Can The Night Agent break Netflix's season two curse?

The spy series had a relatively obscure cast and a pulpy story - yet it became one of the streamer's most successful shows. Maybe it has what it takes to thrill again,

- Louis Chilton

Cancel those weekend plans and plump up the sofa cushions: one of Netflix’s biggest ever hit series is back. By this, I don’t mean Squid Game, the inventive Korean thriller that returned for season two at Christmas. Or Wednesday, the teen-focused Addams Family adaptation due to release its much-anticipated second season later this year.

I don’t mean Ryan Murphy’s Monster, either – another streaming phenomenon that recently came back for more. No, I’m talking about The Night Agent, the pulpy spy series that debuted in March 2023 and became the streamer’s sixth-mostviewed series ever. Strangely, amid a sea of constantly replenishing “content”, The Night Agent may turn out to be one of the few shows whose return doesn’t disappoint.

For many TV series, the second go-around – what American pundits sometimes refer to as a “sophomore season” – has proved a difficult nut to crack. The aforementioned Squid Game, for instance, failed to recapture the zeitgeisty buzz of its first season, which cut through pop culture like a thunderbolt during the tail end of the Covid pandemic. So, too, did the juggernaut hit Tiger King when it returned for a redundant season two.