It's a good show, but it has some glaring flaws.
Don't get me wrong, it's ultimately an interesting show, with a story that is gripping and has its fair share of tension and suspense. Most of the settings (although most are indoor) are visually believable, costumes are ok for the most part. The characters, for the most part, seem believable, but with some exceptions.
I am Romanian and it's obvious to me that no Romanian screenwriters were involved. The Romanian language dialogue is stilted, artificial, no Romanian talks that way, especially those that lived in the period the show takes place. No Romanian uses those turns of phrase, those expressions, that manner of talking overall. How can I explain it? It's like the actors are reading through literal Romanian subtitles from an American movie. At some point it gets a bit grating to my ears.
Moving onto the authenticity and historical parallels, it is also obvious that the character of Victor Godeanu is inspired by Ion Mihai Pacepa, a real life high ranking Communist official who defected to the US. Although Pacepa was a member of Ceausescu's inner circle, I feel the closeness between the Godeanu character and the Ceausescu's couple is a bit exaggerated, compared to the real life counterparts. Then again, this is a work of fiction and I guess this is warranted. Also, I am adamant that no one called either of the Ceausescus by their first names except themselves one to another.
Moving on to the portrayal of the Ceausescus themselves. Elvira Deatcu does a decent job capturing Elena's mannerisms and her domineering presence over everyone she meets and over Nicolae himself. Her entitlement as well. The only thing I think that could have been emphasized more is her lack of education, manners or culture. In real life, she was barely literate and her speech was littered with gramatical and morphological errors.
As for Nicolae, I think his portrayal is my least favorite thing about this show. Not necessarily because how he was written, but I think actor Claudiu Bleont (a very good actor otherwise) does not do a very good job. Real life Nicolae Ceausescu had a number of speech impediments. In real life, apart from his rather poor command of the Romanian language (just like his wife's), he could not properly pronounce the "R" sound. The show captured this aspect, but the actor's delivery is very inconsistent, this impediment disppearing completely in some scenes or even lines in the same scene, but where he does capture this speech impediment, the delivery is a charicature. It's Elmer Fudd-ish and grating to a Romanian ear. I would also mention real life Ceausescu's minor stutter but cannot blame the show's crew for this. The Romanian Communist Party were very, very careful about the portrayal of Ceausescu in the media, so sources of him actually espousing this are extremely rare.
As a conclusion, I am always very excited when quality Romanian (or involving Romanians) films and shows come out and especially when they have an international reach. Despite everything I have written above, Spy/Master is a good show, worth watching and I hope we can see more of the actors in the future.
