The Night Agent Is Back And The Same As Ever
If you liked Season 1, that’s good: it’s more of that.
Netflix hits can come out of nowhere. The Netflix Global Top 10 list of the streamer’s most popular shows of all time include the usual suspects like Bridgerton and Stranger Things, but there are also surprises like Wednesday and Fool Me Once. Nestled in at #7 is The Night Agent, Netflix’s massively successful conspiracy action drama starring Juror #2’s Gabriel Bello as Peter Sutherland, Jr., a low-level federal employee who finds himself embroiled in a massive conspiracy to assassinate the president.
It had all the hallmarks of its subgenre: a street-smart protagonist who says things like, “As long as we’re together, they’ll know they can use you to get to me” and “Destroy this phone as soon as we hang up,” a love interest who has her own specialized skill (in this case, cybersecurity and hacking), and a sketchy boss who may or may not be on the right side of the fight. Now, Peter is back in The Night Agent Season 2, a new collection of episodes that deliver more of the same action. And if Season 1 made it to the top 10, why would you fix what isn’t broken?
Last we left Peter, he was working as a Night Agent, deep undercover within the FBI. We catch up with him and his new partner Alice (Brittany Snow) as they pretend to be a honeymooning couple while tracking some covert goings-on involving an information broker. But when that mission goes south, Peter is forced to reunite with his old flame Rose (Luciane Buchanan), now working as a programmer for a marketing firm, in order to figure out just what went wrong and what is posing a threat to national security this time.
There are some changes to Season 1’s formula. For example, while Season 1 had a subplot focusing on the Vice President’s daughter and her close friendship with her Secret Service detail, this time the runtime is split by focusing on Noor (Arienne Mandi), an Iranian aide working for the United Nations. She becomes a powerful ally for Peter and Rose, even if she’s suspicious if they’ll truly help her and her family. The assassination plot is also swapped out for something aiming for quantity of victims, not quality, and it allows the plot to go in some really fun directions including jealousy between royals of a fictional nation and a nail-biting sequence involving an HVAC system.
Peter and Rose are joined by new character Noor in Season 2 of The Night Agent.
But if you’re expecting something innovative with this season, you may want to just watch The Bodyguard or Prime Target. This is Night Agent down to the bone, and for fans of the show, that’s a compliment. There are still high stakes, complicated father-son relationships, questionable loyalties, and lots and lots of action sequences. It’s not innovative, but it’s also not trying to reinvent the wheel.
Time will tell if The Night Agent Season 2 will push Bridgerton Season 2 out of the way to join its predecessor in the Top Ten. But if more of Season 1 is what fans wanted, that’s exactly what they got this go-around. Like any good FBI agent, it approaches every situation — and season — with the same unflinching attitude. Thankfully, it’s one that works.
