Before you get confused, no, The Night Agent is not The Night Manager. These two are different shows. While Aditya Roy Kapur’s The Night Manager, streaming on Hotstar is based on a British show of the same name, The Night Agent, released in March 2023 on Netflix is an American show based on a novel with the same title.
I hope the confusion’s clear. When I first heard of The Night Agent, I thought this is the American version of The Night Manager releasing on Netflix. Since the British version, that is the original show is streaming on Amazon Prime Video and the Indian version is streaming on Disney+ Hotstar, it feels like the American version is being released on Netflix. But that’s not the truth.
The Night Agent is an original show and it’s fabulous. Give me all the good adjectives that you would use for a web series that you love and I would put those adjectives here. The Night Agent, in the typical words, is an edge-of-the-seat, nail-biting, engaging thriller that keeps you hooked to the very end.
The show is about how many lives change when an FBI agent, Peter Sutherland gets a phone call from a young lady asking him to save her life. Her uncle and aunt have been killed and she is being chased. She has no idea about the death of her only family and is clueless why someone would want to kill her. To her, her uncle and aunt are law-abiding citizens who are living regular lives.
On that fateful night when Peter successfully saves Rose Larkin’s life by calmly guiding her out of danger while arranging help for her at the same time, little did he know that he too will soon get trapped in the danger. Soon, the murderers start chasing him as well. Now, as his duty is to keep Rose safe and make sure that no danger reaches her, his other, unofficial duty is to look out for himself as well.
As the show progresses, you get a deeper and closer look into the political drama that was unfolding in the background all the while. More traitors show up as new characters are introduced. And just like Rose and Peter, you keep wondering who to trust and who to not trust. As the pages turn, you realise that from the metro bombing that happened in the first episode to the multiple killings that followed, everything was not just linked but also had involvements of people you ‘assume’ are keeping the nation safe. It’s dirty politics to keep it short and simple. Still, it is not your regular political drama. Ofcourse, there are characters and some twists and turns that are regular and predictable but the way the show is directed, it makes it binge-worthy. This is the kind of show you watch day and night without taking a break.
I won’t tell you the story here because one, it will take away all the fun and two, it’s complicated. I really envy writers who bring such stories to life. They make ‘twisted’ look so good.
Not just the storyline, the characters are well-crafted. I am not talking about each and every character that you come across in the show but the ones that were the backbone of this show, Peter Sutherland, Rose Larkin, Chelsea Arrington, and Erik Monks. Though Erik Monks did not dominate the show and can be called a supporting character, after he was introduced, the show took a good turn. All thanks to his bond with Chelsea in the show. These four could easily be called the four pillars of The Night Agent – beautifully balanced performances!
There is a lot I could tell you about the storyline and who was the traitor, what happened in the show, from where it started and where it ended but I wouldn’t. Both the writer and director have done a fabulous job in keeping the show mysterious. If I give away the secrets, that would be unfair towards the entire team of the show.
All I could say is, politics and politicians are the same everywhere. And the citizens – they are killed as if they were born to die. Their lives matter the least to the ones it should matter the most to.
So, go, watch The Night Agent, curse the politicians, and go to sleep thanking God for keeping you safe and also, keeping you miles away from these deadly creatures.
Looks promising