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

Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams 1.2 Autofac: Human v Machine

Ok, one more review for the night - of the second standalone episode in Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams, now streaming (that is, all ten episodes of this anthology) on Amazon Prime.   (See my review of the first episode for how I'll be reviewing these episodes, if you're interested.)

In Autofac, we have Dick addressing his perennial what's real and what's fantasy, dream, alternate whatever conundrum in a form likely best known these days, and for better than three decades: which one is more human, the android (robot) or the humans who made it/her/him.   This is the theme of Bladerunner, original movie and recent sequel, based on Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - two words of which are part of the title of this 2018 streaming series.

Since Autofac is just the second episode I've seen of Electric Dreams, I can't tell you if it captures the essence of Dick's science fiction better than the other episodes.  But I will say it does an outstanding job of presenting the story of which is android and which is human - with the intensity that we might expect to find in HBO's Westworld.  Which in turn means that Amazon Prime in this series is playing on some high intellect/octane terrain indeed, as it did in its other Dick production, The Man in the High Castle.

One of the reasons that Dick has had more of his stories brought to the screen than has Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, and all the masters of science fiction combined, is that he knew how to put twists and turns and surprises right in with the most complex philosophic puzzles.   Autofac has that, and manages to provide a narrative that is fresh and surprising even though its post-apocalyptic setting and artificial intelligence motifs are almost commonplace on the page and the screen.

Top-notch acting by Juno Temple, and it was good to see Revolution's David Lyons back.  Well written for television by Travis Beacham, and sharply directed by Peter Horton.

See also Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams 1.1: Mutually Alternate Realities ... 1.3 Human Is: Compassionate or Alien? ... 1.4 Crazy Diamond: DNA Batteries ... 1.5 The Hood Maker: Telepathy and Police ... 1.6 Safe & Sound: This Isn't A Drill ... 1.7 The Father Thing: Dick from Space ... 1.8 Impossible Planet: Eye of the Beholder ... 1.9 The Commuter: Submitted for Your Approval ... 1.10: Kill All Others: Too Close for Comfort

  
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