‘The Night Agent’ Ending, Explained: Who Was Behind The Metro Bombings? Was Peter’s Father Really A Traitor?

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“The Night Agent” is a new action thriller series on Netflix that is an adaptation of Matthew Quirk’s novel. The plot follows FBI agent Peter Sutherland, who receives a call for help one night during his work shift and subsequently gets involved in a long and complicated plan of political treason. Even though the plot is ultimately not as complicated or satisfying as it initially seems to be, “The Night Agent” is a fairly enjoyable watch due to its pacing, action scenes, and characters.

Spoilers Warning


‘The Night Agent’ Plot Summary: What Is The Series About?

“The Night Agent” Season 1 begins with FBI agent Peter Sutherland boarding a metro train, seemingly on his way home from work. Very soon, he spots a man leave a backpack on the train and get off in an extremely suspicious manner, and checking it out, Peter finds the bag to contain a bomb on a timer. For the safety of the hundreds of civilians aboard the train, the FBI agent calls for the train to make an emergency stop and then helps people get off into the underground tunnels. Within a very short time, though, the bomb in the train blows up, killing one citizen, with most others saved by the brave response of Peter. While recovering from the frenzied events, Peter spots the same man who had left the bomb in the train now standing among bystanders and immediately gives him a chase. However, the perpetrator manages to get away as Peter is injured in a car accident.

One year later, Peter Sutherland lives on with the guilt of being unable to save the one victim of the metro bombings. A certain section of the population even considers Peter to have some shady involvement with the terrorist attack, owing to the fact that his own father had also apparently been found guilty of treason against the country. Although still part of the FBI, Peter has now taken on a new role at the White House as the responder to a top-secret telephone line in the basement of the presidential building. Currently working under the orders of both FBI deputy director Hawkins and the Chief of Staff Diane Farr, Peter has been given the responsibility of manning the Night Agent telephone line. However, the phone line, which is apparently an extreme emergency measure for secret agents to contact the White House, hardly ever rings, and Peter spends all nights in the room just going through files and gathering information for Diane. On one unassuming night, though, the Night Agent telephone does ring, with Peter picking up the call to respond to the urgent pleas of a woman named Rose Larkin. A cybersecurity specialist and ex-CEO by profession, Rose finds her uncle and aunt suddenly attacked by two men, who kill them and also give her a chase. Organizing a police rescue team and then being ordered to go meet Rose himself, Peter makes acquaintance with the young woman and tries to figure out why her uncle and aunt had been killed.


Who Was Behind The Metro Bombing Plot?

The main plot of “The Night Agent” starts off with the double murder of Rose’s uncle and aunt, the Campbells, for there is something greatly suspicious about it. Rose, who had recently filed for bankruptcy after having been ousted from her own business firm over a cybersecurity breach, was living with the Campbells when the murder took place. That night, Rose had heard her uncle and aunt speak to each other in codes and words that suggested that the two had some secret identity related to the US government. As Peter enquired about this with Diane, it was revealed that the Campbells had been FBI agents working secretly in the counterintelligence department. On a hard drive that Peter and Rose find belonging to the couple, which they also refuse to turn in to the FBI or the Secret Service, it is also revealed that the Campbells were actually investigating the metro bombings from one year ago. Although they had retired from their FBI jobs, the Campbells had been hired as Night Agents in the recent past directly by the President of the United States, Michelle Travers, in order to secretly investigate the metro bombings. Although FBI deputy director Hawkins looked highly suspicious to have been involved in both these crimes or at least the murders of the Campbells, the man turned out to be just a victim when he was shot dead by someone fairly early on in “The Night Agent” Season 1.

With this double murder directly linked with the metro bombings of one year ago, the real drama then becomes about who got the terrorist attack carried out and what was their real intention. The two major characters in this regard are the Vice President of the United States, Ashley Redfield, and Gordon Wick, the founder of a private military company called Turn Lake. A few months after the metro bombing incident, a video was made public in which it was claimed that this terrorist activity had been planned and carried out by a group called the People’s Independent Front (PIF). The PIF is a political organization that has its roots overseas, most possibly in the Middle East and has even had its fair share of violent activities in the past. But with their leader Omar Zadar having turned into a legitimate politician in the US not very long ago, the group had denounced its once-violent ways and had even gained popularity among the masses as a clear opposition. Despite the claims that the PIF had planned the bombings, the leader, Omar Zadar, had directly denied any involvement in a public video, saying that a few reactionary supporters of the party did not represent the whole of the PIF. While many still believed the PIF to have been the perpetrators, the real truth was far from it.

In reality, it was Vice President Redfield who had planned this metro train bombing along with his close associate for many years, Gordon Wick. A former Navy SEAL now with an entire business in overseas private militias, Wick had agreed to Redfield’s plan and had recruited a man named Colin Worley to place a bomb inside the train. It was indeed Colin who Peter had seen inside the train that night and later out on the streets as well. But the intervention that Peter had caused had heavily marred the plan of the attackers, leading to Redfield and Wick requiring a plan to cover it all up. The Vice President had then contacted the Chief of Staff, Diane Farr, asking her to help them out of the situation and reminding her that everyone, including the President, would go down if she did not comply. Diane not only feared for the reputations of herself and President Michelle Travers but also cared for her personally, as she and Michelle had been friends for many years now. Therefore, Diane Farr joined Redfield and Wick in covering up the actual truth of the metro bombings and also ensured that anyone investigating it was stopped. The FBI deputy director Hawkins had realized Gordon Wick’s involvement in the bombings and had therefore been killed by Wick. The Campbells, too, had uncovered the real secret and were therefore killed by an assassin couple, Dale and Ellen, who had been hired by Wick. Although Wick was the one directly behind these murders, both Redfield and Diane knew about them and were equally accountable for them.


What Was The Real Plan Behind The Bombings? Who Kidnaps Maddie Redfield?

Along with the matter of the real perpetrators, the real motive and plan behind the metro rail bombings also became crucial, especially since top political officials directly from the White House were involved in the matter. It all first came to the notice of Peter and Rose through the hard drive that the Campbells had kept hidden, as there were blueprints and architectural designs of various places. Upon their investigation and also through their meeting with the engineer friend that the couple sought help from, Peter and Rose realized that the bomb on the train was supposed to serve a different purpose altogether. The bomb, which had been fitted with a timer, was supposed to blow off at an exact spot that was very close to a major gas line. The plan was that the bomb on the train would blow off underground and, in turn, set fire to the gas line, too, resulting in a bigger and more devastating explosion that would wipe out two entire city blocks at ground level. But there was an even more hidden motive behind this whole plan, as is revealed later on, and the real intention of Redfield and Wick was an assassination.

Their actual target was PIF leader Omar Zadar, who was perceived as a foreign troublemaker by Vice President Redfield. Based on his racist ideologies and also backed by the PIF’s list of terrorist activities in the past, Redfield was determined to wipe out Zadar. Although “The Night Agent” does not clearly make mention of this, Redfield was also politically motivated in his hatred of Zadar as well. He knew that Zadar was gaining popularity among voters and was also aware that President Travers would extend her friendship to Omar Zadar soon enough. Believing the President to be a soft leader, Redfield planned for the assassination of Zadar but could not directly get the man killed as that would trigger off massive protests and even violent reactions by the man’s followers both in the US and overseas. Therefore, he and Wick had made this plan of assassination to look like a terrorist attack. When the train was supposed to pass through the place, Omar Zadar was having a secret meeting with government officials at a restaurant, under which were the train tracks as well as the gas line. Had the bomb gone off in time according to the whole plan, Zadar would have definitely been killed, along with a significant number of citizens.

But the entire plan got spoiled because of the bravery and quick response of FBI agent Peter Sutherland, who instantly spotted Colin Worley get off the train without his backpack. His quick response then led to the train being stopped in the underground tunnel, much before it reached anywhere close to the gas pipes or the restaurant with Omar Zadar. Peter had truly been able to avert a huge crisis, but he had no idea about the effect of his action. When the bomb exploded, killing only one, Colin understood that he would be held responsible one way or another, and for this, he kept lurking about in the area and was eventually spotted by Peter. After successfully evading the FBI agent, Colin Worley called up the man who had hired him—Gordon Wick. Although Wick falsely promised to save Colin from any harm, the real plan that he came up with along with Redfield and Diane for damage control was very different. Wick sent men to kill Colin and ensure that there would be no loose ends tying them to the metro bombing plan, but the men mistakenly killed Colin’s identical twin brother Matteo. Since Colin had a history of drug abuse, Matteo’s death was made to look like it had happened due to a drug overdose, and the death also took place suspiciously just one day before Colin was to be officially interrogated by the FBI. Although the world knew that Colin Worley had died, the man now took on the identity of his twin brother Matteo and started to hatch a plan of his own.

During the entire time that he carried out the bombing plan, Colin was made to believe that the Vice President of the country was directly ordering him to do this, and therefore, Redfield would save him no matter what. However, when the man’s brother was killed, Colin was out for revenge, and he had been hatching an extensive plan to get back to the Vice President. After the deaths of his wife and younger daughter, Ashley Redfield had only one individual to call family—his elder daughter Maddie, now a young adult in college. Colin knew of Maddie just like the whole country did, and he had planned accordingly. Colin had gotten close to the art teacher at Maddie’s college and even pretended to be in a relationship with him for a few months. The art teacher, in turn, was trying to recruit Maddie into a climate activist group that he was part of and had feigned romantic interest in her for this. Finally, when Maddie sneaked off to the art teacher’s house after getting rid of her usual security detail, Colin pounced on the opportunity he had been waiting for all this time. Colin kidnapped Maddie Redfield and kept her hostage at a cargo yard, with only one demand against her release—that Vice President Ashley Redfield publicly admit his role as the mastermind behind the metro bombings and give himself up to the authorities.

Ashley Redfield did not necessarily have a great relationship with his daughter Maddie, as the latter harbored deep-seated anger against her father. Ashley had even caused the death of his younger daughter out of negligence and made young Maddie believe that it was all her fault. Nonetheless, Ashley does think of his daughter’s danger and wants to confess his crimes in public, but Wick and Diane now get in his way, since their whole plan of covering up after the crime would be at waste if Ashley now confessed. In order to ensure their safety, Wick sends his rogue assassin Ellen to kill Colin in exchange for Peter Sutherland’s location, whom Ellen was searching for to avenge her late husband Dale’s death. Ellen does ultimately kill Colin, making sure that the man cannot say or do anything threatening against the government officials, but she, too, is killed in the process.


‘The Night Agent’ Ending Explained: Do Peter And Rose Stop The Second Assassination Attempt?

Although the first attempt to assassinate Omar Zadar had failed miserably and had also required a large-scale cover-up of facts and events, Vice President Redfield and Gordon Wick were still determined to make a second attempt. Such was Redfield’s determination to remove Zadar from his country that he even agreed to kill his own President in order to do so. At present, President Travers was meeting Omar Zadar at the Camp David military defense base, and she had also removed Diane Farr from her close group, suspecting that Diane was up to some evil. However, what she had not realized was that many of the other men in the close group were working against her. Vice President Redfield tries to repair his relationship with his daughter Maddie but then takes the girl and remains hidden inside an underground shelter, waiting for the bloodshed he had planned to be executed. The house where President Travers was meeting with Omar Zadar and also with Maddie Redfield, and Secret Service agent Chelsea Arrington had been breached with a bomb that had been carried in by Redfield’s team members. In case this plan failed, a second bomb had also been fitted in the POTUS’ helicopter, which would fly her away from the place in case of any emergency.

Peter Sutherland and Rose Larkin had been working together on this matter from the very beginning, with Rose gradually convincing Peter to side with her against his FBI bosses. Ultimately, she was proven right, as Peter’s superior contact, Diane Farr, had herself turned out to be part of the perpetrators, and Peter and Rose had even started a romantic relationship. In the end, the two of them manage to find out about the locations of the bombs at the right moment, and Rose also uses her superior coding skills to fix the software bug that has stopped all communications between FBI and Security Service agents. Ultimately, in the end, the assassination attempt on Michelle Travers fails, once again, due to the courage and quick response of Peter Sutherland. As Ashley Redfield is found hiding in the underground shelter, his true role in the conspiracy to kill the POTUS and himself take on the role is finally exposed. Both he and Diane Farr seem to be arrested, and Michelle Travers continues to serve as the President. She meets with Peter and Rose, thanking them for their extraordinary service. Chelsea Arrington, who had been head of the security detail of Maddie Redfield, is also now given a promotion that she had always wanted—being a part of the security detail of the President herself.


Was Peter’s Father Really A Traitor To The USA?

The mystery surrounding Peter Sutherland’s father, Peter Sr., is also an important matter towards the beginning of the show until some information about it is revealed midway through. There had taken place a major security breach in the FBI, which instantly weakened the USA’s defense security both inside the country as well as overseas. After an investigation was conducted by the FBI, they found out that it was Peter Sr. who had caused this breach, as he had worked as a traitor and informant for foreign spies. But before the man could be punished or even tried in court, he died in a car accident. Peter Jr. does not believe in these criminal claims against his father and is sure that there are some more sinister secrets in the matter. Ultimately, though, at the end of the whole fiasco, Peter is given the opportunity to learn more about his father by President Travers. Peter obviously agrees and is shown a video of his father’s interrogation, in which the man admits to his crimes. Peter Sr. says in the video that he did make foreign friends to whom he was selling secret information. Travers then also explains that Peter Sr. had agreed to work as a double agent and gather intel about his buyers for the FBI, but unfortunately, some of the foreign spies killed him before this mission could be started. The FBI then had to pose his death as a car accident and keep his real identity a secret forever.

In the end, Peter Sutherland Jr. is given a promotion from the FBI to work directly under the White House as a night agent, and the young man is seen taking a private flight away from the country on his first mission. But Peter remains determined to find his father’s killer, as he asks President Travers about it. Although Peter does not get any reply, this could very well be content for a possible second season. After all, it is hard to say that the resolution about Peter’s father’s reputation is not very conclusive, as whatever is stated at the end could be a story made up by the FBI too. Whether there were more secrets about the life and death of Peter Sr. will definitely be the continuing focus for his son and “The Night Agent” if the series is renewed for a second season.


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Sourya Sur Roy
Sourya Sur Roy
Sourya keeps an avid interest in all sorts of films, history, sports, videogames and everything related to New Media. Holding a Master of Arts degree in Film Studies, he is currently working as a teacher of Film Studies at a private school and also remotely as a Research Assistant and Translator on a postdoctoral project at UdK Berlin.

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