5 Burning Questions for Season 2 of The Night Agent

Gabriel Basso in The Night Agent (Photo: Dan Power/Netflix)

Editor’s Note: This post contains spoilers for Season 1 of The Night Agent

It’s no surprise that Netflix has renewed The Night Agent for Season 2. Considering Season 1’s stellar ratings, it would’ve taken a high-level government conspiracy to keep the political thriller from coming back. But while showrunner Shawn Ryan has ideas about how to continue the series, which follows the adventures of upright FBI agent Peter Sutherland (Gabriel Basso), there are urgent questions he needs to answer first. Here are some of the biggest mysteries that Season 1 left dangling, from flight plans to frightful wigs.

Where is that plane taking Peter?

After he saved President Travers (Kari Matchett) and exposed the people who were trying to kill her, Peter got rewarded with a promotion into the Night Action Program. Now he’ll be out there completing missions, instead of answering calls from agents who need help. The President promises Peter that Night Action goes further and deeper than he can imagine, and the season ends with him getting on a plane, presumably to see what she means. But where is he going?

Obviously, we’re not supposed to know, and since author Matthew Quirk has only written the one Night Agent novel, there’s no way to guess. Still, because he’s on a plane, it seems likely that Peter’s next mission will take him out of the country. That’s a slight cause for concern, since Season 1 built so much of its story around Peter’s lifelong ties to D.C, where the central conspiracy took place. A far-flung locale may lack that sense of personal urgency. But then again, the supporting characters are really what make the show. As long as he meets interesting people, Peter can probably hold our interest anywhere.

Is Hong Chau coming back? What about Luciane Buchanan?

Shawn Ryan says he pitched The Night Agent as a series of standalone seasons, with few characters repeating from story to story. It would make sense for Buchanan’s character Rose to disappear, since she’s heading back to her life as a tech entrepreneur. Besides, cloak and dagger heroes from James Bond to Jason Bourne are constantly getting new girlfriends, so Peter will likely get a new lady friend, too. But at the same time, the aforementioned franchises also commit to key supporting characters, often played by Oscar-nominated actresses. To that end, it would be amazing if Diane Farr, the disgraced White House Chief of Staff that Hong Chau made so captivating, found some way to influence Peter’s next mission. Maybe she can redeem herself by actually being Peter’s ally, instead of only pretending to be.

Speaking of Hong Chau: Is her wig coming back?

Ryan insists that Chau herself wanted to wear that silver mess, so that she would look old enough to believably play a senior White House official. But if she returns, the writers really need to give her a makeover. Considering the first season asked us to believe that a trained assassin lived at home with his identical twin, it’ll be no stretch to accept that Diane Farr upgraded to a sporty bob.

Who’s going to be the new Peter?

If Peter’s ever in trouble, he’ll have to call the very phone he used to man himself. This invites speculation about who’s going to get his old job. It’s probably ludicrous to assume it’ll be Diane Farr (although that would be awesome), but it would be fun to let the new desk jockey be totally different from Peter. It could be a salty young woman who doesn’t like taking orders. It could be a janitor who stumbled into the gig. No matter what, there’s an opportunity to give Peter a memorable sparring partner.

Who’s teaching art at Georgetown?

It was certainly bad for Maddie Redfield (Sarah Desjardin) when her college art professor turned out to be an environmental activist who was using her for her connections to her father, the Vice President (Christopher Shyer). But when another operative killed that art teacher, it was bad news for Georgetown. Arts funding is constantly under siege, even at prestigious institutions, and now that one of their faculty members has been murdered, the school may have a hard time filling his position. That would set a terrible precedent, and it would impoverish the students. This is the time to start a petition, demanding that in Season 2, Kara Walker is announced as his replacement, in a tenure track position.

The Night Agent is streaming on Netflix. Join the discussion about the show in our forums.

Mark Blankenship has been writing about arts and culture for twenty years, with bylines in The New York Times, Variety, Vulture, Fortune, and many others. You can hear him on the pop music podcast Mark and Sarah Talk About Songs.