For the most part, unless there’s some review bombing or political controversy involved, the differences between Rotten Tomatoes critics’ scores and audience scores are pretty negligible these days. Compare that to 10 or 15 years ago, when critics were typically harsher in their assessments. There are a couple of reasons for this. Several years ago, RT expanded its membership to include over 1,100 critics. This democratization is fine in theory, but in practice, many of these critics seem very eager to keep audiences happy. No one wants to be the person who ticks off a fanbase or gets blacklisted by a publicist for disliking a Marvel movie.
It is what it is, but in the current era of overly approving critics, it’s rare to find a scenario where critics love a movie or show significantly more than audiences—unless it’s some artsy film or a midnight madness horror flick. The reverse still happens sometimes: critics will gleefully skewer a beloved popcorn movie (see: Fast X), but audiences? They’re not usually out here savaging movies—unless politics are involved. Why? Because audiences typically self-select for things they think they’ll enjoy. Musical fans aren’t lining up for Longlegs, and nobody’s hate-watching Flight Risk. (That said, I suspect some of its 63 percent audience score can be attributed to political backlash.)
What’s completely baffling, however, are the high scores given to Netflix’s The Night Agent by critics, as opposed to the lukewarm-to-hostile reviews from audiences. The first season of The Night Agent received a 74 percent from critics, which is, objectively speaking, about 30 points too high. The second season, however, jumped to a ridiculous 90 percent—about 80 points too high if we’re being fair. But here’s the kicker: the audience score for the second season is 47 percent, which — for those who know how fawning RT audience scores usually are — is the equivalent of calling The Night Agent more odious than dog poop stuck to the bottom of a shoe.
And you know what? The audience is right. I have no idea what illicit drugs these critics are on, but the second season of The Night Agent is irredeemable. The first season was mid. The second? It’s like a 10-hour Gerard Butler movie if Gerard Butler were clean-shaven and forced to speak like Siri. It’s like a Jason Statham movie if Statham’s prefrontal cortex had been removed and he had to adopt a clipped Wisconsin accent. Gabriel Basso, who plays the “Night Agent,” delivers his lines like he’s being held hostage by his own gun. Meanwhile, Luciane Buchanan, who plays Rose Larkin, seems to have graduated from the Melissa Roxburgh School of Acting, where PERSONALITY IS FORBIDDEN. She’s like Jennifer Carpenter if Jennifer Carpenter weren’t allowed to swear. There are whistles with more range.
And the plot? Absolute nonsense. The first season was already idiotic — an FBI agent sitting by a phone all night in case of an emergency — but the second season doesn’t just jump the rails; it pretends rails never existed. Basso’s Peter Sutherland is now a spy trained by Brittany Snow’s character (spoiler: she’s killed in the first 10 minutes) and has a new handler who doesn’t trust him. Meanwhile, Rose Larkin spends every scene narrowly avoiding death and reminding us she’s traumatized. How do we know? Because she says it, in a flat, affectless voice, every other scene: “I. am. traumatized. I. need. to. see. my therapist.” It all leads toward a conspiracy involving a “knowledge broker,” some chemical weapons, and an attempt to install the next President.
The dialogue is clunky, the character development nonexistent, and the chemistry between Basso and Buchanan is less than spit. The whole thing feels like watching a 10-hour video game cutscene with vaguely lifelike NPCs. The henchmen look like they were generated by an app. I rolled my eyes so many times I might have lost six pairs of contacts in the folds of my brain.
I truly don’t understand how 90 percent of critics approved of this. Maybe there’s some residual affection for creator Shawn Ryan (Terriers, Angel, The Unit), but that goodwill shouldn’t extend to something this stilted and rotten. One critic compared The Night Agent favorably to a “gourmet cheeseburger”, and I can only assume he orders his cheeseburgers from a restaurant called “E. Coli and Swamp Ass.” The Night Agent isn’t even good Dad TV — even braindead, half-asleep, middle-aged men soaked in their own drool after watching their wives handle everything deserve better than this.