Axel

"Maybe part of the trouble is that I wanted to see Pym actually do something clever. Seems like all he ever did was get played, or allow himself to get played. And I understand that's part of the story-But all the same, I feel like we might have been shown a bit more of Pym at his best, to see him demonstrate the talents which allowed him to climb the ranks of the service. I think watching him use his own talents to sabotage the efforts to unmask him as traitor would have been both satisfying and would have served the larger interests of the story well."

Pym was a perfect spy not in the sense that he was capable of magnificent espionage feats (a James Bond or Jason Borne) but because he was capable of managing a split loyalty.

A Perfect Spy is a realistic portrayal of espionage, not another Hollywood thriller. Spy works are boring and involves laying low. There are very little things that a spy can do to "dodge detection". Once tracked, it is only a matter of time that a spy will be busted.

Pym was successful because those around him detected genuine loyalty in him, and indeed he was genuinely loyal -- to both sides of the iron curtain. The long and winding back story of Pym serves to explain how a traumatic childhood help create a personality which craved to please everyone. In that sense alone, Pym was "A Perfect Spy".