The Night Agent 3: Father and Son

I thought the third season of The Night Agent was easily the best of the three -- I liked the first season a lot (here's my review), the second season more (but I didn't have the time to review), but this third season was really top-notch unusual and exceptional.

Here's what I especially liked:

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

The hitman father -- with no name other than The Father -- and his son -- known only as The Son -- made for a really original, compelling story, that even ultimately managed against all odds to be close to heartwarming.  The Father acquires his Son after killing The Son's parents.  The Father hitman has some human decency, and although the son was then just a little baby, who would not have been able to tell the police anything, The Father just couldn't leave the baby crying there, an even worse, in an apartment filled with carbon monoxide.

The little boy that we see in the present day, about eight years old, is paralleled in the story we see of Peter as a boy.  Death is near to both boys, since Peter's mother will soon be dying of cancer.  And just to throw a well-known book into this mix, there's a copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales that also plays a part in Season 3.

Meanwhile, the corrupt President Hagan, willing to permanently dispose of anyone who stands in his way, couldn't have been a more timely character.   The Night Agent in all three seasons has had a lot in common with 24, but Season 3 has the greatest similarity, with someone in the White House as a central villain.  Peter Sutherland helps bring down Richard Hagan, just as Jack Bauer did with Charles Logan in Season aka Day 5 of 24.  And Chelsea Arrington gave a great assist, and indeed led the charge against Hagan.

I did miss Rose in the first part of Season 3, but the gripping breakneck pace of the narrative soon became enjoyably all-consuming. I expect we'll see her back in some way in Season 4.  We did get Chelsea -- who may well be Peter's new professional partner in Season 4. And I'm glad that Adam survived, too.  His coming around in the end to do the right thing shows the winning subtlety in Season 3, with shades of grey playing a major role between heroes and villains.

Gabriel Basso was excellent again as Peter Sutherland, as was Louis Herthum as Jacob Monroe and everyone else from previous seasons.  And new additions Fola Evans-Akingbola as Chelsea, David Lyons as Adam, and Stephen Moyer as The Father were especially notable.  I look forward to see those three and how their stories play out in Season 4.

See also The Night Agent (Season 1): The Right Good

56 Days: Wild, Sometimes Winsome, Sometimes Weird, Thrilling Little Series

My wife and I just binged 56 Days on Amazon Prime.  Aside from the title, I thought that this was one wild, sometimes winsome, sometimes weird, multifaceted gem of a thrilling whodunnit series, with two separate complex intersecting stories that jump back and forth from the present to the past.

One story is about the couple who have some kind of a close proximity to a body found in their apartment, no doubt murdered and turned into a chemical soup in a bathtub.   The initial question is who in this couple murdered whom.  

[And there will be at one spoiler ahead ... ]

I began to think pretty soon that the soup could be of both of their bodies, or a third person's body altogether (which turned out to be what it was).

The other story was of the two detectives investigating the crime, an older, somewhat disillusioned guy and his younger woman partner.  She's having an uncomfortable affair with a suspect (in another case), who doesn't take kindly to her efforts to end that relationship.

Romantic love in surprising places and its power to overcome all kinds of obstacles is one of the central underlying themes of 56 Days.  This animates the couple associated with the human soup in all sorts of surprising ways.   And a story of love rearing its head and holding its own in all kinds of unlikely situations is one of the most attractive parts of this series.

Kudos to creators Karyn Usher and Lisa Zwerling, and Avan Joglia and Dove Cameron as the couple in the apartment, and Karla Souza and Dorian Missick as the detective partners.  All four gave memorable performances.

Speaking of which, another notable thing in this steamy series is the nudity we see. Back in the 1960s, that was de rigueur in a story like this, at least in the movies. Nowadays, the most we usually get is black underwear. But in a story like this, in which the romantic love is palpably fueled by erotic desire, we need a little more (or, depending how you look at it, a lot less).

I said earlier that I didn't care for the title, and it was indeed the unexpected emotional power of the narrative that I thought deserved a more evocative title than just a number of days.  The action flipping back and forth from the present to x number of days in the past is of course what generated the 56 Days title, but that narrative form would have worked just as well with any title.  I know that the series is based on a 2021 novel of the same name by Catherine Ryan Howard (which I haven't read), but a streaming series that bears some resemblance to You and the movie Body Heat deserves a name at least as good as those.

In fact, You as a title is not even that good. Body Heat is fine. But the point is the number of days as a title is lackluster. And flashing the number of days on the screen (prior to 56, which is the present), over and over again, became tedious, and for me at least, distracted from the story. A simple "Present" and "Past" would have worked much better, and would have slided us into the story without needing to do any math.

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Cross 2.1-2.3: To the Rescue

My wife and I saw Season 1 of Cross (starring Aldis Hodge) a few years ago and really enjoyed it.  I didn't have time to review it then, but I thought it was fast-paced, full of twists and turns, and emotionally powerful.  I liked it just as much as, if not more than, the Morgan Freeman movies in the 1990s.

We saw the first three episodes of the second season last night.  It's starting as engaging and powerful as the first season, with a crucial additional ingredient:  it speaks to the political turmoil currently pulling our country apart, and comes in on the ethical, democratic side on two related, front-page issues.

Those would be the Epstein files and the ICE attacks on anyone they see as not belonging in this country.  

[Spoilers ahead .... ]

The new season opens with a pair of assassins killing a man disturbingly similar to Epstein on an island with middle-aged men and young female victims.  It was an opening gambit that posed a vexing moral question: Are Cross and company right to hunt such assassins? And, are this serial killer couple second cousins of Dexter Morgan?

Next, we have an immigrant who kills a vicious ICE officer (or whatever racist US police force), who had recently killed someone that Cross was about to subdue without violence.  It will be instructive to see how Cross investigates, but the series deserves credit for correctly depicting what ICE and the Border Patrol have been doing not just near our borders, but in Minneapolis, Chicago, and cities across our country.

As was the case in the first season, there's lots of hot romance in the story, and more than one crime and criminal that Cross and his associates must bring to justice.  Based on the first season, I'd say that no one (other than Cross) is safe in this narrative, and I'm looking very much forward to seeing how it all unfolds.

Ten-Minute Podcast Take on Current Beatles Books and Documentaries

 from Rock Talk Studio ...

A Conversation with Sarah Clarke Stuart about Song of the Unsung Mushroom

Welcome to Light On Light Through episode 417, in which Sarah Clarke Stuart and her husband Jonathan Oakes join me and my wife Tina Vozick in a conversation about Sarah's debut novel, Song of the Unsung Mushroom, published January 15, 2026 by Connected Editions (a boutique publisher that I and Tina created and operate). 

At times joining our conversation are Alexis Stuart (who created the cover for Sarah's novel), Susan Clarke, Molly Vozick-Levinson, Elizabeth Clarke, Chryssi Steven, Meghan Vickers, Bud Gundy, and Edwin Stepp (thanks to the last three for providing blurbs for the novel).

Relevant links:

• Kindle, paperback, hardcover, audiobook (read by Sarah for Listen and Live Audio) of the novel here
• More about Connected Editions here

 

Check out this episode!

Hijack 2.3: On Counting on Actors Who Play Good Guys Not to Play Bad Guys

We find out lots of essential things in Hijack 2.3. 

[And there will be spoilers ahead .... ]

First and foremost: Of course Sam Nelson was not going to sacrifice any innocent person's life for anything he had planned for the train he had hijacked.   His threatening to sacrifice that man was just a ploy to get the people running the trains in Berlin to do what he needed them to do.

This raises, at least to me, the interesting question of can you predict what a character will do in a TV series or movie based on who the actor was, or more specifically, what characters the actor has previously played.  Even in The Wire, in which Idris Elba played someone high up in a drug cartel in Baltimore, he displayed a conscience and a heart.  That in itself was why I was sure that Sam, who was an honest man with a big heart in the first season of Hijack, wouldn't trade in an unthreatening person's life in the second season.

Of course, actors occasionally do switch from playing heroes to villains. Elba has indeed done that a few times.  Ronald Reagan played a bad guy for the first and last time in his acting career in The Killers.  He would go into politics after that, and become Governor of California and then President for two terms.  Not the greatest President, in my humble opinion, though almost any predecessor looks good in comparison to the current occupant.  I was surprised to see Eddie Redmayne play a villain in the brilliant  Day of the Jackal -- after his performance as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything -- but he was charismatic in Jackal, and I saw, after a bit of research, that he's played lots of villains in his career.

Back to Sam, we also in the third episode of this second season find out that the reason he hijacked the train was to save his former wife from the brutal people who hijacked the plane in the first season, and in between the two seasons killed his son.  Lots of tension building up, and I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next.

See also Hijack 1: Don't Miss It! ... Hijack 2.1: A Tale of Two Vehicles ... 2.2: What Is Sam Nelson Really Up To?

Hijack 2.2: What Is Sam Nelson Really Up To?

Hijack 2.2 on Apple TV+ intensified and deepened a mystery which, at least thus far, is becoming central to this second season:  What is Idris Elba's Sam Nelson really up to?

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

In the previous episode -- 2.1 -- we learn at the end of the hour that Sam has hijacked a train in Berlin, in his quest to punish the person or people ultimately responsible for hijacking the plane in the first season, presumably because they have done something horrendous to Sam since he got back on the ground after stopping the hijacked plane from crashing into a populated area in London and killing lots of people.

The hijacking of the train is confirmed in episode 2.2, which ends with Sam about to do something much worse than the train being hijacked: he's apparently ok with, though not happy about, someone being killed due to his hijacking.  He makes it clear that he doesn't want this to happen, but he's willing to accept it, if that's what it takes for Sam to continue with his new mission.

I have trouble completely believing this.  Maybe it's because I can't quite see Idris Elba playing a character who can accept that his actions were causing the death of an innocent person.  I guess, if we follow the utilitarian principle of the greatest good for the greatest number, that allowing one person to die is the ethical choice if that was the only way of stopping the death of many people, but if that's the case in this narrative, it would be helpful to see some indication that this is what Sam was trying to prevent.

At this point, we're still not clear about Sam's motive.  If it's personal retribution, that would not be a case of the greatest good for the greatest number of people.  Perhaps Sam's motive is both personal and utilitarian.  Or perhaps Sam knows for whatever reason that the individual will not be killed. I'm looking forward to seeing how this all plays out.

See also Hijack 1: Don't Miss It! ... Hijack 2.1: A Tale of Two Vehicles

About Bob Dylan's Science Fiction Novel

@bobdylan

Bob Dylan on Instagram

Dylan posted the above on Instagram yesterday (my son Simon Vozick-Levinson alerted me to it this morning). On Instagram and Reddit, and probably in other places, people are speculating that if Dylan did write it, he used AI to write it. I’m no expert on AI, but I’ve been listening to Dylan’s lyrics since the 1960s, and the excerpt he posted certainly seems consonant with the style and content of his lyrics. 

 Lyrics often repeat ideas and feelings — indeed, that’s what choruses explicitly do. And the ideas and emotion presented in this excerpt feel like a lyric — a song without music, lamenting, protesting, objecting to the danger, the destruction of our democracy that we see happening all around us, every day. I’m glad to see a man who actually won the Nobel Peace prize come out and assess this, decry this, in his own inimitable way. 

His novel/lyric aim in particular at universities who acquiesce, crumble under the pressure of the Trump administration and his allies. I’m looking at you, Columbia University. 

And, by the way, Dylan’s no stranger to science fiction. His Frankenstein-like song, "My Own Version of You" in his Rough and Rowdy Ways LP in 2020, is a funny, great little piece of science fiction, in one of his best albums. We the people who believe in freedom and democracy need all the help we can get in these desperate days, and it’s welcome indeed to have Dylan stepping up and in any way he can.

See also Dylan's Murder Most Foul: From Then To Now

Hijack 2.1: A Tale of Two Vehicles

So, I reviewed the first season of Hijack in August 2023 after I saw the final episode.  It was a wonderful series.  Idris Elba in the lead role has been one of my all-time favorite actors since he played Stringer Bell in The Wire in the first decade of this century, and he was better than ever in Hijack, with standout acting from Eve Myles and other well-known actors.

The first episode of the second season, just up on Apple TV, has less action than the first episode of the first season, and almost no one other than Elba that I know in the cast.  It takes place -- or starts taking place -- in Germany, and features a train rather than a plane.  As my wife pointed out, that follows the pattern of Departure, with a first season featuring a plane crash and a second season a train derailment.  Come to think of it, Archie Panjabi starred in Departure, and also put in an appearance in the first season of Hijack.

There were two notable aspects of the first episode of the second season of Hijack [spoilers ahead]:

• Sam Nelson (Idris Elba) is on the trail of whoever it was who was ultimately responsible for the hijacked plane and most or all of the other crime in the first season.   Good -- that person or person eminently deserves to be brought to justice.
• The big reveal at the end of the first episode is that Sam is hijacking a train in Berlin in his drive to bring the ultimate instigator of the plane hijack to justice.  I'd say that's a pretty dramatic and cool twist, that I don't recall seeing before.

Idris is equally convincing in high-powered action and more low-key emotional turmoil situations, and I'm looking forward to seeing how that plays out on this train and beyond.

See also Hijack: Don't Miss It!

Bugonia: Not Good Science Fiction, Because It Isn't Really Science Fiction, But--

I just watched Bugonia (a movie) on Peacock.  It's billed as two conspiracy theorists kidnap a CEO because they believe she comes from the Andromeda galaxy, and now I'll warn you about spoilers...

For most of the movie, it surely seems as if the kidnap victim is as human as you and me, and the kidnappers, also human, are out of their minds (actually, one of them, brilliantly played by Jesse Plemons, much more than his sidekick).  This part of the movie is lifted by Plemons' acting, but has little else to commend it.  I don't especially enjoy narratives about psycho conspiracy theorists, and never less so than nowadays, when we have them running our government.

The big twist in the movie, which comes near the end, but I guessed as soon as I read the description, was that the CEO was indeed someone from distant outer space.   And this might have made, could have made, a good story, except that the plot was like a grade B movie made a century ago.   Who knows, it might have been a great silent movie, and I certainly wouldn't have objected to less screaming throughout.

As it is, we're treated to lots of blood and gore, and the ending, in which the interstellar overlords decide to kill the entire human race, was so ridiculous, I can't say it even qualifies in this century as science fiction.  Its morality was high, or attempted to be, and its science close to nil.

But I guess we're in increasing need of morality plays, as we struggle with this increasingly immoral government that we find in our nation these days.  A movie that jokingly or otherwise offers the thesis that conspiracy theorists are sometimes right is certainly not the answer.

Best Cover of One of the Best Love Songs

Well, I thought a good way to conclude the first week of the New Year, 2026, is to share a cover I found on YouTube, late last year.  It's the Missioned Souls' recording of one of the best love songs ever written (and performed), "Take A Chance on Me" by ABBA.

Lots of things to love in this video -- the vocal and harmonies -- which rival ABBA's, the expressions on the faces of the singers, the way the 10-year old drummer pounds the drums ... but listen and see for yourself.

New York Times Article about Neanderthals

Great New York Times article about Neanderthals, which confirms a lot of what about them in my 1999 debut novel The Silk Code.

 

The Copenhagen Test: Don't Try to Pass It, Watch It

Binged The Copenhagen Test -- eight episodes -- on Peacock the past the two nights.  It's billed as a spy thriller, which it certainly is.  But in as much as Alexander Hale (powerfully played by Simu Liu, pretty much first time I've seen him, ok I saw him in Barbie) is a spy who discovers he's been hacked -- everything he sees and hears is streamed by his brain to whomever has the receiver -- I'd say The Copenhagen Test easily qualifies as cyberpunk, a well-known branch of science fiction.  I mean, I guess this kind of neural hack is related to Elon Musk's Neuralink, but that's a very first step, and the hack in The Copenhagen Test is already serious big business for the Orphanage, the US spy agency that monitors the CIA, the FBI, etc.

Now, I'm not going to tell you anything about the plot, because one of the many strengths of The Copenhagen Test are the twists and turns which multiply faster than Frank the Bunny in Donnie Darko.  Indeed, just when you think you've been told the whole story, you're dealt another curve ball, and the only way to really know the story is over is when the eighth episode is completed, and even then, well ,,,

Along the same lines, the morphing of heroes into villains and vice versa is the most I've seen or read in any story.   But it all makes pretty much sense in the end, and my only regret is that The Copenhagen Test didn't have the Beach Boys' "Heroes and Villains" as its theme song.

About the acting:  As I said, Simu Liu was superb.  So was Brian d'Arcy James as Peter Moira, someone pretty high up in the Orphanage, whom my wife immediately recognized from The Family McMullen, which we saw last week.  Sinclair Daniel and Melissa Barrera were both indelible in their parts, and you can't go wrong with Saul Rubinek, especially when there's so much action in his character's restaurant.

And trust me, if you're a fan of spy narratives and cyberpunk, even if you're not, you can't go wrong with The Copenhagen Test.

 

Run Away: Run Towards

I'm a big fan of Harlan Coben's adaptations on the screen -- I've reviewed 10 of his series here since 2017 - and am happy to lead off the New Year (once again) with a review of his latest, Run Away, an 8-part series that went up on Netflix on New Year's Day.  I'd say this eleventh Coben series I'm reviewing is, once again, one of his best, because:

• Lead actor James Nesbitt puts in a standout performance.  I've been enjoying his work since Bloodlands, tied in my opinion with the superb Blue Lights (in which Nesbitt doesn't appear) as a tour de force story taking place in Northern Ireland.   Nesbitt expertly delivers the wide range of human emotion required in Run Away, and is especially effective with his blend of heartbreak and fury.
• Coben's specialty is packing in all sorts of major clues at the beginning, like people being killed for apparently no reason, then coming up with a plausible explanation in the final episode.
• Also lighting up Coben's narratives are at first seemingly incidental characters, whom you find yourself really caring about as you're drawn into their personalities and stories. Elena Ravenscroft (played by Ruth Jones), a private detective (formerly police), is such a memorable character.
• Speaking of police, it was great to see  Alfred Enoch (Raych in Foundation! and Dean Thomas in four Harry Potter movies) as the indefatigable DI Isaac Fagbenle.  His partner, redhead Ruby Todd (played by Amy Gledhill) was very good, too.

Now, as you may have noticed, I'm talking more about characters than story here, because I don't want to give anything away.  But, trust me,  you'll have butterflies in your stomach and tears in your eyes (of joy and sadness) when you see Run Away.

 

Stranger Things Finale: El's Fate

So I just saw the Stranger Things series finale -- on Netflix.  Here's a critique -- with spoilers.

The whole ending hinges on El no longer being available to her friends, who in effect are her family. She's either no longer alive -- though we didn't see her die -- or she has deliberately made herself unavailable. Everyone, except Mike, seems to accept that.

But why did El do that?  Vecna's dead.  Henry is therefore no longer significant.  So what's the threat?  What is El trying to protect her friends and family from?   The U.S. military?

That vicious force, led by Dr. Kay, was already no match for the Hawkins contingent.   So El left the people she had come to cherish because of that?   I find that hard to believe.   I think that El would have found another way.

Perhaps the Duffer brothers intend to make some sort of sequel in which Mike searches for El.  He certainly makes clear to his friends that he doesn't think she's gone for good.   The Duffer brothers have made clear that they're finished with the 1980s ambience, but they could show Mike and El in the 90s and beyond, or change their mind and revisit the 1980s after all.

The five seasons were a fun ride.  As I've said, I thought this fifth and final season really shone.  And the finale had its moments.   But I can't say that I'm a fan of the way it ended.  But also on the strengths of Stranger Things, I'll definitely take a look at anything else the Duffer brothers do.

See also Stranger Things 1.1-1.5: Parallel Horror ... Stranger Things 1.6-18: Lando to Fringe ... Stranger Things 2: Bigger, Better ... Stranger Things 3: Growing Up...  Stranger Things 4: A Big Step Forward ... Stranger Things 5.1-5.4: Best So Far ... Stranger Things 5.5-5.7: Not Science Fiction, But Supernatural

more about The Silk Code here