‘Line of Fire’ Review: Peter Krause and Hope Davis Lead NBC’s Silly but Diverting Law Enforcement Family Drama

You can see how it might be difficult, in 2026, to make yet another show about federal agents stand out. Already there are shows titled FBI and CIA and Marshals, shows about people in the FBI or the CIA or the Secret Service but not named after them, shows about their international counterparts.

NBC’s latest addition to that catalogue tries to distinguish itself by taking a more maximalist approach to the genre, and wedding it to another well-worn TV genre besides. Line of Fire is not about any one of those agencies but the whole alphabet soup of them, as filtered through the experiences of a single flawed but loving family. If it’s not exactly reinventing the wheel, it at least makes said wheel look shiny enough to seem worth taking out for another spin.

Created by Joshua Safran (Quantico), Line of Fire centers on the Hollingsworths, a D.C.-based clan who’ve quite literally made the Department of Justice a family business. Mom Jane (Hope Davis) is a high-ranking U.S. Marshal. Dad Mike (Peter Krause) is a Secret Service agent, albeit one on the brink of retirement. (No guessing if just when he thinks he’s out, they’ll pull him back in.)

Eldest daughter Clare (Kat Cunning) works for the FBI — a career path distinct enough from the Marshals that Mom seems to regard the choice as a personal slight, but not so much that Line of Fire bothers to differentiate the agencies’ roles in the two hours sent to critics. Middle child Micah (Tommy O’Brien) did follow Dad into the Secret Service, not that it necessarily seems to have earned him the old man’s respect.

Around here, the fact that baby Russ (Taylor Bloom) has chosen to work for the DOJ as an analyst behind a desk, rather than as an agent in the field, counts as a rare break from tradition.

Like families since time immemorial, the Hollingsworths are prone to needling each other about their love lives or grousing about their parents. Like law enforcement agents everywhere, they’re disposed to bickering about jurisdiction or pumping each other for off-limits information.

The difference is that for them, those conversations tend to be one and the same. An argument over whether the Marshals or the FBI get to take charge of a murder investigation ends only when Clare promises to bring her new boyfriend home for dinner. A request to the DOJ for a subpoena only gains traction once it’s accompanied by a promise to go see a therapist.

If the lack of boundaries between the Hollingsworths’ personal, professional and familial lives would make any actual therapist tear their hair out, it also makes for fairly entertaining television. I suspect it won’t be too long before I start yelling at the TV about how they’re all terrible people making terrible choices — Micah’s affair with the First Daughter (Savannah Lee Smith) seems particularly ill-advised, given that his efforts to hide the relationship have already sucked in two unwitting civilians. But for now, Line of Fire‘s drama remains on the right side of the divide between juicy and obnoxious.

It helps that the chemistry among the ensemble is believably familiar. Krause and Davis share an interestingly wary intimacy as a couple who are no longer as close as they once were, but also have too much shared history (and too many deep, dark secrets) to ever disentangle their lives completely. Of all the romantic subplots on offer here, theirs is the most compelling.

Among the younger actors, Cunning is the clear standout in early episodes as the one Hollingsworth making an effort to carve out a life for herself beyond the family business. Her beau, Logan (Pico Alexander), is a schoolteacher, normiest of all normie professions, which is enough to trigger warnings from Jane that relationships don’t work out with “the ones not like us.” Given that Clare is so busy that a neighbor (Charlie Barnett) half-jokingly asks Logan if his elusive girlfriend is actually “a ChatGPT situation,” Jane might have a point.

But Clare and her siblings are all most amusing when they’re complaining to one another about Dad’s disapproval or Mom’s overstepping over swigs of cheap liquor. To the rest of the world, they appear as cool, competent professionals. When they’re at family dinner, however, they’re just three kids rolling their eyes at their parents. Elite government agents — they’re just like us!

The Hollingsworths are pulled closer together once they’re informed by Nia (Antoinette Crowe-Legacy), a detective with Homeland Security — hey, there’s one more square for your federal agency bingo card! — that a mysterious operative appears to be targeting federal agents. This thriller-y storyline is Line of Fire’s weakest point, in that it hinges on extremely observant characters overlooking extremely obvious clues or clearly shady people slipping in and out of heavily guarded areas with apparent ease.

But as a way to force this squabbling set to have hard conversations or reluctant bonding time with one another, to make them choose between their work and their families, it works fine enough for now. For the Hollingsworths, the fact that, as Jane puts it, “you can’t protect the world and the people you love in it at the same time” — that their jobs almost can’t help but put those they care about in harm’s way — might be a heavy cross to bear. For us, the messiness of these people and their “What work-life balance?” lives is precisely the reason to tune in.