With little panache, no major league stars, but tight writing, the first season of the Netflix series The Night Agent did something other series have failed to do: make a suspense-thriller TV series as exciting as reading a Tom Clancy novel. Prime Video’s Jack Ryan didn’t come close, and neither did Reacher. Even FUBAR with Arnold Schwarzenegger himself couldn’t capture the adrenaline rush as a mid-level government worker gets sucked into a dark and murky world of high stakes politics that leads directly to the White House. Production has wrapped on the next ten episodes, and the second season will be heading to Netflix this winter. Gabriel Basso is back as the agent, with returning co-star Luciane Buchanan as ex-exec on-the-run Rose Larkin. New cast members include Amanda Warren, Louis Herthum, Adrienne Mandi, Brittany Snow, Teddy Sears, Berto Colon, David Negahban, David Chen, and Michael Malarkey.
Check out the first images from Season 2 of The Night Agent:
A key factor for the success of the series, streaming on Netflix since 2023 with its ten first-season episodes, is likely that non-star cast. Gabriel Basso–who was the kid actor in J.J. Abrams’ breakout movie Super 8–stars as low-level FBI agent Peter Sutherland. He’s the son of a disgraced agent who was later killed when Peter was much younger. In first-episode backstory we catch up with Peter as he foils a commuter train bombing in Washington, DC. Partially because of his family name, partially because he appears to be one of the good guys, the President’s Chief of Staff takes him on, allowing him to shadow her to some extent, ultimately getting him a ho-hum job answering the secret “Night Agent” phone in the White House.
We learn Night Agents are Secret Service operatives presumably out there protecting secrets of the state, and the phone guy is there to get them help if they need it. But like all covert, off-the-books government activities go, the Night Agent program has been compromised. Soon after taking the job Sutherland gets a call from a woman witnessing her aunt and uncle being hunted down. Sutherland carefully uses his knowledge and training to get her into hiding so he can get a detail on the scene to rescue her. It’s a success, but it leads to an unraveling of a covert ops network and corruption that may go all the way to the President herself.
The rescued woman is co-star Luciane Buchanan as Rose Larkin. Once a tech company CEO, Larkin’s trademark IT security software software was hacked, leaving her to file for bankruptcy protection. Which brings her to living with her oh-so-ordinary aunt and uncle, who turn out to be Secret Service agents–a fact she learns only after their murder and her close escape. As Sutherland takes on the role of protector for Larkin they grow close, but not in your typical smarmy thriller flick way. Larkin is smart and knows her way around corporations and social situations. The partnership results in the duo getting closer to solving who carried out the bombing, and who was behind it.
The series debuted at No. 1 on the English TV list with 168.71 million hours viewed in its first week of release, appearing in the Top 10 in 93 countries.
The first season of The Night Agent is now streaming on Netflix. The second season has been filmed and according to an ambiguous Netflix announcement it will be premiering “Winter 2025,” which usually means December 2025, but the same release says it’s coming “this winter,” so that could mean as early as this coming December.
C.J. Bunce / Editor / borg
