‘The Night Agent’ is the Platonic Ideal in a Netflix show

By Miles SurreyJanuary 23 at. 13:26 UTC • 5 min

Netflix from 2025 is a very different beast than Netflix a decade ago. In his early days as a streamer, Netflix took great fluctuations with its original programming, with the heading of spend 100 million dollars to make the first two seasons of The Card HouseInvisible sight. Flagship shows from the era that Orange is the new blackAt The crownand Narcos Checked similar fields: bold, lavish prestige TV that would not feel misplaced on HBO or e.g. In a way, Netflix was in front of the curve and foresaw that the studies would eventually fail to licenses their shows in favor of launching rival streamers. Soon Netflix wasn’t just an Industrial Coming: It was basic change Hollywood.

However, as Netflix has expanded, the company’s priorities have changed. The days when a drama like (respectful) Bloodline can get three seasons the past belongs. Now Netflix Originals have one Much shorter string When it comes to renewal: Again and again, promising projects don’t get enough time to find an audience. The streamer also has the fingers of many different pies: reality TV, live sports, documentary series, international productions and so on. As a result, Netflix is ​​not only happy to be the new HBO: it will be Streaming’s response to cableA one-stop shop for all your entertainment needs.

Netflix’s mindset for its original series has also evolved. As Netflix Director Jinny Howe put it, the streamer’s ideal show these days is one “Gourmet Cheeseburger” There may be “Premium and Commercial at the same time.” That description certainly does not apply to e.g. MindhunterA prestige drama loved by David Fincher’s obsessions, but which only managed to cope with two seasons. (As always, justice for Mindhunter.) Howe pointed on Bridergon As an example of a gourmet cheeseburger show done right. I can’t argue that, but for another example of a delicious gourmet cheeseburger – this time with dad’s TV sensibility – I would like to nominate The night agent.

Based on the Matthew Quirk novel of the same name, The night agent‘s first season follows Peter Sutherland (played by Gabriel Basso), a FBI agent that saves countless passengers from a metro bomb in Washington, DC. After Peter himself has been questioned for the attack – partly because his late father was a suspected traitor – he has been assigned a seemingly blind -yellow job to take the phone to Night Action, an off -the -book government program with agents, There is undercover all over the globe. One night Peter gets a call from Rose Larkin (Luciane Buchanan), a cyber security manager who has just escaped a few assassins who murdered her aunt and uncle. Peter guides Rose to safety before discovering that her relatives were secretly working as night agents, and whatever they investigated could be associated with the DC Metro bombing. As Peter protects Rose from a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of the White House, he is quickly in a race over time to prevent more attacks on American soil. (Spoiler Alert: Peter actually saves the day.)

In terms of plot and execution, The night agent did not bring anything new to the table, but it is a feature of the series, not a mistake. If you are a fan of the 90s action thrillers (In the shot lineAt Air Force OneAt The refugee) or Bourne franchise, The night agent scratches a similar itching, combining Exciting action death balls With turns that, if sometimes predictable, are not ridiculous enough to offend the audience’s intelligence. (Basso, meanwhile, doesn’t have the charisma like someone like Matt Damon, but he is a useful action hero worth noting.) If Netflix makes a serious attempt to replace cable for the next generation, then The night agent is the streamer’s response to 24: A tight thriller that shares the difference between a trashy airport novel and more sophisticated genre.

In other words, The night agent Has all the ingredients for a gourmet cheeseburger. Netflix subscribers ate in return The night agent up when it became it Most viewed series on the platform in the first half of 2023. Now, The night agent is back for his second season in an attempt to find similar success. (The show has also scored one Early renewal of season 3.) This time Peter has been promoted from a desk job to a position as agent in the field where he works undercover in Bangkok with his new mentor, Alice (Brittany Snow).

The new season places us right in the middle of the action, where Peter and Alice monitor a topic that may be associated with a leak within the CIA. However, as the duo breaks apart after encountering another person of interest, armed assailants arrive on the tail, leaving Peter and Alice to tear through Bangkok’s streets to reach a extraction site. Except-gasp-The evil know exactly where they are going; One leads to the other and Alice is shot down before Peter flees with distress and hardly. There is only one way it could have happened and you might want to prepare you for this revelation: Night Action has also been compromised, leaving Peter without anyone he can trust – again – except for his old friend Rose, who is now working at a technical startup.

The formula is known from The night agentS FIRST SEASON: Dynamic action scenes, a government composition, flashbacks that recontextualize a character’s motivations, the threat of domestic terrorism, Peter and Rose, pushing out during some downtime. In fact, where the second season of the series disappoints is its sparse attempt to try something new. Bangkok is an exciting frame for The night agentThere is a future in which Peter’s heroic holdings take place on a global scale. But with the exception of the dynamite opening sequence, Bangkok is barely included in the series. (When Peter flees, he spends most of the season in New York.) To rewrite Kevin Garnett as Kevin Garnett in Uncontracted gemsWhy the hell would you show me Bangkok if I couldn’t stay there?! (The white lotus Season 3 cannot come fast enough.)

It is more of a startling criticism, for being fair, and The night agent is not a high pan show. This is typically father TV: a meat-and-potato thriller that sets out to do everything you expect and do not move boundaries. If it had fewer f-bombs you could imagine The night agent Shipped on a broadcast network during Aughts. Of course, these qualities also make the series far from some of the ambitious swings that Netflix originally advanced. In that regard The night agent Is the Platonic Ideal for what a modern Netflix show should strive to be: Available popcorn entertainment with middle brows. Maybe it sounds like a backhand compliment – not just about The night agentBut also about Netflix’s wider mandate to make more gourmet cheeseburgers. But is it really such a bad thing when I’m already eager to binge season 3?

Miles Surrey

Miles writes about TV, movies and what your father is interested in. He is based in Brooklyn.