The Night Agent Finally Finds A Way To Innovate In Season 3
Netflix's smash hit conspiracy thriller series manages to break new ground in its latest iteration.
The Night Agent is the biggest Netflix hit you may not have heard about. The conspiracy thriller series crafted a twisting tale of betrayal back in 2023, and in 2025 did it all over again with a new cast of faces. Now, Agent Peter Sutherland has made a Faustian deal with the devil, which not only adds a Moriarty-like wrinkle to the proceedings but also allows the story to do what it has never been able to do before: adapt and change and keep the audience interested, even if it’s different than what was successful before.
The last we left Agent Sutherland (Gabriel Basso) he had moved up from his job answering phones in a basement and began running covert operations that brought him all over the world. But soon, that new gig gets him on the tail of Jacob Monroe, aka The Broker (Louis Herthum). After foiling an evil scheme at the UN, he parted ways with his sidekick and love interest of two seasons, Rose, knowing as long as they were close, she would never be safe.
James Monroe aka The Broker makes the perfect villain in The Night Agent Season 3.
My biggest issue with Season 2 was that it felt like a beat-for-beat remake of Season 1, but it’s easy to see why it would err on the side of the familiar — Season 1 is currently on the top 10 list of most watched Netflix series of all time. But there was a glimmer of hope in the last scenes of Season 2, when Sutherland found him in Monroe’s debt. Now, he’s in his pocket, and that’s a dangerous place to be.
Season 3 also focuses on a new regime: President Richard Hagen (Ward Horton) and his wife Jenny (Jennifer Morrison), who bring their own level of intrigue that those around them have to carefully unpick. But by far the best part of Season 3 is the storyline focusing on two characters only named the Father (Stephen Moyer) and the Son (Callum Vinson). They seem like the platonic ideal of single dadhood: the Father homeschools the Son, and the Son learns about the world while going off on adventures with his dad. However, the Father is actually one of Monroe’s assassins, a role he has to keep secret from his own son, as it could reveal the true origin of their family.
The best part of this season is the addition of new characters to surround the familiar Agent Sutherland.
The Night Agent has reached the point in a television show’s lifespan where the main character is no longer the most interesting character. But thankfully, it’s aware of this fact. This time, Peter is surrounded by constant stream of interesting characters who are established with only a few sentences. Saturday Night Live alum Michaela Watkins especially stands out as a very specific kind of banker, played with equal measures of cynicism and apathy.
If there’s one thing that Night Agent Season 3 proves, it’s that it has legs. This Netflix’s Reacher or James Bond, a hero with a thousand faces who could easily be plopped in and out of different situations and conspiracies and still tell an intriguing story. It doesn’t matter if he’s paired with Brittany Snow or Hong Chau or, as in this season, Genesis Rodriguez: Peter Sutherland can always deliver, be that a super-secret spy mission or an enjoyable season of television.
