‘The Night Agent’ Season 2 series review: Picks up pace after a slow start

A still from ‘The Night Agent’ Season 2
| Photo Credit: Netflix

Like Season 1, The Night Agent takes time to find its groove, but once it does, it hurtles at warp speed to its conclusion leaving a curly opening for Season 3, which has already been green lit. While season 1 was based on Matthew Quirk’s 2019 political thriller, Season 2 tells an entirely new story.

Peter (Gabriel Basso), the FBI agent, who was banished to a basement in the White House to monitor “Night Action” calls, proves himself and is now a Night Agent himself. However, his first assignment in Bangkok goes dreadfully wrong. The mission is to watch former FBI agent, Warren Stocker (Teddy Sears), who is suspected of selling state secrets.

Peter and his partner, Alice (Brittany Snow) are tailing Stocker when they realise they have been made. Rose (Luciane Buchanan), the tech wiz, Peter met in Season 1 when her spy aunt and uncle asked her to call Night Action, gets a mysterious phone call asking about Peter. She is in the middle of a presentation pitch for the big bucks for her new software, which is next-level facial recognition. She tracks Peter to New York using her fancy software.

Also in New York is Noor (Arienne Mandi), who works in the Iranian Mission at the United Nations. While she is friendly enough with her colleagues including Haleh, (Anousha) with whom she chats about the handsome head of security, Javad (Keon Alexander), she is desperate to bring her mother, Azita (Marjan Neshat) and brother, Farhad (Kiarash Amani) out of Iran, before Farhad is conscripted. Noor is willing to do anything for her family including spy for the US government in return for her family’s evacuation.

A still from ‘The Night Agent’ Season 2
| Photo Credit:
Netflix

There is a shadowy intelligence broker, Jacob, (Louis Herthum) and his henchman, Solomon (Berto Colon) and a mobile lab capable of creating scary chemical weapons rattling about. Viktor Bala (Dikran Tulaine), a nasty dictator up for trial at The Hague, wants to teach the US a lesson, which his son, Tomás (Rob Heaps), who has had a liberal education, is not fully committed to. Tomás’ cousin, Markus (Michael Malarkey), on the other hand, is a staunch supporter of his uncle’s nefarious schemes.

Catherine Weaver (Amanda Warren), Peter’s handler has some dark history, and there is also Sami Saidi (Marwan Kenzari), ex-Delta Force and current Night Action agent, given the thankless job of getting Noor’s family out of Iran.

All the standard issue spy stuff is there including a party where everyone is dressed to the nines and need to steal secret papers from the Iranian Ambassador, Abbas Mansuri (Navid Negahban), meetings under bridges to indicate serious business, shades and loose hair for disguise and mandatory spook style of trench coat, tights and heels for the ladies. The Deputy Director of the FBI, Mosley (Albert Jones) reminds one of Robert De Niro’s Jack Walsh’s legendary run-ins with Yaphet Kotto’s Special Agent Alonzo Mosely in Midnight Run.

Rose’s reasons for staying on wear thinner as the series progresses, though the chemistry between the two is one of the cutest things in the show. The chance to hear Noor speak Farsi and identify words close to Hindustani and Urdu are fun — I found daftar, nazdeek and a few others. Maybe 10 episodes are one too many for the thriller series, but Basso and gang have kept the interest and the viewer invested in the shady shenanigans including that purple chemical agent.

The Night Agent is currently streaming on Netflix