From Q Branch to the Getaway Car: 11 Spy Sidekicks Who Deserve Their Own Spinoff
Every spy franchise needs a granite-jawed lead with a license to brood, but the movies only come alive when somebody in the background is rolling their eyes, losing a grenade, or quietly doing the actual work. Here at 007Eleven, we've spent an unreasonable amount of time arguing about this in the group chat, so we finally ranked the supporting players who routinely walk off with the picture — and, more to the point, the ones we'd actually watch in a six-episode spinoff.
How We Kept Score
Three categories, ten points each. Competence: can they do the job without a training montage? Comic timing: do they get the line you're still quoting in the parking lot? Spinoff potential: would you clear a weekend for it? Tiebreakers were settled by whoever brings the best snacks to the surveillance van.
The Benchwarmers (Nos. 11–8)
11. Jack Wade — 6.5/10 Joe Don Baker's Hawaiian-shirted CIA cowboy is the human equivalent of a rental car with the check-engine light on. He calls Bond 'Jimbo,' hands out cigars, and appears to run an entire agency out of a pool hall. Competence: shaky. Comic timing: impeccable. Spinoff: a Florida-set procedural called Wade's World, in which he loses the keys to a surveillance satellite and blames the weather. We'd watch it. We wouldn't admit it.
10. Bough — 7.0/10 Ben Miller's long-suffering number two in the Johnny English films exists to translate his boss's catastrophes into polite government language. The man deserves a workplace comedy where he fields calls from six different agencies and quietly keeps Britain from accidentally invading Belgium.
9. Nicky Parsons — 7.2/10 The Bourne series' most underrated asset: a logistics wizard who keeps popping up with a van, a forged passport, and a haunted expression. A prequel about her Paris years — all dead drops and terrible coffee — would be genuinely great. Just don't make her a plot device again.
8. Gaby Teller — 7.5/10 The Man from U.N.C.L.E. gave us a mechanic with better instincts than either of her male co-stars and a wardrobe that deserves its own museum wing. Alicia Vikander plays her like someone who's already three steps ahead and is just waiting for the boys to catch up. A Cold War garage thriller? Yes, please.
The Scene-Stealers (Nos. 7–4)
7. Rick Ford — 7.8/10 Jason Statham's aggrieved agent in Spy (2015) spends the entire movie explaining why everyone else is doing espionage wrong, and every one of those complaints is a pitch for a spinoff. A series where he narrates other people's missions from a hotel bathroom would be the funniest thing on television.
6. Marvin Boggs — 8.0/10 John Malkovich's paranoid ex-operative in RED treats surveillance as a lifestyle and a lifestyle as a threat assessment. Give him a show where he investigates his own neighbors, then apologizes with a casserole. The man has range.
5. Merlin — 8.2/10 Mark Strong's tech chief in the Kingsman movies is the rare 'guy in the chair' who can also throw a punch and deliver a dry line about etiquette. A support-team thriller where the adults in the van do the actual saving would be a nice corrective to all those films that treat backup as a resource.
4. Felix Leiter — 8.4/10 Bond's CIA counterpart has lost a leg, a wife, and roughly nine colleagues across the decades, and he keeps showing up with a boat and a bad idea. That's not a sidekick; that's a Florida noir waiting to happen. Someone get this man a limited series and a decent prosthetic.
The Franchise-in-Waiting (Nos. 3–1)
3. Moneypenny — 8.8/10 Naomie Harris turned the world's most famous receptionist into a field-capable operative with a sly grin and a better read on Bond than anyone at MI6. A show about the woman who actually runs the inbox — and occasionally the agency — is the easiest greenlight in Hollywood. Bonus: she'd be the first person in the building to file the paperwork.
2. Benji Dunn — 9.2/10 Simon Pegg's IMF technician has grown from comic relief to genuine hero across the Mission: Impossible films, and he's still the one who has to talk Ethan through a bomb while hyperventilating. A support-team comedy — half heist, half group therapy — would be a gift.
1. Q — 9.6/10 The undisputed champion. Desmond Llewelyn's exasperated quartermaster and Ben Whishaw's cardigan-wearing successor both understand the central truth of the franchise: Bond is a walking liability with nice tailoring, and Q is the only adult in the building. A basement-set workplace sitcom about a genius who just wants to finish his tea before someone blows up a watch has been sitting there for thirty years. Somebody make it.
Honorable Mentions and Streaming Notes
Luther Stickell is too competent to be a sidekick and too smart to want the job. Agent 99 had franchise energy before it was fashionable. Bosley remains the patron saint of people who manage chaos for a living.
Most of these are easy to revisit right now — the Bond catalog and the Mission: Impossible series cycle through the major streamers, Spy and RED are rental-night staples, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is quietly one of the best-looking movies on any service. Pour something shaken, stir the group chat, and argue about the order. We'll be here.
