The Night Agent Season 3 Ending: Does Jacob Monroe Does Jacob Monroe Die? Who Is Peter’s New Partner, Adam?

In his Season 3 mission, Peter is joined by Isabel De Leon (Genesis Rodriguez), a reporter for The Financial Register, whose intellect and integrity help guide the Night Agent as he’s forced to make more of those extremely difficult choices Ryan says are all part of the job. “It’s just so poignant, with everything going on in the world right now,” Rodriguez says of the season’s story. “To see a journalist’s journey to get to the truth and how far they will go to do that is really important.” 

But what exactly are Peter and Isabel trying to expose, and who’s willing to kill to keep it buried? Ahead, we break down every layer of Season 3’s conspiracy, with insights from Ryan, Basso, and Rodriguez.

What is Peter’s assignment in Season 3?

Despite being in desperate need of a break after closing four cases in the last six months, Peter meets with Agent Mosley in Episode 1 and asks for a new assignment. Just two nights earlier, the Capitol Police and the FBI responded to a gunshot at the DC apartment of Jay Batra (Suraj Sharma), a junior analyst for FinCEN. Batra, who recently fled to Istanbul, is suspected of killing his supervisor, Benjamin Wallace (Michael Masini), and stealing classified FinCEN intelligence.

Is there a greater conspiracy at play?

Of course! It wouldn’t be The Night Agent without multiple layers of malfeasance. Peter’s mission starts like a contained manhunt — track down the fugitive FinCEN analyst in Istanbul — but quickly expands into something larger: a money trail that points to a US-based network financing terrorism and a broker who’s been inside the intelligence community for years.

As Peter begins to work on his new case, Night Action is also looking into the recent attack on Flight PIMA 12, which was carried out by Raul Zapata and his terrorist group, the L.F.S., and killed hundreds of passengers, including 157 Americans. But for now, Peter’s focused on tracking down Jay. Once in Istanbul, he finds the former FinCEN analyst and, through some detective work, surmises that Jay is planning to meet with Isabel De Leon at a soccer match. So Peter also goes to the game — which was filmed inside Beşiktaş Stadium during a real-life game — but quickly realizes he’s not the only one following Jay. After Jay hands over the intelligence to Isabel, Peter helps him escape from the other men who’re after him. 

What did Jay uncover, and why does Monroe want him?

Once they’ve lost the pursuers, Jay finally gives Peter the details about what happened. About a month earlier, FinCEN received a number of Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) — transactions banks flagged as suspicious and potentially illegal — which banks are legally required to file with FinCEN when they arise. The reports contained multiple large-money transfers from several American companies to a crypto wallet. Jay wanted to investigate the SARs further, but was told by his supervisor, Wallace, to drop it.

Then, five days ago, Wallace came to Jay’s apartment and questioned if he had continued looking into the SARs anyway. The conversation escalated, and eventually, Wallace destroyed the hard drive containing the SARs and pulled out a gun. In the middle of the chaos, Wallace said something that haunts Jay: “They made me do it,” suggesting he wasn’t acting alone, and that someone higher up was pressuring FinCEN to bury the truth. As the struggle between the two unfolded, a shot was fired, and Wallace was killed. Terrified, Jay went on the run and sent tips out to journalists, believing that going public with what he’d found — copies of the SARs and the money trail behind them — would keep him safe. The problem is that Isabel now has the only remaining set of copies, the best shot at proving Jay’s story and clearing his name.

Peter agrees to help Jay, who is worried that this is part of a larger conspiracy involving FinCEN. Why? The crypto wallet named in the SARs may belong to a terrorist group. More specifically, Jay believes the wallet is owned by Raul Zapata and the L.F.S., and that the money flagged in the SARs actually financed the attack on PIMA 12. Three weeks earlier, Jay had written a memo warning that the group was an imminent threat to American interests and FinCEN should share the intel with the FBI, but Wallace shut him down, meaning the attack was funded by someone stateside and could have been prevented.

Just as this information comes out, Peter finally gets a call from the broker, which he’s waited months for. Because Monroe is seeking Jay, Peter suspects that all the American shell corporations connected to the attack via the SARs are Monroe’s, and that he facilitated the terrorist attack, just like he did the UN attack last season. And speaking of, because Peter broke into the UN and stole documents for Monroe last season to prevent that attack, Monroe is now using that to blackmail him into turning Jay over.

How does Catherine die, and what does it mean for Peter?

Cornered and out of alternatives, Jay agrees to let Night Action use him as bait to draw Monroe out into the open. In Episode 2, they set up a trade. Agent Mosley and Peter’s Night Action handler, Catherine Weaver (Amanda Warren), plan to use this as their opportunity to capture Monroe, but the broker is way ahead of them. Peter and Jay’s meetup involves a misdirection, which results in Catherine’s death and Jay’s capture. This has a profound effect on Peter. “He’s realizing that his decisions get people hurt, and how good people can die in an environment that’s run by people without morals,” says Basso. “It’s sad and devastating, but I think in that way, he realizes, ‘Oh, if I’m probably going to die anyway, I might as well do the right thing and die not in service of people that are corrupt and evil.’ It almost cements him in his conviction even more.”

According to Ryan, this season revolves around Peter coming into his own as a Night Agent, and the writers wanted to show that he was losing some of his naivete and becoming more confident and capable of making his own decisions. “The most effective and powerful way [of doing that] was to have him witness the death of his mentor and boss, so the lessons she taught still lie with him, but now he has to deal with the aftermath,” he explains. “We liked the idea that he has to take on the mantle of some of Catherine’s responsibilities to solve the mystery at the heart of Season 3 and stop the attacks that are coming. He has to step up in a way he didn’t have to in the first couple of seasons.”

How are the president and first lady involved in all this?

Last season, Monroe used Peter to expose that presidential hopeful Patrick Knox (Geoffrey Owens) was behind Project Foxglove, which lost him the presidency. As it turns out, everything was orchestrated by Monroe, and the information was shared with Knox’s opponent, Richard Hagan (Ward Horton), to help ensure his victory in the presidential election. You could say that now President Hagan is somewhat indebted to Monroe, but this season, it’s revealed that Monroe had even more involvement in Hagan’s election and is already benefiting greatly.

In Episode 3, we’re taken inside the White House, where President and first lady Hagan (Jennifer Morrison) now live. There, Secret Service agent Chelsea Arrington (Fola Evans-Akingbola), who worked alongside Peter in previous seasons, is serving as Head of Security for the first family. One evening, Chelsea notices a butler named Henry Mott (Steven Robertson) has been inside the first lady’s quarters for an unusually long time. When she goes to check that everything is okay, she hears arguing, and FLOTUS yells for help. Jumping into action, Chelsea shoots the butler, who first lady Jenny Hagan says is armed — spoiler alert: he isn’t. 

By Episode 5, Chelsea has become suspicious of the alleged attack, so she does some digging and discovers that a shell company called CorePoint Dynamics had been making recurring payments to the butler before he was shot. CorePoint Dynamics also showed up in the SARs that Jay handed over to Isabel, and Peter realizes CorePoint is linked to the broker’s shell network, the same web Isabel once investigated and Peter chased in earlier cases.

So why was Monroe making payments to Mott through CorePoint? In an Episode 9 flashback to a very exclusive fundraiser twenty months earlier, Jenny Hagan makes a deal with Jacob Monroe to save her husband’s chances at the presidency. Monroe proposes that he’ll give $6 million directly to Hagan’s campaign, instead of through the SuperPac, by illegally laundering it through Jenny’s charity, Signature Initiative. In exchange, Jenny agrees to provide access to the presidential daily briefs, which, for an intelligence broker, are extremely valuable — and dangerous. 

To carry out this partnership once in the White House, First Lady Hagan begins meeting regularly with Mott, who takes pictures of the daily briefs to share with Monroe, also in exchange for money to help cover the cost of his child’s cancer treatment. Once FLOTUS learns that Monroe is suspected of financing terrorism, though, she wants to call off the deal. But Mott is desperate, so the two argue over access to the briefs, which eventually ends with the butler’s death at Chelsea’s hands.

Who is Peter’s new partner, Adam?

Peter’s new partner, Adam (David Lyons), who’s introduced in Episode 3, also has a connection to President Hagan. The president himself assigned Adam to work with Peter on the Jacob Monroe investigation, but knowing the president’s special interest in this case and suspected involvement with Monroe, Peter proceeds with caution. “Shout out to David, who brought a lot of shadings to the character beyond what was on the page,” says Ryan. “He was fantastic.”

In Episode 5, it’s revealed that Adam previously served as President Hagan’s commanding officer in the military. Before that, he also spent 12 years carrying out paramilitary operations for the CIA. So when the president finds out that Monroe may have ties to the recent terrorist attacks, he enlists Adam’s help. Hagan knows he can count on Adam to act on his orders no matter what.

PHOTO BY CHRISTOPHER SAUNDERS

How are Jacob Monroe and Isabel De Leon related?

When Peter points out that CorePoint Dynamics is one of Monroe’s shell companies, Isabel says she has a source she can speak to about it to find out more. It’s also around this time that a seemingly personal item — an old copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales — starts to surface as an eerie through line, one that will become unexpectedly crucial to unlocking Monroe’s secrets. Suspicious, Peter follows Isabel and finds that her source is Monroe himself. Knowing that the broker banks with Walcott Capital, the bank that issued the SARs, Isabel confronts Monroe in Episode 6 and says she knows he kidnapped Jay, which he denies. As the two go back and forth, it becomes clear that Monroe isn’t just another source for Isabel — he’s her father. 

“I was shook,” says Rodriguez of the moment she first read that plot twist in the script. Once the initial shock wore off, however, the actor says the emotional scenes with Herthum were incredible to shoot. “They have so much complexity,” she explains. “With Isabel, she had her abandonment wounds so present.”

Because of those wounds, Isabel still believes that Monroe is responsible for funding the L.F.S. attack, especially since she looked into the tax returns on the trust her father set up for her and found an additional connection to CorePoint Dynamics. But he continues to insist he wasn’t involved and is horrified to find out that, because of her reporting on the SARs, Isabel’s life is in danger. Monroe claims he does know who might be behind the attack and after Isabel, so he sets out to make it right.

Monroe meets with Freya Myers (Michaela Watkins), a banker at Walcott Capital, who he believes is responsible for sending an assassin to kill Isabel after she discovered Walcott has been profiting from terrorist activities. He tries to get Freya to call the assassin off, but Freya won’t back down. Instead, she sets her assassin on Monroe as well. With his own life in danger, the only person Monroe can count on for help is Peter. 

In Episode 7, the broker tries to make a deal with Peter: If the Night Agent helps him and Isabel stay safe, he’ll provide all the information needed to take down Zapata and the L.F.S. and stop their next attack, which everyone believes is imminent. But Peter also wants Monroe to expose every spy, politician, and dirty agent he’s worked with over the years. Because one of his former allies targeted Isabel, Monroe agrees. “They went after my daughter, and she’s the only one I care about anymore,” Monroe tells Peter over the phone.

What is Monroe’s connection to Zapata and the L.F.S.?

So Peter and Monroe have a deal. But if Monroe wasn’t responsible for funding the L.F.S.’s recent terrorist attack, how exactly does he have so much information about Zapata? Also in Episode 7, we flash back to 1995, when a young Monroe (Derek Richardson), who’s working as a legal consultant, is sent to Mexico City to negotiate a partnership with Zapata (Alfonso Dosal), who runs an industrial plant that produces soaps and solvents. While on this work trip, a CIA agent known only as Costa (Brooke Bloom) approaches Monroe about being implicated in a bribery investigation, which he knows nothing about. Using this information, Costa blackmails Monroe into becoming a mole against Zapata, who the CIA believes is actually an illegal arms dealer. 

During his time as a spy in Mexico City, Monroe meets and falls in love with Sofia De Leon (Daniela Peña), head of operations at Zapata’s company. Eventually, Monroe comes clean to Sofia about his work with the CIA, and she provides information that helps him find one of Zapata’s illegal missiles. But, when Zapata learns there is an informant inside his business, he tells Monroe he believes it’s Sofia and says she’s “being taken care of.”

Ryan credits the writers room with the pitch to use a flashback episode to further explore Monroe’s motivations. “We talked a lot about how someone becomes like Jacob Monroe,” he says. “We liked the idea that the methods we’ve seen the broker utilize — extortion, pressure, threats of violence — he learned from being on the other end of that in the ’90s. The CIA, under the umbrella of ‘for the greater good,’ extorted an American citizen and created this kind of monster.”

The full extent of the CIA’s misdeeds is exposed in another flashback in Episode 7. Fifteen years later, Monroe finally tracks down Costa, and he shares that he knows the CIA used the intel he provided to broker an arms deal with Zapata. “The US and its allies leave him alone, and the agency gets weapons for its extracurricular activities,” Monroe says. Costa then divulges that one of the terms of their deal with Zapata was that the CIA give up their mole inside his operation, which meant it was either Monroe or Sofia. “You were an asset,” she explains. “She was just collateral.” Zapata then used Sofia as a scapegoat for some of his crimes. She died in prison, but Costa reveals that, a few months into her sentence, Sofia had a daughter, Isabel. Monroe reconnects with her at the end of the episode.

Monroe blames the CIA for giving up Sofia, the person he loved “more than anything,” to Zapata, but Costa points out that Monroe could have come forward as the true mole. Ryan says this moment is key to understanding the broker. “As his former CIA handler says, ‘I think the proof suggests that you loved yourself just a tiny bit more.’ Every bad decision emanated from that refusal to stand up and say, ‘It’s not her, it’s me,’ to Zapata,” the series creator explains. “That was his original sin, which led to a life of loneliness and evil, and he met the kind of end he perpetuated on others.”

Does Monroe die?

So, what is the end that Monroe finally meets? In Episode 8, the first lady comes clean to her husband about the extent of her involvement with Monroe. Realizing that their illegal dealings will be exposed when Monroe is brought up on charges, President Hagan calls Adam, who has Monroe in his custody, and orders him to kill the broker. Adam follows orders and makes the murder look like a suicide.

“We wrote Adam as someone who believed in chain of command, who believed, as he articulates, that generals question things so we don’t have to,” Ryan explains. But as the president asks more and more of Adam, and Peter divulges hard truths about the commander in chief throughout the season, Adam’s guiding principles are tested. “The idea of a guy who built his life around those concepts, having to question the morality of the people giving the orders by the end of the season was really attractive to us,” Ryan continues. “I think he’s ultimately a good person convinced to do bad things for reasons that turn out to be lies.”

PHOTO BY CHRISTOPHER SAUNDERS

Who’s behind all the money laundering?

Despite his past relationship with Zapata, Monroe wasn’t directly funding his terrorist operations. But he was banking with Walcott Capital, which is confirmed through Monroe’s conversation with Freya Myers in Episode 6. And Walcott also represents Zapata’s domestic banking network. Criminals, like Monroe and Zapata, paid Freya to approve their transactions and prevent them from getting flagged. Jay Batra’s supervisor, Wallace, was on Freya’s payroll as well, which is why he tried so hard to get Jay to stop investigating the SARs. But when Wallace failed, and Jay set out to expose all the secrets in those SARs, Freya did everything she could to cover her tracks. That meant hiring an assassin, played by Stephen Moyer, to hunt down those involved. 

Who exactly is this hit man? The character is never actually named, but we do know he’s a father — he shares tender scenes with his son (Callum Vinson) throughout the season, in between carrying out kills for Freya. “It lends a little bit of mystery,” Ryan says. “By holding back on names, it makes you look more at the characters. Whether villains or heroes, people are most interesting when they have their own personal code. The father has a dual life. You can be an assassin on one side and a loving, homeschooling father on the other … I hadn’t seen a relationship like that on TV or film. Stephen Moyer and Callum Vinson were really wonderful together.”

What is the Monroe Drive?

The Monroe Drive is the encrypted online archive Monroe leaves behind — a massive, meticulously organized dossier of his entire operation. It isn’t just a folder of files; it’s a secure database packed with financial records, shell-company paperwork, emails, texts, and audio recordings that document how money and influence moved through his network. 

Monroe designed it as both insurance and leverage, a dead man’s switch–style trove that could expose powerful people if he were ever cornered. The catch? It’s locked behind layers of encryption, meaning the truth is only usable once Isabel and Jay figure out how to unlock it.

How do Isabel and Jay unlock the Monroe Drive? 

With Jay’s help, Isabel realizes the key to unlocking the drive isn’t just technical, it’s personal. Monroe built the encryption around his copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales using a layered book cipher. He turned a sentimental object into the lock on his entire operation. What finally makes it click for Isabel is realizing why Monroe clung to that particular book: It’s tied to her mother, their origin story, and the life he lost, so the key to his secrets was hiding in plain sight. And though it doesn’t absolve Monroe of his crime or selfishness, the memento does provide his daughter with some sense of closure. 

“I think when she decodes the book, a lot changes for her in the fact that he laid it all out for her by giving her something sentimental,” says Rodriguez. “That book is a token that says, ‘I did love you. I did love your mom this entire time, despite all the pain I caused you.’ And that’s freaking heartbreaking.” 

PHOTO BY CHRISTOPHER SAUNDERS

How does Season 3 end?

Once Isabel and Jay crack the drive, the database opens into a sprawling archive of financial records, communications, and recordings that connect Walcott Capital, shell companies, and the first family’s scheme. The legal team at The Financial Register tells Isabel that to report their findings publicly, she’ll need Freya to go on record. Freya, of course, isn’t interested in doing that. That is, until she realizes the president has sent his own team of ex-military Night Agents, led by Adam, and that she, too, is a target. After Isabel is attacked and forced to run, Peter tracks Freya down inside Grand Central Station and works to get her to safety.

At President Hagan’s orders, Adam and his team pursue Peter and Freya as they make their way to the newsroom. Finally, in a showdown inside an abandoned bank — how fitting for a season all about financial crimes — Peter convinces Adam that maybe he should, for once, question orders. “Hagan is not a soldier anymore. He’s a politician, he’s a liar, OK? He’s using you to cover his tracks,” Peter says. “That voice in your head that’s telling you it’s all bullshit — listen to it.” Then, as Peter approaches Adam, ready to die for the truth, the former soldier lowers his gun. “Up until then, Adam truly believed the president was in the right, and Peter presented a threat to national security,” Ryan explains. “Ultimately, Adam does have morality and a code he believes in. You can be someone who does violent things for the right reasons, but he realizes he’s being asked to do violent, immoral things for the wrong reasons, and that’s the line he won’t cross.”

After that, Peter is able to deliver Freya safely to The Financial Register, and she publicly admits that the Hagans used her shadow division within Walcott Capital to launder campaign funds. “If Congress and the US Department of Justice are interested in reaching an understanding with me, I would happily disclose everything I know about the Hagans and their criminal conduct,” she tells Isabel in a live-streamed interview. Some time later, Freya is seen sipping a martini, as a television behind a bar shows a breaking news report that Hagan pardoned himself and his wife ahead of their Senate conviction. They left the White House but now have a new media deal. 

So the Hagans and Freya all got off the hook? Well, just when you think no justice was served, that mysterious, unnamed assassin, who Freya once hired but never met, shows up beside her. After some small talk with a fake accent, he offers to buy her a drink and seemingly slips something that looks like poison into it. “It’s safe to assume Freya did not get out of that bar alive,” says Ryan.

PHOTO BY CHRISTOPHER SAUNDERS

What’s next for Peter?

In a conversation with Mosley at the very end of Season 3, Peter makes yet another difficult decision. After months of nonstop work for Night Action, he finally decides to take a break. “Someone once told me that the best agents know how to find balance in their lives. I’m thinking I should find some,” he says, echoing the advice Mosley offered him at the start of the season. 

But Basso isn’t convinced his Night Agent character will actually be out of the game for long, especially now that his motivations for being in this line of work are more salient than ever. “He’s gotten more aware of the dangers of loyalty to a system, as opposed to a loyalty to a principle,” says Basso. “I think he recognizes that he’s part of a bigger plan and that he’s in service of good. And if he’s not there helping, then who is?”

The deputy director seems pleased with Peter’s decision to step away, but he also dangles thrilling possibilities for the agent once he’s ready to return to Night Action. “I’ve been thinking about the request you made earlier for a partner. I think I have a candidate in mind,” he says. And that exciting tease, according to Ryan, is “meant to be a launching pad for Season 4.”

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Watch the Trailer for The Night Agent Season 3