5 critical details to remember from The Night Agent Season 1 ahead of Season 2
NetflixThe Night Agent Season 2 is almost here, and if you need reminding of how the first season went down, here’s everything you need to remember ahead of the new episodes. (Warning: spoilers ahead!)
Netflix’s spy thriller became a huge success for the streaming service, so it was no surprise to anyone that it was swiftly renewed for a second season. (Ahead of Season 2, a third has also been greenlit.)
The action series follows Peter Sutherland, and FBI agent who suddenly becomes pulled into a government-wide conspiracy that reaches all the way to the top. Along the way, he also becomes charged with protecting a new asset in the form of former tech CEO Rose Larkin.
Cue a few untrustworthy figures, political twists, and intense chase sequences, and you’ve got a streaming gem. But with deception and new turns at every corner, it may be tricky remembering exactly where we’re at. Thankfully, we’ve got you covered with the five things you need to remember from Season 1.
1. Peter is officially a Night Agent now
NetflixWhen The Night Agent first begins, Peter is a run-of-the-mill FBI agent. But when he saves the lives of civilians from a subway bombing, he quickly gets pushed up the ladder and becomes initiated into Night Action.
It’s a top secret program that covers covert agents around the world. Peter’s job? To man the Night Action phoneline Night Agents can call if they get into trouble.
All in all, it seems like a pretty simple task. That is, of course, until he answers a distress call from Rose, whose aunt and uncle were actually agents themselves (unbeknown to her). What follows is a maze Peter and Rose have to navigate, filled with assassins, bombers, and a plot to kill President Michelle Travers.
By the end of the first season, Peter saves the president from an attempted bombing at Camp David. In the final moments, Peter gets on a jet and opens a tablet that reads, “Night Action: Mission Brief.” So, in short, Peter is now officially a Night Agent, and Season 2 will see him embarking on his new role.
2. Peter and Rose are separated
NetflixOne of Peter’s many tasks throughout Season 1 is to protect Rose, a tech CEO who finds herself on the run after her aunt and uncle (secret spies) are suddenly killed during an attack in the middle of the night.
The two eventually learn to work together to try and unpick the conspiracy and find the mole in the White House, and along the way, they form an attraction. Naturally, they eventually kiss in Episode 7, ‘Best Served Cold’, and it’s all fireworks from there.
They’re essentially a couple by the end of Season 1, but in the final episode, the pair have to go their separate ways (at least for now).
Peter gets on the plane to go on his first mission, and Rose stays behind. They kiss, and Peter says he’ll call Rose when he arrives to wherever he’s going, “if they let me.”
3. The dark truth about Peter’s father
NetflixFrom the moment Peter joins Night Action, he can’t escape the passing mentions of his father, another FBI agent who allegedly committed treason. However, Peter maintains his father died in a car accident, and seems furious whenever anyone suggests otherwise.
However, it’s not that simple. In exchange for his heroics in saving President Travers at Camp David, Peter asks to learn the truth about Peter Sr. once and for all. He’s then shown his father’s confession tape, in which he admits he was approached for confidential government information in 2004.
He ultimately accepted the money offered to him and gave information to a foreign agent. Although he didn’t believe their intentions would cause much harm, it ended up leading to a breach at the Pentagon and cementing him as a traitor.
With Peter’s new role as a Night Agent secured, there’s no doubt the truth about his father will shape the way he commits himself to the position in Season 2.
4. Rose lost everything
NetflixSo Rose and Peter ended up together by the end of Season 1. But there’s another thing that’s important to remember about Rose: her entire life had turned upside down throughout the course of those first episodes.
Her aunt and uncle were killed, plus they were suddenly exposed as being secret agents. Rose then finds herself to be a target, leading to her being carted around by Peter while he attempts to unravel the chaos around them and find the assassins.
Her life was already on shaky ground before all of this. She’d been fired from her tech startup, which forced her to stay with her family while she tried to find new work and overcome her bankruptcy.
Granted, Peter and Rose manage to track down her family’s killers by the end of the season, but she’s still without a family, without Peter, and needing to rebuild her life from scratch after a terrifying ordeal.
5. Nobody can be trusted
NetflixNeedless to say, it’s Peter and Rose against the world in Season 1. Nobody is who they say they are, from Rose’s family to the highest-ranking officials at the White House.
Evidently, the entire bombing ordeal that kicked off Peter’s new career was planned by Vice President Ashley Redfield and CEO Gordon Wick, who wanted to assassinate a political leader.
When Redfield senses the plot coming back to the White House, he enlists Chief of Staff Diane Farr to help hide their involvement and cover up the plan. While this ultimately doesn’t work (Farr ends up shot and barely escaping with her life by the finale), it’s a strong message: Peter needs to be weary of everyone he encounters going forward.
“There are people here who make bad choices for what they think are the right reasons,” showrunner Shawn Ryan said [via Netflix]. “But that’s a slippery slope that leads to increased bad decisions, where suddenly you look up and you’ve kind of lost your way and you’ve lost your soul.”
The Night Agent Season 2 arrives on Netflix on Thursday, January 23. Until then, check out our guide to the Night Agent cast. You can also find out what new TV shows are streaming this month, and for more spy action, check out everything we know about Mission: Impossible 8.