Summary
In “Package Deal”, The Night Agent has already turned the tables on Peter in a pretty big way, leading to the death of a familiar character.
I started my coverage of The Night Agent Season 3 by reminding everyone that Peter Sutherland is a deeply terrible undercover agent, so Episode 2 shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. But even by his standards, “Package Deal” is an impressive disaster. For him, I mean — as an hour of television, it’s pretty good, with decent tension and a stake-raising death that really helps to establish the enigmatic Broker as a proper villain, even if it requires a surprising amount of stupidity — or at least underestimation — to get everyone to that point.
The upside of this season thus far is that there are still a lot of questions I genuinely don’t know the answers to. “Package Deal” introduces another new bad guy, an unconventional assassin type, who may be working for the Broker or someone else, so there’s plenty to be going on with beyond the core plot of U.S.-backed terrorism. And here’s David Zayas for a brief cameo, since why not?
Chasing A Lead
We begin with a flashback to five days previously, which is when Isabel first got wind of Jay’s efforts to blow the whistle on a series of sketchy SARs that indicated various American shell companies funded the destruction of Flight Pima 12. Zayas is playing her boss, Mike, one of those classic avuncular, well-intentioned boss types who you just know is going to be unceremoniously killed off to raise the stakes. And so it is.
Mike makes himself useful first, though. When Isabel’s attention is drawn to a man named Vernon Tyvek, the compliance officer who signed off on all the SARs before he was suddenly relieved of his position, Mike locates his parents in the phone book, which allows them to track him down. Vernon points the finger at Heroes for Healing, a nonprofit for injured vets with very irregular financial behavior. Mike goes to chase down a lead while Isabel takes a break, and you know what that means.
In short order, Mike summons Isabel to meet him at a bar with the Anderson file, the contents of which we don’t know anything about yet. Before she can arrive, though, Mike is fatally drugged by an assassin whom we earlier saw negotiate triple his usual fee for the assignment. RIP, Mike. We barely knew you.
Jay’s Decision
Peter is also back Stateside with Jay. He tells Catherine and Aiden that the broker has been in contact and wants Jay, but whether or not to hand him over is a matter for some debate. Aiden doesn’t want to do it, believing they can use Jay’s obvious skills to build a case of their own, but Catherine thinks whatever the Broker can offer is too valuable, and Jay is worth the risk. Peter pushes back against the Broker as much as he can, proposing another solution — a trade.
Peter’s plan is to use Jay as bait to get the Broker to hand over the names of corrupt agents within the FBI and CIA. He initially gambles for ten, but the Broker negotiates him down to just five. But he does send one over immediately as a goodwill gesture. Agent Shigeru Ando was about to become a section chief, and is very dirty, so it’s a good enough catch to lend some validity to what the Broker is offering.
The play is to entice the Broker with Jay, get him to hand over the names, and then apprehend him. His providing the information is enough to make a charge stick as long as Peter records the exchange, but it means imperilling Jay. Peter wants the decision to be his, once again leaning on some of their innate similarities to help nudge him in the right direction.
The Broker Is A Step Ahead
The Night Agent Season 3, Episode 2 isn’t content with just Mike’s death. Instead, it delivers a much more impactful demise in the form of Catherine. This whole sequence — which is pretty effectively tense — pulls double duty as confirmation that the Broker is really about this life in a way that Peter and the Feds didn’t quite expect.
The idea is simple enough. Peter is wearing an undetectable recording device in his collar. The Broker’s goons pick him and Jay up at the 59th Street bridge, while Catherine and a tactical team follow from some distance behind. When the car pulls into a railway tunnel, the Broker himself enters the vehicle and begins asking Jay some quasi-polite questions about his particular skillset, especially his ability to put relatively scant information together into a bigger picture. This is presumably the skill that the Broker wants to make use of, but Jay’s true purpose remains a bit enigmatic for now.
Either way, things seem to be going well. The Broker hands over the names. But he makes Peter and Jay wait in the car. With the deal having concluded, Catherine and the tactical team rush the vehicle, but they find it empty. A switch obviously took place in the railway tunnel. The raid turns up nothing except several blocks of plastic explosive, which detonate in Catherine’s face.
The Broker was one step ahead the whole time, and Peter has just tipped his hand. He’s relieved of his recording device and told by the Broker in no uncertain terms that if he doesn’t play ball the next time he receives a call, the next explosion will be at Rose Larkin’s house. The Broker lets him go, but keeps Jay for his own, presumably nefarious purposes.
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