The Night Agent is an action thriller created by Shawn Ryan from Matthew Quirk’s novel, and it is built on a hook that does exactly what a hook should. A low-level FBI agent sits in a basement of the White House minding a phone that never rings. One night it rings. Gabriel Basso plays that agent, Peter Sutherland, and the call pulls him into an ever-growing web of political conspiracies alongside a cybersecurity expert who has just watched her family murdered. It premiered on Netflix on March 23, 2023 and became the service’s third-most-viewed debut in its first four days. Within a week it was renewed.
Trailer, via Netflix.
Basso
Basso is the show’s foundation. Peter is competent, decent and out of his depth, and Basso plays him without the smirk that usually comes with the role. He is not a superspy. He is a man who took a boring job seriously, and the show’s appeal is watching that seriousness pay off. Luciane Buchanan, in the first season, is the civilian who becomes his partner, and their dynamic is the reason the season works.
The Machine
Shawn Ryan knows how to build a thriller. Every episode ends on a turn, every turn tightens the web, and the conspiracy at the center of the first season is exactly as complicated as it needs to be and no more. The action is clean and legible. The pacing is relentless without being exhausting. It is a show engineered for the next-episode button, and it is honest about that.
The Later Seasons
The second season, released in early 2025, moved Peter into a new assignment with a new supporting cast, and the third, released in early 2026, did it again, with Fola Evans-Akingbola, Louis Herthum, Genesis Rodriguez, Stephen Moyer and Jennifer Morrison among the arrivals. The anthology-style reset is a smart move for a show whose first conspiracy was solved, and the third season’s renewal came in October 2024, before the second had even aired.
Where It Falls Short
It is a machine, and machines do not surprise. The villains are functional, the political stakes are vague on purpose, and the show’s ideas about power go no deeper than the plot requires. The dialogue is exposition with a pulse. Supporting characters exist to be revealed as compromised or killed. And the later seasons, for all their efficiency, are variations on a first season that had the advantage of a premise nobody had seen yet.
The Verdict
The Night Agent is a very well-made thriller with nothing on its mind, which is a legitimate thing for a thriller to be. It became one of Netflix’s most-viewed series within a month of its debut. It earned that by working, and it keeps working.
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