After having finished the two currently available seasons of Frontier, I've spent part of this Christmas break immersed in Turn, AMC's original show about the Culper Ring, America's first spy organization during the Revolutionary War.  This is how Wikipedia describes it:

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Turn: Washington's Spies (formerly known as Turn and stylized as TURN: Washington's Spies and TURИ: Washington's Spies) is an American period drama television series based on Alexander Rose's book Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring (2007),[3] a history of the Culper Ring.[4] The series originally aired on the AMC network for four seasons, from April 6, 2014, to August 12, 2017.[5]

I think the title refers to the whole Redcoat / Bluecoat / Turncoat thing, which I had never quite considered in such a literal way before, as though you would literally turn your reversible coat inside out.

Abraham Woodhull (aka Samuel Culpepper, abbreviated "Culper" because hey, handwriting and paper shortages) is a cabbage farmer from Setauket, Long Island.  His father Richard Woodhull is the magistrate (judge) and a close personal friend of the garrison commander, Major Hewlett.  Richard is a loyal King's man through and through, a peaceful and generally wise man.  Major Hewlett is honest but thick, and keeps getting manipulated by the true villain of Setauket, a Welsh officer (and freaking psychopath) named Simcoe.

Abraham and his father have regular business dealings in New York, where the British Army has its headquarters.  They sell produce and meat to the soldiers -- not directly, but by contract to the quartermasters, who apparently then mark it up (illegally, of course) and profit when they re-sell it to their own commanders.  There's a level of corruption that seems to be taken for granted by all involved, unless they are devout Christians.  Abraham's understanding of, and willingness to engage with, this corruption is one of the things that sets him apart from his father.  Another is that he is a serious patriot, although he doesn't want to leave his wife Mary (an arranged marriage) and his tiny son behind to join the Continental Army.  He's not a big tough guy, and while he's kind of a hothead, he's never killed anyone.

His boyhood friends, on the other hand, have joined Washington's army.  There's the dashing, clean-shaven cavalry officer Ben Talmadge and the foulmouthed, bearded whaler Caleb Brewster, who at season's opening acts mostly as a courier and smuggler.  Both of them are capable killers when push comes to shove.  They invent the idea of a "chain of agents," people who stay in place while passing messages, rather than spies personally carrying their information long distances.  

Abraham thinks about spying differently than the military men do.  They want roving scouts to send back lots of reports of their distance observations, which have to be collated and compared (labor intensive and low value).  Abraham instead casts a broad net, but only passes on high-value intelligence, as when he discovers some Hessian mercenaries making sauerkraut, which he's never seen before, and asks them where he should deliver a load of cabbage to them later in the winter.  "Trenton, New Jersey," they say, leading directly to their surprise by Washington's midnight crossing of the Delaware (at midnight on Christmas Day! Cheap shot!).

Encryption

At first, they are not sophisticated enough to encrypt their messages in any way.  Later, they hook up with an "associate" of the General's, who teaches them proper cyphers.  To the modern Steemit reader, these will seem incredibly primitive.  There was a simple 3-digit code for important words and concepts.  For instance,  Washington is 711.  The archives at Mt. Vernon list the full series of codes, which they say were invented by Tallmadge, but it's the same idea: "hurrican" is 492, and "hypocrite" is 493.  "permit" is 713 and "pervert" is 714 (how many times did they need that one, I wonder?).  They're even in alphabetical order, mostly.

One of the biggest triumphs of of the Culper Ring in Season 1 is when they manage to get a partial copy of the similar code book for the British, allowing them to de-crypt British messages.

Opinion

Overall, I'm enjoying this show a lot more than Frontier.  Its betrayals were generally pretty short-form and simple.  While the hot Scottish tavern-keeper in that show was definitely living a double life, in Turn pretty much all the main characters are (which appeals to my super-hero comic book upbringing).  There are reversals of fortune, but they are less crazy and somewhat constrained by the historical record.

I also just like the style.  Where Frontier's opening credits are (like everything else about that show) an over-the-top minis game of statues and coins and burning maps and a native chorus chanting, Turn goes for silhouette cartoons and a sly vocal track (long version here).

There's snakes in the garden, blood on the vines

Every time I slip away, it feels like a crime

I can't wait any more

I can't wait any more.

There are four ten-episode seasons of this show, and although I binged the first one in about four days over the holiday weekend, it will probably take several weeks to process the rest.  I'll let you know how that goes.