Netflix ‘The Night Agent’ Season 2 Review - Cogs In A Machine

Second seasons can be tricky to pull off, especially when your first season has proved itself to be absolutely fantastic. There is a lot of burden on the team to "retain the magic." Fans go in with high expectations, and those expectations need to be satisfied. I immensely enjoyed the first season of The Night Agent and went into the second one with crossed fingers. Who would want to spend ten hours on something tedious and unsatisfying? Creator Shawn Ryan, thankfully, knows how to please his fans and his audience. With The Night Agent, Ryan converts Matthew Quirk's novel of the same name into a thrilling, suspenseful Netflix series. It's almost impossible to take your eyes away from the screen because the show immediately grabs your attention, sucks you in, and never leaves you for even a second. I felt invigorated after watching the first season. I experienced the same feeling after completing the second season. You rarely come out all happy and energetic after binge-watching a long series (this one consists of ten episodes, each running for around 40–50 minutes). The Night Agent manages to do the impossible by moving forward with precision. It's sharp, it's focused - there is no flab in its body.

This can render some threads unconvincing. Take Rose's (Luciane Buchanan) job, for instance. This cybersecurity expert is now working as an employee at a company. She wanted to start her own business but got a panic attack during a crucial meeting, so she now works for somebody else as an engineer, building software called AdVerse. When Rose receives a call from an unknown number asking about the whereabouts of Peter (Gabriel Basso), she tweaks the code of AdVerse, turns it into a tracking machine, and reaches Peter before the White House guys (the government agents seem to be inept at their work). Rose assures her boss that she will do her duties remotely, which she never does throughout the series. She doesn't do anything related to her professional life, yet she gets a promotion after threatening to quit. It all looks ludicrous and quite funny. The Night Agent doesn't spend time on Rose's work because it wants to generate excitement from spy shenanigans dealing with mysterious agents, double-crosses, dictators, and chemical weapons. Nonetheless, the lack of attention provided to Rose's professional space feels a little off, mainly due to that development regarding the promotion. I half-expected her to find that she had been fired from her position in the end, but The Night Agent, for all its slickness, runs towards a predestined end.

That doesn't make the show any less enjoyable. It quickly becomes clear that the cast and crew members are not dragging themselves for their paycheck. A lot of effort and care has been given to sequences that would have reeked of unoriginality and dullness in lesser spy productions. The scene where Peter, through a kid's phone, texts a man to catch him for some answers appears calm on the surface, but we feel tense currents underneath the images. In one of the episodes, Peter, on the phone, helps Rose escape a dangerous situation, and in another, Rose directs Peter towards safety on the phone when their comms turn out to be unreliable. When Rose doesn't push the plot forward by coding on the laptop, she takes great risks by entering restricted areas, proving herself a capable asset. Peter almost always worries about Rose's safety, but this character is no damsel in distress. In fact, at one point in the show, she takes matters into her own hands when Peter is unable to proceed with a task involving taking photographs of a file that's securely kept in a room inside a bag. It's just another well-executed sequence.

At its core, The Night Agent Season 2 is about being torn between taking care of your personal responsibilities and handling professional business. Should Rose return to California or stay in New York to help her boyfriend? Should Peter lie to Noor (Arienne Mandi) about her brother for the greater good (she has some pictures that could help the agents tackle a serious problem) or tell her the truth and do what's morally correct? Rose, too, faces a similar dilemma, and her choice pierces your heart and your skin. Javad (Keon Alexander) develops a crush on Noor, but will he have warm feelings for her after knowing her secret, her truth? Will he choose his country or his love? Even a science professor has to decide between saving his family or doing "his job." People like Peter are able to strike some balance between brain and heart, though given a choice, he prioritizes his country over his girl (he waits for Rose to go inside her room before taking an important call). Not everybody is as dedicated as Peter. Some consider themselves to be a cog in a machine, and that sense of worthlessness leads them to make unethical decisions. You cannot entirely blame them. They love the job more than the job loves them. A woman mentions that she was reduced to a number; somebody's ashes are delivered in a plastic bag through a parcel. An agent surrenders their life to their country. The country doesn't necessarily acknowledge their hard work with due respect.

Of course, The Night Agent Season 2 isn't perfect. A rescue mission becomes complicated due to improper communication. Couldn't Noor have talked to her brother? One senses that the show has artificially erected a problem to just infuse tension into the operation. But I liked how the season establishes Noor's lack of trust in American agents. One of them dismisses all her information by pushing her to come up with something substantial. By the time we see Peter asking for more and more of her services, Noor's frustration becomes palpable to the audience. What's more, all the episodes of the second season begin with flashbacks that inform us of where the characters are coming from - why they are like this and what happened to them. All this renders The Night Agent more absorbing, more sensational. The show will definitely return with a third season, and I cannot wait to see what new conspiracies Peter and the team will unearth.

Final Score- [8/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times