The Night Agent: Season 1

April 9, 2023 10:42 PM - Season 1 (Full Season)

The CEO of a failed cybersecurity company is thrown into a world of conspiracy and assassins when her aunt and uncle ask her to make a call to the CIA.

Streaming on Netflix.

Currently 75% on Rotten Tomatoes.

posted by mark k (21 comments total)

The first thriller series I've been sucked into in a while. It follows the old Hitchcock formula of tossing a civilian into a conspiracy of professional spies and politicians and then keeping them running. The execution is pretty good--if nothing else, there's a ton of forward momentum to keep it going even as the conspiracy gets more ridiculous.

Reminds me a bit of 24, but with 100% less torture. (Or maybe 99% less; it's implied two bad guys tortured someone off screen. But they're the villains)

Even the elements I'd normally hate--the daughter-in-distress and tech startup CEO--paid off a bit.
posted by mark k at 10:53 PM on April 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

I easily got 5 episodes in before I finally went to bed last night, but the whole premise hinges on the aunt and uncle saying, "We're using up precious time to have this conversation instead of calling the FBI hotline ourselves, so you need to run to the neighbor's house and call the FBI hotline for us!"
posted by emelenjr at 7:31 AM on April 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

This was dumb but pretty enjoyable. Rose was my favorite, especially when people kept telling her to stay out of danger, and she'd be like, "Nah I'm going to smack/stab this guy" instead.

Oh and I always enjoy D. B. Woodside!

I find lately I'm getting obsessed with small dumb things in TV shows that I just cannot get over and for this show it was how terrible poor dumb Paulo's sketches were. Art professors at Georgetown can't draw?!
posted by See you tomorrow, saguaro at 11:31 AM on April 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

This has been my stationary-bike entertainment for the past week or so. Just finished yesterday. It was perfect for that. Smart enough to keep me entertained, not so smart that it required more concentration than I could muster.

If you've seen enough of this sort of thing, some of the surprises don't really surprise you, but the characters are mostly well-realized and have believable personalities.

Speaking of small dumb things: there were a lot of ethnically Asian actors in roles with European-sounding surnames. I mean, surely they're not all international adoptees, right? Seems like someone wrote the script with European-sounding names, the casting director looked for more diversity, but then they didn't update the script. Once or twice I wouldn't blink at, but I think I counted four such characters. It took me out of the story a little.
posted by adamrice at 12:21 PM on April 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I enjoyed this. It wasn't trying to be high art. It just wanted to be a fun, twisty little action thriller, and I thought it did a fine job of that.

For me, the indicator that it was doing what it was supposed to do was the way it kept making side characters with very little screen time interesting enough that I was annoyed when they were killed.
posted by Naberius at 1:22 PM on April 10, 2023

I noped out after a couple of episodes.

Spoilers

Peter tells Rose to stay in the hotel room and keep all of the curtains closed. She's immediately lounging on the balcony with all the curtains open, without consequence.

It's set up so either Hawkins (Robert Patrick) is the (too-obvious) bad guy or Hong Chau (Diane Farr) is the (nothing is as it seems) bad guy), then they're both bad guys. He pulls the Secret Service detail so assassins can attack the hotel; assassins show up at the cabin when she's the only one who knows they're there. And if she turns out not to be a bad guy, that's some shitty writing.

"This is just like that other show I watched, but not as good. What show was that again? Oh yeah, Condor."

posted by kirkaracha at 2:28 PM on April 10, 2023

I noped out after a couple of episodes.

Exactly the same here. It just all seemed quite badly done. Not technically, but in terms of the script and characters and situations. I didn't believe any of it and found the two lead characters entirely uninteresting. I felt no tension and didn't care what happened next. A shame because I loved The Shield, also by Shawn Ryan.
posted by fabius at 5:25 AM on April 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

I easily got 5 episodes in before I finally went to bed last night, but the whole premise hinges on the aunt and uncle saying, "We're using up precious time to have this conversation instead of calling the FBI hotline ourselves, so you need to run to the neighbor's house and call the FBI hotline for us!"

I've only seen the first episode (not out of disinterest, I just only have so much time) and I did catch that the issue there was that their phone line had been cut (and either one can't call the hotline from a cell or there was a cell jammer focused on the house.) They were arguing about whether to destroy the macguffin evidence there or try to carry it out to the neighbor's house and risk the bad guys getting ahold of it.
posted by Karmakaze at 7:45 AM on April 11, 2023

Didn't Paramount+ just launch a show with a similar premise, Rabbit Hole, which stars Jack Bauer himself, Kiefer Sutherland?

(Both of these shows can be each their own thing but ultimately they'll both be gunning against Citadel, the Russo brothers' spy show that Amazon Prime is trying to make into their tentpole.)
posted by Apocryphon at 8:21 AM on April 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

their phone line had been cut (and either one can't call the hotline from a cell or there was a cell jammer focused on the house.)

Yeah, cell phones were jammed. When Rose wakes up she looks at her phone and the status bar shows “no service.”
posted by mbrubeck at 9:33 PM on April 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

I got confused and thought this was The Night Manager, and wondered why this was so bad.

Then I realized that's a completely different series, which is GREAT. Watch that instead! Stars Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 5:42 AM on April 13, 2023

This grabbed me one night (ha) when I apparently needed a good binge. Perfect for that as about 3/4 through the plot holes built up but, binge all night, don't care. The twists were quite good and enough tropes were twisted or switched to be amusing. Finished on a cliffhanger, will there be an S2?
posted by sammyo at 2:16 PM on April 14, 2023

I got confused and thought this was The Citadel, and wondered why the cover had such a terrible photo of Richard Madden.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 6:38 AM on April 15, 2023 [3 favorites]

I'm only one episode in, but (to me) it has that old school Robert Ludlum novel feel to it (back when he was still writing the books). I'll be back for at least another episode.
posted by sardonyx at 9:46 PM on April 15, 2023

I thought that it had potential, but it was too slow too often for me. I ultimately didn't care about anybody or their relationships, but the male lead is pretty if you like the Midwestern cornfed look on the rangy side. Didn't make it past e04.
posted by porpoise at 5:40 PM on April 17, 2023

I didn't mind it, though the acting and plot were not the best. I did like Rose not always doing what she was told and sticking up for herself; she clearly had different skills than Peter but wasn't above intervening in a helpful way instead of re-enacting the trope of the female sidekick trying to hit the villain in a fight and clocking the hero instead. Agree that some of the minor characters were more interesting than the main ones. Not brilliant but mildly entertaining.
posted by Athanassiel at 11:06 PM on April 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

We finished this last night with some friends. Overall, it was a fun, if dumb, watch. There sure seemed to be enough loose strings left at the end to knit a sweater with, though. A few select ones off the top of my head...

The entire Camp David scene was especially ridiculous, as it's hard to believe security is that lax that the only thing stopping anyone from driving in is two guards at a simple gate, and all you need to get in, if you aren't on the day's approved list, is a sufficiently loud mouth.

I'm told there will be a second series. Cool. We'll definitely watch. I really hope a good chunk of the cast from this series returns, especially the two leads, Gabriel Basso, and Luciane Buchanan.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:43 AM on April 24, 2023

Not great, not horrible...the acting overall seems oddly stiff. Plenty of moments that drag on too long. Worst moment for me so far is Rose in the library walking into a room looking for whatever (for a spy thriller it's very easy to kind of lose track of whatever information they are seeking while not losing track of anything) and saying "of course it's a dungeon" while being back-lit by an entire wall with windows. Yes, very dungeon-like.
posted by nubs at 10:19 AM on May 27, 2023

I am most of the way through the first episode and I just needed somewhere to carp about Peter rushing Rose out of his apartment, taking every precaution to guard her against an unknown peril, beating up the two conspiracy guys after him and then...promptly referring to her by her real name in their earshot.
posted by eponym at 8:33 PM on February 17

I am most of the way through the first episode and I’m questioning why, if Rose’s life is in danger and her information so valuable, they don’t just bring her over to the White House or FBI headquarters immediately rather than “take her somewhere safe and I’ll see you in the morning”. And then there’s a car chase shootout in downtown DC that doesn’t attract the attention of the police? And dude, if the bad guys followed you so easily, maybe ditch the identifiable car?
posted by TWinbrook8 at 6:37 PM on March 15

Okay I finished it and...it wasn't bad. Wasn't the best but it was very fast paced towards the end with enough twists to keep it entertaining. When something moves fast, you don't dwell on the mistakes. Rose was a good character too, acerbic but not so much of a wise ass as to be annoying.

It's been renewed for another season but delayed due to the writers and actors strikes.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 10:29 PM on March 20 [1 favorite]