The opening episode of The Copenhagen Test season 1 unfolds with a group of American soldiers rescuing hostages from a militia compound in Belarus. As the rescue mission unfolds, they realize that the operation has been compromised, and Hale decides to leave his position to help his team. The team successfully extracts the hostages into a waiting truck, leaving Hale behind as he opts to reach the rendezvous helicopter on foot.
As he rushes deeper into the woods, he receives new orders to rescue only one of the few remaining hostages in the forest. He is specifically tasked with prioritizing American citizens since there is only one spot on the helicopter. He finds a young Belarusian boy and an American woman, but ultimately decides to save the boy and leaves the pleading woman behind.
Meanwhile, in Washington, President Bush establishes a secret monitoring team called the Orphanage. This team is divided into two groups: the upstairs team, which serves as mission control and handles internal affairs for all American clandestine agencies, and the downstairs team, consisting of analysts. Only a select few are aware of the Orphanage, and so far, the organization has remained uncompromised.
Three years later, we find Hale in Washington, D.C., working as an analyst at the Orphanage. He is striving for a promotion to the upstairs team and is slightly nervous about his interview. During the interview, we learn that he suffered a panic attack after the mission in Belarus. However, he insists it was a one-time occurrence and that he is now fully recovered. He is eager to prove that he is still capable of fieldwork.
In the evening, as he heads home, he starts experiencing a migraine on the train, which suddenly disappears. However, he fails to notice a Black man secretly observing him.
Later, he joins his friends for dinner, and they dismiss his migraines as a mere case of supersensitivity. However, he quickly notices two of his friends acting strangely and excuses himself. He hovers in the corner, watching his ex-fiancée arrive to join their mutual friends.
The bartender, Michelle, offers a compassionate ear, and he tells her that he just wanted to confirm his suspicions. He had a premonition that his ex was coming and didn't want to make her feel uncomfortable. Michelle, who opens up about her late father, a cop with the same obsessive drive to prove himself as Hale, listens intently.
On his way out, his ex, Rachel, corners him and hands over his anti-anxiety meds. She is worried that he is lying about his job and is hurt that he doesn't trust her enough to tell her why he needs them. She announces that she's done helping him secretly get the medicine and leaves.
The next morning, Hale is disappointed to learn from a colleague, Cobb, that he didn't get the promotion to work on the new mission, Poseidon, with the upstairs team. Cobb believes it's because Hale is a first-generation American of Asian descent.
Later, the two head to a meeting where their team leader announces the death of another asset in Pyongyang. He believes that their intel chain is compromised. As such, the Tachyon programme is shutting down, and the upstairs team is taking over.
The team is also expected to undergo an internal review to identify the mole. It turns out that the team has lost three assets in North Korea over the past four months. However, Cobb insists that there is no need to worry unless there is an analyst who has worked on all three cases. As fate would have it, Hale is the only analyst who has worked on all three cases. Out of concern, he reaches out to the signals tech to check his devices to see if he was hacked. She assures him that everything is clean and notices that Hale has constant migraines. She also secretly asks him to assume that he is already under investigation. The thought of being suspected of being a spy triggers Hale's memories of Belarus, and he has a panic attack.
On his way back to his office, he bumps into Ellie, who is part of the upstairs team tasked with watching him. She rushes to the mission room to see what Hale is up to. There, she and Parker decide to put the Tachyon team on hold.
With nothing to do at the office, Hale visits an old friend, Victor. Victor is a retired orphanage agent who knows what Hale deals with. He quickly warns Hale to run before things escalate. He knows the orphanage won't take any breach lightly as he was there when the agency was formed and knows exactly what is at stake.
After his talk with Victor, Hale videocalls his parents and lies that he is going on a work trip soon. His parents are proud of his military accomplishments and don't realize he is saying goodbye.
The next day, Hale secretly sneaks a gun and his passport into the office by sticking them inside a book. He is shocked when his supervisor announces that they found the leak. According to his boss, the asset turned on them and sold the other two assets.
After the meeting, Hale is suddenly promoted to work on a new mission, Claymore. He questions the source of the leak, but his boss cautions him to drop the issue. Upstairs, Ellie welcomes him to the team and shows him to his new office.
In the evening, Hale heads home and thinks back to the Belarusian mission. After taking his anxiety pills, he visits the bar and talks to Michelle. She notices that he seems sad for a man who just got a promotion and comforts him.
(The original content has been expanded and rephrased for better clarity and expression while maintaining the original meaning.)
As they engaged in conversation, Hale recognized her as the woman he had left behind during the Belarusian mission. He inquired whether she had ever traveled, and she lied, claiming she had never left her home. She offered him her phone number, and Parker watched the entire encounter from the watchroom.
At home, Hale delved into combat tactics and realized that the Belarus mission was a loyalty test. The next day, he noticed that he was being watched and texted Victor, requesting a meeting. Throughout the day, Hale remained paranoid, constantly checking various surveillance programs to determine if he was under any.
While going through the files, he stumbled upon the Cassandra RU-258 file and realized that he had been part of a failed biohacking project. His eyes and ears had been turned into spyware, but for some reason, the mission had been shut down. To avoid alerting the watchers, he remained calm and perused the other files.
In the mission room, Parker and the others began to panic as they watched with bated breath as Hale destroyed the papers per protocol and got up to leave. Moira started preparing the team to kill Hale if he made a run for it.
Hale headed to the library downstairs to retrieve his hidden passport and gun. Remy stood by with a silencer, ready to shoot, but Parker called off the hit. She was certain that Hale would return, and there wouldn't be a need to kill him. Surprisingly, Hale headed back inside.
Following the incident, Moira reported to his superior, St. George. Meanwhile, Hale reached out to the signal tech and warned her to check the Cassandra RU-258 files.
As soon as he returned to his office, Ellie summoned him for a secure briefing. She acted like everything was fine while Hale was still internally panicking. Inside the secure briefing room, Hale was interrogated by Marlowe. She began by accusing him of treason and brought up the passport and gun he had hidden in the library. She finally revealed that Hale had a wifi signal streaming from his head - the enemy had been using him as a mole.
Marlowe demanded to know if Hale knowingly betrayed his country and questioned everything he had done that day. Hale defended his actions, claiming he didn't want to alert the people behind the breach that he was onto them. He asked that they lie to his parents about how he died if they killed him.
Marlowe is profoundly impressed by Hale's answers, yet her doubts linger regarding his innocence. Moira steps in to interrogate, probing into Hale's loyalty and Asian heritage. Hale, steadfast in his innocence, enquires about the Copenhagen Test in Belarus. Moira reveals that the test was ordered by a defense department official, with Michelle being a part of it. Furthermore, Moira had planned to use Hale without ever informing him of the true nature of his involvement.
She presents Hale with two options: leave the hack open, allowing Moira to take control of everything he sees or hears, or escape to safety, undergo surgery, and abandon his career in Intelligence. With a standard briefing lasting thirty minutes, Hale's time is running out. He must make a quick decision as his signal cannot be blocked for too long; any unusual behavior will arouse suspicion from the enemy.
Hale opts to leave the hack open. Moira provides him with instructions on how they will proceed moving forward, warning him not to question the distinction between the real and fake and to go with the flow. On his way home, Hale encounters Cobb, who is shocked by the latter's promotion. The episode concludes with Hale cooking at Victor's restaurant, lying that everything is finally settled and there is no need for concern.
Meanwhile, the enemy monitors everything happening around Hale in real-time. They take note of Cobb's shock at Hale's promotion and wonder if the Orphanage is onto them.
