‘The Night Agent’: Fola Evans-Akingbola Explains Why Chelsea Trusts Peter

After all, she becomes close to First Lady Jenny Hagan (Jennifer Morrison), on whose detail the Secret Service agent is, only to discover that she’s hiding something … which ends up being tied to the conspiracy of the whole season. She previously made a deal with Jacob Monroe (Louis Herthum) that helped her husband (Ward Horton) become president, and she lies about an attack that Chelsea walks in on — then turns everything around on Chelsea. That’s where Peter (Gabriel Basso) really comes in — he helps her save herself when Adam (David Lyons), his partner, tries to kill her on the president’s orders. And while it’s a rocky road, she and Theo (Zach Appelman) do end the season planning their wedding.

Below, Fola Evans-Akingbola breaks down Chelsea’s Season 3 arc and ponders what that wedding would look like.

Chelsea had quite the season after what happened with the Hagans. Has that changed how she views her job at all?

Fola Evans-Akingbola: Absolutely. I think so. I think it’s a real sort of existential moment. She’s put all her kind of belief into this system, into the people that are the higher-ups and that are running the country and that have the power, are doing the right thing always, and actually, this season she’s confronted with the fact that, OK, what happens if that’s not true? And she has to really focus on doing the right thing. So I think, yeah, it definitely leaves her in a position where she’s questioning things that she used to hold so dearly.

Do you think she just goes back to it, business as usual, at least to begin with, to see if she can still just have it be what it was?

I don’t think it would be entirely possible for her to just go back as if it’s normal. And yet at the same time, I think she believes in the institution and the symbol of the office. Secret Service agents, you’re really trained to sort of protect the office, if that makes sense. Regardless of who’s in it, what’s important is what that symbolizes, the first lady of the United States, the president of the United States, and so I think, regardless of the politics of whoever’s in that position, I think she would ultimately go back to the job. I think she’d ultimately believed that it’s still the right thing to do, and she can still be a force of good in that role.

Why does Chelsea trust Peter as much as she does?

What, do you think she shouldn’t? [Laughs]

With everything going on this season…

I know, I know. Well, I think it’s because of what they went through in Season 1. If you think about it, this season, Season 3, Chelsea and Peter are the only two people that have been through what happened in Season 1 and the chaos that ensued there, and they really proved to each other that, oh, they’re different. They’re very different as people, but they’re the same in that they both care about what’s right and what’s good and getting to the truth, that’s actually the best thing, and I think they share that and they can kind of therefore find a trust with each other in that, even though they actually don’t know each other that well. They don’t know that much about each other’s lives or backstories or anything, but I think you find that right in life when you go through something, especially something really intense with someone, there’s a kind of permanent level of understanding and comfortability and trust that you can find, I think.

Did she ever trust Adam at all?

[Laughs] I don’t think so. I think she always had a slight feeling of, not sure about this one.

But she couldn’t have imagined that it would then lead to him trying to kill her.

Yeah, exactly. She didn’t have that on her bingo card. But that’s what I love about Chelsea, though, is that ‘til the end, she fights. She’s in a position there, in that scene, when they’re in the car where it’s like someone else could kind of give up and feel like, oh my gosh, I’m done for, but she fights to the end and thank goodness survives.

I never thought that she would die in the car. I knew that she would save herself.

Oh, yay. Thanks.

Chelsea and Theo are planning their wedding at the end of the season, but she also points out to Peter that he’s a fix-it guy and her issues with that. Do you think they’re past that or is it just like everything that happened is so much bigger than that? She’s happy. They’re both alive. She’s happy to move forward.

She’s definitely happy they’re both alive, happy to move forward. I think they’re very in love, but I think hey, with any relationship, the little things that you have to work on, I’m sure they’ll still have to work on the fact that he’s a fix-it guy and she’s a little mis independent, but that makes for fun relationship dynamics. Who would want a perfect relationship?

She suggests they elope, and he’s like, no, I want the wedding. We’re going to do this. Who do you think wins? What do you think that wedding looks like?

I think he wins. I think she probably feels so bad about the absolute madness that she’s kind of put him through, that he gets the kind of big band, lovely wedding that he’s always wanted, and I can imagine that she would come round to that idea as well.

What was your favorite scene to film from the season?

Oh, definitely the scene with Adam where we’re in the car and then he crashes it. That whole kind of sequence of being in the car with him, realizing he’s not to be trusted, crashing the car, the stunt team, the stunt drivers did an amazing job with the car flip and then what happens after that where I’m running away and he’s chasing me through the barn and then Peter comes to save me or help me, I suppose, I’m not a damsel in distress. That was so much fun. I love those action days, and the stunt team is incredible, and yeah, it was awesome.

Talk about building the relationship between Chelsea and the First Lady because of the way things turn out. We see the origins of that, and then see how it twists and turns.

Yeah, well, it was amazing working with Jennifer Morrison. She’s so easy to love and to build that dynamic with, and so I think that was really important. We wanted it to really feel like they’ve got a great working relationship at the beginning. So then that little splinter, that thorn in the side, kind of gets deeper and deeper, and it really bugs Chelsea, and then she’s just like a dog with a bone. She has to get to the bottom of it, and I think she doesn’t want to believe that the first lady would do something like this. I think that’s why it takes her a little bit of time. She’s kind of processing it and thinking out loud about what could possibly be going on here, but at the end of the day, the evidence leads to what it leads to, and she has to follow that.

I have to admit, I’d been hoping that Chelsea would become Peter’s new partner, but Shawn Ryan told me that she doesn’t. What would you like to explore with Chelsea going forward?

I think it’s whatever the writers feel is best. I think this could also be the end of her story for now in this Night Agent world, or she might kind of come back later and be a helpful kind of source. Now Peter knows he’s always got someone in the Secret Service that he can rely on, but I love that you were rooting for her to be his new partner.

The Night Agent, Seasons 1-3, Streaming Now, Netflix

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