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Did someone dial the night action number? Because Peter Sutherland is back, and he’s sweatier and more righteous than ever.
Netflix’s espionage thriller “The Night Agent” (now streaming, ★★★ out of four) returns for a second season of conspiracies, capers and calamities for FBI agent Sutherland (Gabriel Basso) and sometime paramour Rose Larkin (Luciane Buchanan). Season 2 is a little messier, a little more self-serious and at times slower than the satisfying first go-round, but “Night Agent” still delivers. And the series keeps its most important promise: to bring just the right amount of semi-mindless action, flirty banter and exciting twists to cozy up with on these frigid winter nights. Call it a security blanket TV show.
Promoted by the president from phone manager to super-secret government “night agent,” Peter, alongside partner Annie (the criminally underused Brittany Snow), is on the hunt for a person who leaked government secrets in Thailand. The mission goes badly; Peter overreacts, goes AWOL and is finally brought out of his trauma-induced paranoia by Rose, who finds him with her magic software and happily joins his world of gunfire, assassins and spies just to be close to him again.
Joining the team this season is Catherine (Amanda Warren), Peter’s acerbic “handler” who cannot contain his self-righteous and self-sacrificing tendencies, and Noor (Arienne Mandi), a CIA asset in the Iranian Mission to the United Nations, who may be able to help recover stolen intelligence for Peter. But there is something bigger going on than just antipathy between the U.S. and Iran, and Peter will do whatever it takes to protect the public and Rose. But mostly Rose.
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“Night Agent” has never been a show with subtlety or nuance, and it remains that way in Season 2. The bad guys are a little too stupid, the good guys are a little too lucky, and the conspiracy plot is riddled with holes. The writers shoehorn civilian Rose into a top-secret investigation, and some of the villains are either too close to real life to be escapist or too absurd to be believable. In particular, anything related to the Iran storyline feels as if it were written for another more mature series. This is the show that gave us a cackling-mad villainous vice president in Season 1, who didn’t twirl a mustache only because he didn’t have one. It has no business with an extended sequence set in rural Iran or debates over whether political dissidence is worth sacrificing your life for.
But when it wades out of that subplot quagmire (Episode 5 is especially difficult to get through), “Night Agent” goes right back to keeping you on the edge of your very comfortable chair. You don’t need to think too much; it’s also not too dumb to enjoy. The action is compelling and invigorating, and Basso and Buchanan are still a magnetic team. Its deeply binge-watchable quality − and the sheer likability of the actors − makes me forgive all those sins. Who cares if it’s a little ridiculous when it hits all of its emotional marks? I care a little, but not enough to stop watching when Peter and Rose have more injustice to uncover and lives to save. And it is just so easy to become addicted to watching them do it, especially by the time you get to the rip-roaring finale.
So no, “Night Agent” isn’t going to win any Emmys anytime soon, but not all television is made aiming for transcendence or awards.
Some are just here to get us through the night.
