The Night Agent

It’s that time of the year where all the James Bond-esque spy IPs creep up onto your screens. Littered with action, politics and a roller coaster of plot twists… Netflix’s new espionage franchise somewhat delivers on its shift! Let’s dive deeper…

Spanning over 10 episodes The Night Agent follows the story of Peter (played by relatively new boy Gabriel Basso) as he returns to work after saving the day from a terrorist attack, a bomb on a train. He’s now what is known as a Night Agent operator which is a person that operates a spy agent emergency phone through the early hours of the night. One night one call sets the shows premise in motion and it’s from Rose who is being pursued by her aunt and uncle’s killers. Peter manages to help save her and they grow close from there trying to unravel who had her relatives killed which turns to a much bigger nationwide controversy.

It’s a slow burner and I mean slowwwwwww. It does start with an insane bang (pun intended) then it’s just a really dull build up from there to the climax.

Every episode starts with a flashback to give some insight to characters’ histories, like a little summary as to why they have their current motives. It works. They make heavy use of the flashback mechanic. Although there are some new faces alongside familiar faces amongst the cast the overall acting chops here is very mediocre. It struggles and unfortunately it does take away from the show. Our main protagonist duo just don’t connect. As an action pair, crime fighting partners, love couple whatever you want to call them… it just doesn’t work. There’s no energy between them and they don’t flow off each other. What makes it worse is they actually try, like numerous attempts with tired jokes, poor banter and bland romance. Someone in the director chair really wasn’t watching. What I’m saying is by the end of the show you don’t care whether these 2 end up together… you just see them as individuals. Now there’s an alternative pair of assassins in pursuit of them. They act as the doppelgänger antagonists and their chemistry was a lot more significant. The male being the cool cold killer who’s just here to work whilst the female is the sadistic Harley Quinn type who wants to kill for fun. They bounce of each other, flow off each other, polar opposites and yet you feel their connection. They also have their own relationship woes which the show dives into to give us the viewer some engagement with their characters. There’s a cameo by Mr T-1000 himself, always lovely to see our old school villains that scarred us as children.

Yes I’ve never met a spy and lived to tell the tale but I think we have all watched enough spy movies to know how spies move. There are a lot of “legitimacy” errors here, you can call it nitpicking. For one, with such high stakes and so much commotion going on in the midst of all this action and drama… everyone including spies and assassins always seem to need to put on their seatbelt before they take off in some high octane car chase looool I couldn’t stop laughing! I know safety first and all but they are about to blow your heads off, drive the car!!! On another note the fighting felt like a scene from the Fight Club basement scenes. These are supposed to be trained special ops spies and assassins and there seemed to be no finesse. Just straight brawling and a lot of rolling on the floor. There’s also a character they have us engage with, build them up, get us in deep, only to be chalked off the board with such emptiness. All the way down to how they held their guns and movement, it was really throwing me off. Listen there’s a scene where bro escapes the White House with ease… the bluddy WHITE HOUSE!!! Like come on lol. Although there are some good plot points and twists the hero pairing just seemed to be super detectives figuring everything out with ease.

I believe the label of spy show had my expectations real high and because I’m such a critic (pun intended) I perhaps looked too deep into it all. Nonetheless if you’re going to do something, commit properly. Without the label of spy show this is actually a decent series. Everything plot wise comes full circle eventually and I liked that the political and personal vendettas intertwined in parts. There are stories of love, revenge, redemption, revelation, politics, parenthood and quite a few more in here. I do feel it would have been better off as a movie or maybe even less episodes. Maybe the finesse I’m looking for comes in the now announced season 2 planned. If you’re into your espionage you will pick this show apart but if you want just some mindless action with lots of “sweaaaaaar down” moments then I’ll say go for it!!

How many twists did you figure out before hand? You excited for new seasons? What was going on with the VPs hair? React and comment below…