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Critic Reviews
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This is a confident show, one that doesn’t insult the viewer’s intelligence with a pile-up of contrivances as much as set a plot in motion and follow it through to its bloody end.
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The Night Agent is set fair to deliver a lot of bang for your 10-episode buck.
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Gabriel Basso’s action thriller isn’t a hit by accident. And in Season 3, it’s firing on all cylinders. There’s a star right there.
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In the second half of the series, the action is ramped up and the plot twists bend credulity close to the breaking point — but we stick with it, and we’re rewarded with some payoffs.
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Conspiracies abound. Paranoia is justified. But the show remains human-scaled. There’s no one big ticking clock hanging over their heads, so much as a time crunch here, a time crunch there. Everything is incremental, giving a richness to the storytelling.
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Those who fell in love with The Recruit will feel right at home with the new series, and those in need of another action title as they await the return of Reacher will also be more than satisfied. This isn't breaking any new ground in terms of its genre, but it does manage to take what works in previous shows and run with it.
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Executive produced by “The Shield’s” Shawn Ryan, The Night Agent has more in common with “24” than just a principled lead enduring (and dishing out) lots of punishment, with a protagonist that’s credibly heroic but still a trifle overwhelmed and human.
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It concretely lays a foundation for more. The Night Agent may not be consistently gripping, nor is it the stuff of fine literature, but it’s serviceable, pulpy entertainment.
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The show isn’t perfect: Much is resolved, toward the conclusion, with a dump of exposition, and there are moments when the dialogue isn’t as sharp as the performers. Still, it’s a pleasure to see a show better than it might have been.
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It didn’t need to be 10 episodes. A tighter framework would have turned up the heat and made it less of a slow burner. But Chau and Basso make it worthwhile.
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Subversion of the action-thriller norm is a good feature, though it comes with a downside: When the tension between the equally matched pair inevitably turns romantic, some of the air goes out of the show, as detection and action make room for bland soul searching and weak rom-com repartee.
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“The Night Agent” is no worse than workmanlike but, also, workmanlike. It’s nothing special, nothing awful and exactly what many want from television.
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Sure, The Night Agent could get better. But the first episode established that it’s a show with a lot of stock characters and a conspiracy that doesn’t start in a particularly interesting way.
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Though, despite being occasionally absorbing, the series can’t quite achieve the balance between thriller and drama needed to strike a steady tone. No doubt this could easily be cleaned up and trimmed into a two-and-a-half-hour movie in the right hands. But in Netflix’s boundless arena, The Night Agent is a slog slowly into the dark of the evening, never quite living up to its title’s gloriously silly potential.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 16 out of 30
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Mixed: 5 out of 30
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Negative: 9 out of 30
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Apr 1, 2023
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Mar 26, 2023
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May 6, 2023