his wife following her abduction and release by Mossad. In spite of Faraz's reluctant assistance, Tamar's attempt to poison Mohammadi fails, as does an attempt to kill him with a booby-trapped phone. After that they try to take control of Mohammadi's sports car as he races against his son, which only results in Peyman's death. Mossad Director Yulia Magen calls off the mission, but Tamar and Milad continue nevertheless. Marjan is poisoned by Nahid, Faraz's wife. Tamar manages to kill Mohammadi with the explosive mobile phone. Milad is killed by a car bomb planted by Mossad in the escape car, leaving Tamar alone and trapped in Iran with no one to trust.

Season 3

After Milad is assassinated by the Mossad and Tamar narrowly escapes losing her life, she has to evade both the IRGC agents and Mossad, who have marked her for death for killing the general against direct orders. Amir, a local Mossad agent tries to kill her but she kills him first. She then goes into hiding in a women's shelter.

A South African nuclear inspector, Eric Peterson, is convinced that Iran is building a nuclear weapon, despite all other evidence and countless inspections. As head of an inspection team working to ensure that Iran is not enriching weapons grade uranium, he has access to Iran's nuclear facilities. He uses this access to plant a spy camera. A colleague sees him and secretly asks him to remove it. Which he does, only to get immediately arrested by Faraz. He and his team are imprisoned.

Tamar steals Marjan's laptop and uses information in it as leverage to prevent the Mossad from killing her. She uncovers evidence that Iran is trying to assemble a nuclear weapon by smuggling in parts of the warhead through a shipping company. It's owned by Ramin Rasmi; a powerful smuggler with allies in the Iranian government, whom Tamar befriends. Tamar uses this information to get back in the good graces of Yulia Magen. This intel is the only thing that prevents a Mossad agent codenamed "the Owl" from killing her. Tamar and Nissan "the Owl" then start working together.

Tamar's and Eric Peterson's paths first cross in Ramin's warehouse. Peterson is taken there and pressured to help the Iranians assemble and test the bomb. Unwitting robbers try to steal chemical shipments from the same building, thinking there are no people present. They encounter armed guards and a shoot-out ensues. The robbers take Peterson hostage, unaware of his importance.

Faraz kidnaps Tamar, then makes a deal with Yulia to cooperate with the Mossad and not kill Tamar in exchange for asylum in Norway. He does this for his wife's sake, after finding out she's planning to ran away and escape Iran to live with her sister in Norway. As part of the deal, a Mossad spy accompanies his wife as they await directions on how get out of Iran. Nissan gets to Tamar and Faraz. He catches Faraz unawares and at gun point, they lock him up in a shed. Breaking their so called "deal". They then continue with their mission of rescuing Peterson.

The hostage taker agrees to give Peterson to Ramin Rasmi in an exchange. Tamar and Nissan track where Peterson and his hostage taker are to meet Ramin. They get to him only moments before the Sepah and successfully escape with him. In the process, Tamar blows her cover to Ramin. The Sepah instead arrest Ramin. The Mossad orders them to take a freed Peterson to Israel, but before they can do so ; he turns against them and shows his true colours. He holds Tamar hostage, revealing to her that he was working for the Iranians the entire time, and that his arrest was a cover story. His imprisonment was all an elaborate ploy to trick the international community, making him the last person anyone would suspect of helping the IRGC build a nuclear weapon. Peterson escapes from the Israeli spies with Faraz's help. Meanwhile, while in detention, Faraz gives Ramin an ultimatum to apprehend Tamar in order to prove his loyalty to the Iranian regime and government. Peterson continues to work on assembling the smuggled nuclear weapon parts with the aim of testing it as soon as possible.

The Mossad spy sent to Nahid, holds her hostage after the deal falls through. At gunpoint, he tries to move to her a different location but gets shot dead by a detective suspicious of Faraz and Nahid. Later, he tries to get Nahid to tell the truth about who the guy was and what actually happened to her dead therapist, Marjan. Nahid tricks him into helping her escape home and the armed security detail deployed there. She goes into hiding at the same women's shelter Tamar did. Tamar keeps her promise to Nahid, and at the shelter she leaves her a passport, money in denominations of American dollars and a safe haven away from Faraz. She gets one last call from Faraz who later, to a different character reveals that between his wife, personal life and the Iranian government, he would choose to serve the government above all other things.

After Peterson returns to assemble and test the nuke, they find the malware hidden by the CIA. It turns out, Ramin Rasmi, as he worked with the regime to smuggle in parts of the warhead, also worked with the CIA to sabotage the nuke rendering it useless. He reveals this secret to Tamar and they work together to stop the Iranians, who under Peterson's behest begin efforts to find the malware and fix the components of the prototype . Peterson had realised that the control unit for the nuke was faulty after getting diagnostic information from a female scientist he trusts. Later, Nissan kills this scientist but moments later he himself gets killed by special forces. Peterson works on eliminating the malware and after he successfully does so; secretly sets a timer for noon to have the nuke explode. His plan is for the prototype to have a nuclear explosion while still at the underground laboratory where it was being assembled. Resulting in a seismic reading that could be positively identified by the international community as a nuclear test, emitting radiation that Iran could not hide from the world, killing all its top nuclear scientists and destroying the facility rendering it useless for future use. According to Peterson; the depth of the tunnels would have contained the nuclear blast, the radiation would mean the Iranians could not hide the nuke's existence and he considered any resultant loss of life as acceptable. This would confirm that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons, provoking an international reaction and preventing Iran from hiding its intentions behind the guise of civilian use of nuclear technology for power generation and peaceful scientific research.

Peterson is then thanked by the clueless Iranian team in charge of the nuclear weapons program, ordered to return to prison and informed that the prototype will be tested on that very same day. Which is contrary to the schedule he had set. He realizes that the preponement will result in the prototype exploding above surface and in a populated Tehran while it's being transported to the test site. And not at the underground lab that would have cointained the blast. Which could kill hundreds of thousands of civilians. To prevent this, he convices Tamar and Ramin to help him stop the looming nuclear explosion.

They rescue him as he's being returned to prison and later trick, kidnap and coerce Faraz to help them. Needless to say, most of them have lost trust in Peterson, but the risks are too high to take a chance that he's double crossing them yet again. In the end, they're successful but at the cost of some of them losing their lives. Peterson and Tamar take out the core, so that any explosion from the prototype will not be nuclear in nature instead of stopping the timed explosion. They opt not to try and stop the timed explosion as it would be too risky and they have only a handful of minutes. The conventional explosion kills Eric Peterson, Faraz Kamali and destroys Iran's only known nuclear prototype. Tamar and Ramin are able to escape with the core and their lives while Iranian special forces arrive at the site of the explosion.

Cast

Main

* Niv Sultan as Tamar Rabinyan, a young Jewish woman born in Iran but raised in Israel, a Mossad agent and computer hacker
* Shaun Toub as Faraz Kamali, head of investigations of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
* Shervin Alenabi as Milad, Tamar's boyfriend (seasons 1–2)
* Menashe Noy as Meir Gorev (season 1)
* Liraz Charhi as Yael Kadosh (season 1)
* Shila Ommi as Nahid, wife of Faraz Kamali (seasons 2–3; recurring season 1)
* Darius Homayoun as Peyman Mohammadi, son of Qasem and Fatemeh Mohammadi (season 2)
* Glenn Close as Marjan Montazami, a British Mossad agent in Tehran (season 2)
* Hugh Laurie as Eric Peterson, a South African nuclear inspector (season 3)

Special guest stars

* Navid Negahban as Masoud Tabrizi (season 1)

Recurring

* Esti Yerushalmi as Arezoo, maternal aunt of Tamar and mother of Raziyeh Nekumard (seasons 1–2)
* Arash Marandi as Ali, an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps agent working under Kamali. (seasons 1–2)
* Vassilis Koukalani as Sardar Qasem Mohammadi, head of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (seasons 1–2)
* Danny Sher as Mike (season 1)
* Moe Bar-El as Karim (season 1)
* Ash Goldeh as Hassan (season 1)
* Nati Navid Toobian as Dariush, father of Raziyeh Nekumard (seasons 1–2)
* Reza Brojerdi as Farham Kasrai (season 1)
* Alex Naki as Mordechai Rabinyan, Tamar's father (season 1)
* Qais Khan as Mohammed Balochi (season 1)
* Sogand Sara Fakheri as Raziyeh Nekumard (seasons 1–2)
* Reza Diako as Shahin (season 2 special appearance; season 1)
* Dan Mor as Eran (season 1)
* Tomer Machloof as Nevo (season 1)
* Sara von Schwarze as Yulia Magen (season 2)
* Bahador Foladi as Amir (season 2)
* Sia Alipour as Vahid Nemati (season 2)
* Behi Djanati Atai as Fatemeh Mohammadi, wife of Qasem Mohammadi and mother of Peyman Mohammadi (season 2)
* Bijan Daneshmand as Dr. Kourosh Zamestani, head of the hospital (season 2)
* Elnaaz Norouzi as Yasaman Haddadi (season 2)
* Bahar Pars (season 3)
* Phoenix Raei as Ramin Rasmi (season 3)
* Sasson Gabai as Nissan the 'Owl' (season 3)

Episodes

Season 1 (2020)

Season 2 (2022)

Season 3 (2024)

Production and distribution

Season 1 production

The series was created by Moshe Zonder for the Israeli public channel Kan 11. It was co-written by Zonder and Omri Shenhar, and directed by Daniel Syrkin,

Production began on 28 October 2019. Some of the actors playing Iranians were born in Iran, and speak the language as their mother tongue. Niv Sultan, who plays Tamar, studied Persian for four months. In addition, she studied Krav Maga, an Israeli self-defence system. The series was shot entirely on location in Athens.

International distribution and release

The series premiered on Kan 11 in Israel on 22 June 2020,

In July 2019, Cineflix acquired exclusive global distribution rights for the series. On 16 June 2020, Apple TV+ bought international rights to the series outside of Israel, including serving as the exclusive streaming home to the series worldwide. The series was popular with audiences in India, Japan, and Singapore.

In September 2020, it was announced that Moshe Zonder, the series co-creator, had signed a first-look deal with Apple. In October 2020, Niv Sultan signed with WME.

Season 2

On 10 September 2020, it was announced that co-creator Moshe Zonder had signed a multi-year "first look" deal to create projects for Apple TV+.

In December 2020, executive producer Julien Leroux said that production had begun on a second season though it had not been officially approved. On 26 January 2021, Apple TV+ confirmed that the series had been renewed for the second season.

On 22 June 2021, it was announced that Glenn Close would be joining the cast. The second season was released on 6 May 2022.

Filming for Season 2 began in August 2021. Season 2 was released on 6 May 2022, with the first two episodes released that day and later episodes on a weekly basis.

Season 3

On 8 February 2023, Apple TV+ announced that ''Tehran'' had been renewed for a third season, with Hugh Laurie set to join the ensemble cast.

The show's producers and Kan 11 reached an interim agreement to allow production of the third season to continue during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. The third season, produced by both Apple TV+ and KAN 11, wrapped shooting in Greece in the summer of 2023 and was supposed to premiere around April 2024, but the release was delayed due to the Gaza war and the ensuing Iran–Israel conflict. Kan announced in April 2024 that they would attempt to persuade Apple to reconsider and approve an alternative release date. In November 2024, after Kan received the green light from co-producers Apple, the season premiere was announced for 9 December 2024 on Kan, but remained unannounced for Apple TV+.

The first episode of the third season aired on 9 December 2024 on Kan 11, with a single subsequent episode airing weekly, with the exception of episode 6 "No Way Out". The last two episodes of the season aired back to back on Kan 11 on 27 January 2025, while having still been unannounced for Apple TV+.

Season 4

In November 2023, producers were asked to rewrite parts of the fourth season due to real-life events from the war resembling scenes in the series, leading to a delay in the filming and production schedules.

Reception

''Tehran'' has received positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, season one holds a rating of 94% based on 18 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "''Tehran'' expertly plotted twists further elevate a geopolitical thriller deftly balanced between the global and the personal." On Metacritic, the show has a score of 72 out of 100, based on six critics.

Writing in ''The Guardian'', Rebecca Nicholson gave the second series four out of five, praising Close's performance and describing the series as "a solid thriller, often breathlessly exciting, hathas cracked the code of relentless tension".

References

External links

''Tehran''
on Kan 11 website (in Hebrew), including stream of all aired episodes

''Tehran''
at Apple TV+
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{{Apple TV+

2020 Israeli television series debuts
Hebrew-language television shows
Israeli thriller television series
Apple TV+ original programming
Kan 11 original programming
Television shows set in Iran
Television shows filmed in Greece
Works about the Mossad
Mass media about the Iran–Israel proxy conflict
Tehran in fiction
Israeli spy television series
International Emmy Award for Best Drama Series winners
Persian-language television shows
Anti-Iranian sentiment