There’s 1 Easy Way The Night Agent Season 2 Can Be Better Than Netflix’s Season 1 (2024)

The Night Agent season 2 has big shoes to fill, but there's one easy way it can outdo the series' successful first season. Having two charismatic leads, FBI Special Agent Peter Sutherland (Garbiel Basso) and cybersecurity expert Rose Larkin (Luciane Buchanan), plenty of action, and a fair share of plot twists and turns, The Night Agent rapidly became one of Netflix's most-watched titles in the early half of 2023. Between January and June, season 1 of The Night Agent reached nearly 1 billion hours viewed, warranting the hit series' near immediate renewal.

Yet, as indicated by Rotten Tomatoes critical and audience scores of 74% and 78%, no matter how entertaining or big of a draw the series was, The Night Agent season 1 still had room for improvement. In both positive and negative perspectives, reviews regarded The Night Agent as popcorn fare, with some commending the series for being easy-to-follow entertainment and others condemning the series for being a bit too basic. Bearing this in mind, The Night Agent season 2 can improve on its forerunning season with a fix that would prove equally entertaining while adding enough depth to impress critics.

The Night Agent Season 2 Needs Better Villains

Season 1's Villains Were Engaging, But Season 2 Can Do Better

The Night Agent season 2 would fare well by featuring more absorbing and complex villains than season 1 provided. In season 1, Peter and Rose expose a government conspiracy, revealing Vice President Redfield (Christopher Shyer) as corrupt and using cronies, Turn Lake CEO Gordon Wick (Ben Cotton) and assassins Ellen (Eve Harlow) and Dale (Phoenix Raei), to carry out and/or cover up his political dealings. While Redfield is responsible for major season 1 plot points like the DC metro bombing and the assassination attempt on President Travers (Kari Matchett), his and his colleagues' motivations are somewhat flat.

Everyone under Redfield's command (except perhaps The Night Agent's mole, Diane Farr) is motivated by fairly surface-level desires - contract killers Ellen and Dale get involved for opportunity and Wick for the interest of his business. Redfield capitalizes on their motivations to fulfill his own fairly one-dimensional desire, which is to do anything in his power to stop President Travers from associating the United States with foreign political leader Omar Zadar. Whether out of fear, prejudice, or something else altogether, Redfield's master plan never got any deeper than his not wanting to see the country go in the "wrong" direction.

The Night Agent’s Metro Bombing Mystery Was Too Easy To Solve

Predictably, All Roads Led Back To Redfield

Redfield's plan to eliminate Zadar and strongarm the country in his preferred direction made for an entertaining, high-octane season 1 plot. However, it was easy to predict that all roads would lead to Redfield as the series’ overarching antagonist. What started as the shocking metro bombing in episode 1 quickly proliferated into a series of events that continually exposed the U.S. government as questionably secretive and tinged with corruption. The Night Agent goaded its audience to distrust all the government affiliates Peter and Rose encounter, and, ultimately, it became a matter of finding out who the ringleader was.

The end of The Night Agent reveals that Redfield used the metro bombing as an assassination attempt on Zadar's life. The reveal satisfied the question of the ringleader and soothed all the hype that led up to the moment, but it wasn't all that surprising. Consequently, The Night Agent season 2 has the perfect opportunity to up the ante on its prospective villain (or villains) by replicating the build and intensity of the series' action-packed season 1 but paying it off with a less obvious culprit who has more compelling reasoning behind their actions.

The Night Agent Season 2’s Story Will Be An Original One

Season 2 Has A Lot Of Room To Get Creative

The Night Agent season 2 will surely have the room to get creative with its villains. Season 1 was based on the events of Matthew Quirk's The Night Agent novel, while in contrast, season 2 will be an original conception. Quirk's novel does not have a sequel, meaning that Peter's story past the events of season 1 will be entirely new from now on. Although a TV series surpassing the events of its source material has proven divisive before (e.g., Game of Thrones), Netflix has a great chance at nailing future seasons of The Night Agent.

Season 1's ending, which sees Peter sent out to operate in the field on an unspecified secret mission, sets The Night Agent up to become an anthology series where each new season follows him working on a different case. Instead of being hung up on its overarching series story, The Night Agent can operate on a season-by-season basis where cases are opened at the onset and settled conclusively by the season finale. If this is the direction The Night Agent intends to pursue, then it can comfortably explore and experiment with not just one but a stream of new villains.

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The Night Agent is a Netflix original series based on the novel by Matthew Quirk. The show centers on a young entry-level FBI agent named Peter Sutherland (Gabriel Basso) who handles a hotline in the basem*nt of the White House that never rings. When the phone finally does, Peter finds himself embroiled in a dangerous conspiracy that climbs all the way to the top.

Cast

Gabriel Basso , Luciane Buchanan , Hong Chau , Sarah Desjardins , Fola Evans-Akingbola , Eve Harlow , Enrique Murciano , Phoenix Raei , DB Woodside

Release Date

March 23, 2023

Seasons

2

Streaming Service(s)

Netflix

Writers

Corey Deshon , Matthew Quirk

Directors

Adam Arkin , Guy Ferland , Seth Gordon , Ramaa Mosley , Millicent Shelton

Showrunner

Shawn Ryan