Reel Toronto: Nikita – Season 2 (Part Two)

Uber-assassin Nikita is once again travelling the world without leaving the GTA, as we look at the back half of Season 2.

By David Fleischer

Toronto’s extensive work on the silver screen reveals that, while we have the chameleonic ability to look like anywhere from New York City to Moscow, the disguise doesn’t always hold up to scrutiny. Reel Toronto revels in digging up and displaying the films that attempt to mask, hide, or—in rare cases—proudly display our city.

Okay, let’s not waste any time—and get straight back to this still globe-trotting second season of Nikita!

In the third episode (of the second half of the season), we find ourselves at this airport, which, whatever the titles might claim, is actually Markham’s soon-to-be-closed Buttonville Airport.

In this shot, you can make out a wee bit of a Canadian flag in the back there.

The major setting in this episode, however, is “Gates House.”

There’s a big gun battle at the site, which is actually historic Ruthven Park. If you’re not already familiar with it (and we weren’t), it’s a national historic site that was once home to the Thompson family—but not that Thompson family.

By episode 15, we’re back in “New York City” and its environs. Nikita and her pals are hanging on Long Island, but this beach is on Lake Ontario, not the Atlantic Ocean.

Then we’ve got a bunch of action taking place in this hotel…

…actually the Intercontinental down at Front and, ahem, Simcoe.

Eventually, the action takes us outside past the same hotel’s parking garage…

…and, bada boom bada bing, there’s a bit of East Side Mario’s!

By now, we should all be familiar with Eaton Hall as the Udinov family estate.

The interiors, however, belong to our old friend way to the east: Parkwood Estate…

…which is a handsome place, isn’t it?

Back in New York, we’ve got this guy stalking some prey…

…under the Gardiner—looks like near Bathurst.

We’ve also got bad dude Percy, now nicely ensconced in a Manhattan suite of some kind. He’s gazing out onto Wellington Street, and so looks as if he could be in this building…

…which, like any prime NYC real estate, has a good view of the CN Tower.

We also get the nice addition of Canuck Peter Outerbridge as a bad guy!

Episode 17 takes place largely in Moscow…

…and as you would in a pinch, they shot these scenes on James Street North, in Hamilton.

Episode 18 starts out with some spy shenanigans in front of this building, which isn’t remotely what it claims to be here. It’s actually the headquarters of the Ontario Association of Architects, up near Don Mills and York Mills.

A good chunk of the action takes place here, at Zetrov Corp’s headquarters, obviously.

We see a great deal of the lobby…

…and this shot of Nikita pulling up in her sweet ride, in front of what is actually 130 Adelaide Street West.

Well, here’s a gimme. That pizza shop is on Yonge Street, and we’re looking down Grosvenor…

…dude cruises down until he gets to the provincial office buildings that front onto Queen’s Park Circle…

…and blows up this car real good.

And we also get a chase scene out on the Leslie Street Spit.

Hey, more local thespians! This time it’s Carlo Rota rocking it.

And in episode 20, we get a big bank robbery taking place in Zurich.

It’s a handsome old bank that could be Swiss, sure, but it’s actually the little-seen old Bank of Toronto building, across from the Eaton Centre, and soon to be part of the Massey Tower.

Then our robbers go outside onto Yonge…

…and past, um, an entrance to the Zurich subway system?

The “Black Jet Cafe” here drove us crazy. We thought it might be Capital Espresso but thankfully, one of our sharp-eyed readers identified it as Levack Block.

This was easier: a van pulls out of the Bay’s parking lot on Richmond…

…and after it’s driven downtown a bit, you can see the RBC Dexia building way in the back, from down on Front Street.

After a long slog through a whole season of TV, we like a nice gimme. Yeah, this is rather obviously Queen’s Park…

…where this guy is in danger…

…of getting assassinated.

These guys are watching from a decent vantage point, on St. Joseph Street…

…and then things go sideways, and they flee into the Museum subway station.

And, yeah, phew. We can’t claim we’ve covered every spot Nikita hit across these 23 episodes, but we’ve enjoyed the trip around the world once again.