Michael Fassbender's hit spy thriller series is coming back to Paramount+, but its upcoming season 2 might not be the end of the road for the show, as it is so good that another three seasons might be possible. We are living in one of the best ages for spy thriller series. There are just so many options for fans of the espionage genre.
On the movie side, Dune director Denis Villeneuve is set to helm the next James Bond movie, casting a new star to play 007 after Daniel Craig's tenure in the role. When looking at recent spy shows, well, fans of the genre can find something to like on every streaming service. Disney+ has Andor, Netflix has The Night Agent, Prime Video has Citadel, Peacock has Ponies, Apple TV has Slow Horses, and so on.
That said, Paramount+ is the home of Fassbender's spy thriller series, which is one of the best right now. The actor is no stranger to the genre. After all, Fassbender recently played a key role opposite Cate Blanchett in director Steven Soderbergh's Black Bag, a near-perfect spy thriller with a 96% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Fassbender can clearly excel in the espionage genre. To that end, those looking for a spy series might want to check out Paramount+'s The Agency, which stars Fassbender as Martian, a former undercover CIA agent who finds it hard to adjust to life after coming back home, where his two lives merge. The Agency is one of the genre's best releases.
The Agency is a spy thriller series worth investing time in, as it favors character development over just shocking reveals and action sequences, though it does still include plenty of those. The Paramount+ spy series could go on for a long time. After all, while The Agency season 2 will be released on Paramount+ on Sunday, June 21, the show still has the source material to make it to season 5. The reason for that is simple, as Fassbender's hit espionage thriller is a remake of the French series Le Bureau des Légendes.
That series, known as The Bureau in the United States, went on for five seasons with 10 episodes in each of them. Paramount+'s The Agency is not only keeping that same episode per season ratio, but it features many of the broad strokes of the original French series, not just its general story. Sure, characters' names and motivations have changed, with events reframed to fit the world's current geopolitical standing. However, The Agency largely pulls from the original series. Martian's divide between his work and a former flame, Danny's mission in Tehran, and more come straight from The Bureau.
The fact that Le Bureau des Légendes ran for five seasons does not necessarily mean that The Agency will have the same luck, given that streaming is a volatile medium. However, based on the show's performance so far, as well as how much it improves in the upcoming season 2, The Agency is showing its staying power. The Agency season 1 holds a decent 66% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes and a strong 77% audience score. In ScreenRant's The Agency season 1 review, I gave the spy series a 7 out of 10 score.
The first season of the Paramount+ spy thriller series was good, but its pacing was a tad too slow. That said, in ScreenRant's The Agency season 2 review, I gave the espionage show a rare perfect 10 out of 10 score, saying, "Michael Fassbender's spy thriller series is a masterpiece." That is a very clear sign that the show has found out exactly how to keep improving. As such, it stands to reason that The Agency will be renewed after its best season yet, and that would make its five-season goal even easier to achieve.
