The Night Agent Season 2 was written around a set of lessons showrunner Shawn Ryan learned from Season 1, with one intended to break an archaic spy genre cliché.
The Night Agent Season 1 was wildly successful for Netflix, but developing Season 2 was difficult, given the lack of a second Matthew Quirk novel to pull from. To create an exciting sophomore season, showrunner Shawn Ryan dug into what worked so well about Season 1, crafting a set of rules for series’ writers.
In a new interview, Ryan revealed one goal that he wanted to fuel every season of The Night Agent – a commitment to breaking a major spy thriller trope.
The Night Agent will give female leads “good things to do”
One of Shawn Ryan’s key takeaways from The Night Agent’s Season 1 success was that, though Peter Sutherland is the central character, each season needed to let female characters share in the show’s most important plots and moments.
“One of the things I did between Season 1 and Season 2 was I wrote down a list for me and the other writers of things that I thought worked about Season 1 that I wanted to make sure that we had in Season 2,” Ryan told TVLine.
“One of them,” he continued, involved noticing “‘strong female characters that don’t always get good things to do in shows in this genre;’ it’s something that I want to make sure we do every year.”
Ryan noted that this focus wouldn’t shortchange Peter in the seasons to come, though.
“Obviously, we’ve got Peter at the center of things and he’s fantastic, but finding the right stories and the right characters to have these strong female representations…. In many ways, I thought Noor occupied a space for us in Season 2 that Peter did in Season 1, in that she’s the least important person in an important place and she gets thrust into importance as the season goes on.”
You can catch up on The Night Agent Season 1 on Netflix before Season 2 premieres on January 23, and here are the key details you need to remember.
