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- Netflix
- Mar 23, 2023
- Netflix
- Mar 23, 2023
- Netflix
- Mar 23, 2023
- Netflix
- Mar 23, 2023
Season Episodes
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Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 13 Critic Reviews
68
69% Positive
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
31% Mixed
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 13 Critic Reviews
68
69% Positive
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
31% Mixed
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“The Night Agent” is no worse than workmanlike but, also, workmanlike. It’s nothing special, nothing awful and exactly what many want from television.
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.
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