The article humorously updates FBI portrayals in popular media to reflect Kash Patel's leadership, highlighting his unconventional priorities like personal trips and loyalty tests over crime-solving.
Key Takeaways
•Kash Patel's FBI leadership shifts focus from traditional crime-fighting to personal interests and loyalty enforcement.
•The article uses satirical rewrites of TV and film scenes to critique the agency's new priorities under Patel.
•Examples include Patel using FBI resources for trips to the Olympics and escorting his girlfriend.
•Loyalty tests, such as polygraphs, are emphasized as a distraction from core investigative work.
•The updates suggest a disconnect between public perception of the FBI and its current operational focus.
Some updates to the agency’s portrayal in popular films and TV shows Illustration by Ben Kothe / The Atlantic. Source: Patrick T. Fallon / AFP / Getty. The FBI has always loomed large in popular culture. But now Kash Patel is in charge, which has meant a slight reordering of the agency’s priorities. He has been using the FBI’s resources to delight himself with trips to the Milan Olympics, send SWAT teams to escort his country-singer/political-commentator girlfriend around, supply himself with fun jackets to wear on television, announce incorrect degrees of progress in investigations, and, of course, test everyone’s loyalty with lie detectors. In light of these developments, I have taken the liberty of updating the FBI’s portrayals in popular films and TV shows.
HannibalSeason 1
(Agent Jack Crawford has just sat down to dinner with Hannibal Lecter.)
Agent Jack Crawford: Delicious. What is it?
Hannibal Lecter: Loin.
Crawford: Loin! Ah, what kind? (His phone rings.) Yes? A ride where? Who? His girlfriend’s roommate? (He gets up quickly.)To be continued, Dr. Lecter. I have to go give someone a ride home from a—bar?
Lecter: Don’t you want to know what kind of loin?
Criminal Minds
(An airplane leaves the tarmac as a voice reads a G. K. Chesterton quote: “Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed.” Inside the airplane, Kash Patel sits alone. He is flying to the Olympics.)
(The Behavioral Analysis Unit team stands on the tarmac watching as the plane takes off.)
Agent Spencer Reid: Hey, that’s our plane.
Agent David Rossi: (Through gritted teeth.) He said he had to go check out the security arrangements for the Olympians.
Agent Derek Morgan: But what about the dozens of serial killers?
Rossi: The Olympics mean a lot to him.
Agent Penelope Garcia: (Holding up phone.) Mama just found pictures of him partying with the hockey team. He says it was an honor to be invited to celebrate “with the boys.”
Reid: But … the serial killers.
Point Break
(Waves crash. Bodhi surfs one. Hundreds of miles away, Agent Johnny Utah stands in the crowd at a country-music concert, trying to keep focused.)
Agent Johnny Utah: You ever think about surfing?
Agent Angelo Pappas: Is this about how the FBI director wants to conduct all his meetings on a Jet Ski?
Utah: He wants what?
The X-Files
Agent Fox Mulder: Scully!
Agent Dana Scully: What?
Mulder: I see something! Flying in the sky! Going somewhere I don’t understand, for reasons I can’t explain!
Scully: For the last time, Mulder, that’s the FBI director’s plane.
The Silence of the Lambs
Hannibal Lecter: Do you still hear it, Clarice? The screaming of the lambs?
(The warden taps Clarice Starling on the shoulder and beckons her to a phone.)
Clarice Starling: (Into phone.) Hello, this is Starling. This had better be important. (Checks jacket.) Yeah, I guess I am a woman’s medium. Why?
Lecter: The lambs, Clarice.
Starling: Can’t Director Patel go on TV without a jacket?
Lecter: They’re screaming.
Starling: (Sighs heavily.) I’ll be right there.
The Fast and the Furious
(Dominic Toretto and Brian O’Conner hop out of their respective fast, furious cars and clink cold beers together.)
Dominic Toretto: We’re family.
Brian O’Conner: Yeah, absolutely.
Toretto: Hey, you’re not an FBI agent, are you?
O’Conner: What makes you think that?
Toretto: Little things. Saw you at an Alexis Wilkins concert once. Looking like it was your job to be there.
O’Conner: I enjoy music.
Toretto: Yesterday, I followed you from the garage, and I saw you come out of a building muttering something about “constant polygraph tests that are an utter waste of time.”
O’Conner: (Nervously sips beer.)
Toretto: One time there was a guy in the back seat of your Charger muttering about how “the important thing in any crisis is controlling the narrative,” and I said, “Is that Kash Patel?” and you said, “Nah,” but you said it unconvincingly.
O’Conner: None of that sounds like FBI stuff to me. If I had joined the FBI, it would be to solve crimes. Not be a chauffeur service.
Toretto: Look, you’re family. If you want to quit the FBI and join us, we would respect your time. You could solve crimes on the side, if that was something you were into.
O’Conner: (Sips his beer, looking like he’s considering it.) I told you, I’m not FBI.
Toretto: Right.
The Departed
(The Dropkick Murphys play.)
Frank Costello: I think we have a rat here.
Billy Costigan: Absolutely not.
Frank Costello: Then why did Kash Patel just post a photograph of you online with “#FBITEAMBONDING! #EVERYONEINTHISPICTUREWORKSFORTHEFBI! #LOVEOURAGENTS!” underneath?
Captain George Ellerby: (Listening on wire.) Goddamn it!
Hannibal Season 3
(Hannibal Lecter rides a motorcycle down a fancy Italian street. He is drawn to the sounds of revelry. He pushes open a door to reveal Kash Patel chugging champagne with the triumphant U.S. Men’s hockey team.)
Hannibal Lecter: An excellent vintage, director, for a celebration of victory. What triumph are you marking? Have you managed to capture one of the persons of interest in many ongoing FBI investigations? Or perhaps you have thwarted some act of terrorism? Much to celebrate for a hardworking man at a hardworking agency. Tell me, director, what is the occasion? (Patel stares at him in confusion.) By the way, I have escaped and am at large in Europe.
