EXCLUSIVE: The Night Agent will give fans what they want before calling it a day — Peter Sutherland and Rose Larkin together again. Luciane Buchanan, who played Peter’s (Gabriel Basso) charge-turned-partner and love interest Rose in the first two seasons of the Netflix action drama, will reprise her role in the series’ upcoming fourth and final season, Deadline has learned.
The extent of Rose’s Season 4 presence is unclear as her storyline is being kept under wraps. Buchanan’s return answers one of the biggest questions raised by the recent announcement that The Night Agent will end with the upcoming fourth season: will the show bring back Rose for its final installment?
Fans were left disappointed when Buchanan, the female lead opposite Basso in Seasons 1 and 2 of The Night Agent, was not invited back for Season 3, though showrunner Shawn Ryan, who explained the decision with creative reasons, left the door open for her to return in future seasons.
“I love Luciane, and I’d love to see Rose on the show again at some point,” Ryan told Deadline in February.
By not picking up Buchanan’s option for Season 3, The Night Agent released her from contract, so a new deal has to be made for her to come back, something I hear has been done for her to do Season 4, currently filming in Los Angeles. Netflix and series producer Sony Pictures TV declined comment.
“When I talked to her about that decision after Season 2, I was very clear with her, Hey, this doesn’t necessarily mean the end of you on the show. And there very well may be a time where I call and beg you to come back, whether it’s for a whole season, whether it’s for an episode or two, whatever,” Ryan told Deadline in February, ahead of the Season 3 launch, when it looked possible for The Night Agent to go on for multiple more seasons beyond that.
At the time, Ryan was noncommittal when asked whether the show moving production to Rose’s home state of California for Season 4 would help facilitate her potential return, noting that Rose technically lives in the Bay Area while the new season takes place in Los Angeles.
While the series, created by Ryan based on Matthew Quirk’s novel, is titled The Night Agent and centers on Basso’s titular character, Peter’s relationship with Rose, which was a focus of the first season, captured fans’ hearts, helping propel Season 1 to Netflix’s Top 10 Most Popular English Series list. The series’ viewership has slipped in subsequent installments, informing the decision to end the series with Season 4.
It is unclear whether Rose was written into Season 4 before or after the decision about sunsetting The Night Agent was made by Netflix in early May, after production had already started. The character was not referenced in any descriptions for the new Season 4 roles during the casting process. The main cast additions in the final season include Titus Welliver as a DOJ prosecutor, Trevante Rhodes as Peter’s new partner — the part Rose played unofficially as a civilian in Season 2 — Li Jun Li as the partner’s wife and Elizabeth Lail as Peter’s ex-fiancée Zoe.
Regardless of the extent of Rose’s presence, fans are hoping for her and Peter to get a happy ending the way George Clooney’s ER return for Julianna Margulies’ final episode gave their characters Doug and Carol a happily ever after.
“He still loves Rose,” Basso said in February when asked by Deadline why Peter has sworn off romance after breaking up with Rose to keep her safe. “I think he wants a relationship, but at this point in his life and how important he sees this job and rooting out corruption and doing the right thing, I think that ultimately is more important to him than having a relationship. But I think if anyone, he would probably try to find Rose again and track her down and see what happens with that.”
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