Bait

Created by and starring Riz Ahmed

Riz Ahmed’s new industry satire is a frantic, funny, psychologically brutal six-episode spiral about identity, ego, race, and what it means to become ‘bait’ in modern Britain. With each episode running under 30 minutes, the series moves with the velocity of a panic attack – quick cuts, close-ups, surreal detours, and razor-sharp satire. Ahmed masterfully infuses the darker themes with dry wit, making for a quintessentially British watch. It’s hilarious one moment and painfully intimate the next.

Ahmed plays Shah Latif, an out-of-work, debt-ridden actor and former rapper, who lands the audition of a lifetime: replacing Daniel Craig as James Bond, a role till now reserved for the industry’s most desirable white male actors. Bait uses this to satirical effect, exposing hypocrisies within British society, the entertainment industry, liberal institutions, and representation politics, turning the story into something deeply personal and corrosive.

The opening scene perfectly establishes Latif’s fractured psyche. We first see him auditioning for the role of Bond, repeatedly freezing on the question, ‘When it’s just you alone, do you know who you are?’. We see him alone in his dressing room afterwards, exploding into a storm of self-hatred: ‘You’re a fucking failure, who just shat on your last chance at being somebody.’ A mic operator quietly reminds him that his microphone is still on.

What makes Latif a fascinating character to watch is that he fundamentally does not know who he is. Bond is a mask of masculine certainty and British cool; Latif is fragile, narcissistic, and status-driven, shaped by internalised racism and insecurity. Flashbacks to racist attacks haunt him throughout, shaping how he views his British identity. He craves acceptance from institutions that have historically excluded him, yet despises himself for wanting it. He leverages his background when it benefits him, whilst privately distancing himself from the very community he claims to represent.

The show moves into a surreal landscape when a pig’s head is hurled through the window of his Muslim parents’ home. What begins as a racist hate crime becomes a symbol of Latif’s internalised shame. As the severed head starts speaking in the voice of Patrick Stewart, it embodies his deepest fears and insecurities. Grotesque and unsettling, their toxic relationship becomes one of the show’s darkest running jokes. As the internet’s outrage at a non-white Bond sends Latif into a psychological unravelling, the show’s title works on multiple levels: Latif risks becoming a sell-out figure, whilst the man he hires to install security measures at his parents’ home (having rejected his cousin’s suggestion that he should keep the work within the mosque community), attempts to recruit him as bait for the British state to spy on Muslims.

The supporting cast excellently reinforces Latif’s narcissistic spiral. Guz Khan steals scenes as cousin Zulfi; he’s grounded, humble, and family-orientated, hustling to get his Muslim rideshare app ‘Muber’ off the ground. Himesh Patel excels as polished rival Raj Thakkar, the man Latif fears becoming: marketable, safe, and perpetually grateful for limited representation. Nabhaan Rizwan plays a local golden child whose stable, lucrative career outshines Latif’s. Yasmin, Latif’s ex and a successful journalist and documentary filmmaker (played by Ritu Arya), directly challenges his Bond obsession, asking him whether it is racist to be ‘killing yourself to play a white neo-colonial MI6 agent’. Weruche Opia is brilliant as Latif’s agent Felicia, whose advice he ignores despite her clearly fighting for his success.

The family dynamics are where Bait truly shines. Ahmed and Khan have electric comedic chemistry. The passive-aggressive competition with aunties and immigrant expectations feels painfully authentic. The show also moves fluidly between English and Urdu, reinforcing Latif’s constant push and pull between his dual British and Pakistani identities.

There is an irony in Amazon producing a show questioning Bond, colonialism, and tokenistic diversity whilst simultaneously owning the Bond franchise. Whether intentional or not, Bait feels like both critique and potential market testing.

Above all, the series belongs to Riz Ahmed. Across projects from Girls to Sound of Metal to Star Wars, he has consistently pushed against reductive depictions of Muslim and South Asian men onscreen. Here, he not only creates but also delivers one of his most superb performances yet. By the time the question from the opening scene returns, the answer feels painfully honest yet hopeful. Easy to binge yet deeply layered, Bait is a compelling, energetic series worth returning to.

Danielle Papamichael

Danielle Papamichael is a British screenwriter and film critic of Greek Cypriot and Irish heritage.