Gabriel Basso, The Night Agent

Christopher Saunders/Netflix

I’m not sure anyone predicted the success of Netflix’s The Night Agent. Once you get past the obvious names on Netflix’s most popular English language shows of all time list — Wednesday, Stranger Things, Bridgerton, Dahmer, The Queen’s Gambit — Shawn Ryan‘s spy thriller pokes its head up, like the oddball in one of Sesame Street‘s “one of these things is not like the others” segments. The Night Agent doesn’t boast a big star, didn’t have a lot of promotion when it premiered, and isn’t based on a super popular franchise (Matthew Quirk’s novel was a New York Times bestseller, but is limited to just one book), yet there it is, sitting at No. 7 on the most-watched English language shows of all time (and No. 12 on all shows), ahead of mammoth hits like Stranger Things Season 3 and Bridgerton Season 2.

Soon, it’s very likely that The Night Agent will occupy two spots on the list. The impending release of The Night Agent Season 2 on Thursday, Jan. 23 will be a big test for the franchise to see if it can avoid the sophomore slump. Though he can’t predict that everyone who watched Season 1 will return for Season 2, Shawn Ryan is confident that those who do tune in will be very pleased with what they see. “I think Season 2 is stronger than Season 1,” he told TV Guide.

More on The Night Agent:

Season 1 was based on Quirk’s 2019 novel The Night Agent, following FBI agent Peter Sutherland (Gabriel Basso), whose menial job of answering a classified phone line during graveyard hours in the basement of the White House wasn’t supposed to go anywhere, as he uncovers a government conspiracy with vast geopolitical reaches. But that’s where agent Peter Sutherland’s adventures on the page ended, so Ryan and his staff of writers had the challenge of coming up with a new story for Season 2. Grateful for Quirk’s creation of the The Night Agent‘s two main characters, Sutherland and tech specialist Rose Larkin (Luciane Buchanan), Ryan was able to take that base and put his own spin on it for Season 2.

“I was really interested in changing the perspective of the world, so moving most of the action out of the DMV, as they say — D.C., Maryland, Virginia area — mostly into New York,” Ryan told TV Guide. “There had been some talk early on [asking], do we want to take the show abroad and see Peter’s first mission as a Night Agent? And one thing that we decided was we want to keep it in the U.S., but we wanted to bring the world to us.” 

That’s why early on in Season 2 you’ll see Peter in Thailand as he learns the ropes as a full-fledged Night Action agent — and yes, The Night Agent on foreign soil is as cool as you hope it will be — but the majority of Season 2 is spent in New York City. With Peter slinking through the concrete jungle, the vibe is much different from when he was on the run in rural Virginia in Season 1. Think The French Connection or Person of Interest, and you’ll get an idea of how urban grittiness plays a role in the mood of Season 2. 

Arienne Mandi, The Night Agent

Netflix

While Season 1 was mostly Peter learning about the clandestine government Night Action team, Season 2 is all about what being a Night Agent means. One of Ryan’s main attractions to the book was that Peter was an underdog, and even though Peter was such a success in Season 1 — he saved the president’s life, after all — Ryan was eager to get him back to underdog status by making him a low-level Night Agent who was still learning about this new world he’s in, and the difficult choices that come with his new job. 

“One of the things I talked about with the writers was Season 1 was logistically very difficult for Peter, but morally kind of easy,” Ryan explained. “You know, he’s somebody who wants to do the right thing, especially to make up for the things that his father did. And so Season 1, if he knew what the right thing to do was, he would kind of do it, and it was just a very difficult process. One of the things I wanted to do in Season 2 was I wanted things to continue to be logistically difficult for [Peter], but I wanted to make things morally more difficult for him. You know, I worked for a few years with David Mamet on a show called The Unit on CBS, way back in the day, and one of the things that he always talked about was that good drama was never the choice between right and wrong, but good drama was the choice between two wrongs.”

Cozy up to more on winter TV:

The complications Peter faces this season will come courtesy of major storylines involving employees at the Iranian embassy, a cruel dictator leveraging family ambition into a complex story with major global consequences, and powerful and shady characters with no allegiance who pull strings behind the scenes. You’ll meet Noor (Arienne Mandi), an aide at the Iranian embassy who puts herself in danger when she makes a risky decision to try to help her family, and a mystery man (Louis Herthum) whose business of obtaining sensitive information becomes a major part of The Night Agent universe. Additionally, with Diane Farr (Hong Chau) behind bars for her actions in Season 1, Peter has a new handler: the steely Catherine (Amanda Warren), who doesn’t fully trust Peter. But they all support the beating heart of The Night Agent, which is Peter and Rose. 

Peter and Rose certainly got romantic throughout Season 1, but by the end of finale, they were on different paths: Rose was headed back to California to continue working on tech, while Peter was following his destiny and boarding a plane to start his life as a Night Agent. But their paths intertwine again in Season 2, and not only are they great partners when it comes to secret service, but they need each other to retain their humanity. 

“A guy who’s as morally pure as Peter working a job that’s very difficult to be morally pure… how does that affect him?” Ryan said. “And I think we are able to do a decent job with Rose, essentially saying, don’t lose the Peter that I know while you’re doing this. And so, while Peter is trying to save the world in Season 2, I think in many ways, Rose is trying to save Peter’s soul.” 

The Night Agent Season 2 premieres Thursday, Jan. 23 on Netflix.