‘Excellent’ Netflix thriller with incredible cast has viewers ‘glued to the screen’

Set in a city riddled with secrets, where political paranoia festers just beneath the cobbled streets, one quiet thriller has taken Netflix viewers by surprise.

It’s a story of bomb plots, desperate informants, and crumbling domestic lives - a grim portrait of a society on the edge, where there are no heroes, only ordinary people tangled in extraordinary danger.

Despite receiving little fanfare at the time of release, the BBC-produced series The Secret Agent, based on Joseph Conrad’s 1907 novel, has steadily earned a loyal audience since arriving on Netflix.

Set in 1880s London, it follows Mr. Verloc, a seemingly unremarkable shopkeeper who lives a double life as a reluctant spy. Pressured by foreign agents to commit a shocking act of political violence, and monitored closely by British authorities, Verloc becomes the unstable centre of a plot he can barely control.

What makes The Secret Agent stand out is its refusal to sanitise or glamourise its subject. The tension doesn’t come from action sequences or big reveals - it comes from claustrophobic interiors, whispered threats, and the growing unease of characters who are slowly breaking under pressure.

As one viewer put it on IMDb: “There are no heroes, only flawed but passionate people… dangerously entwined with the lives of essentially honest people who are, for the most part, unaware of the dangers brewing beneath their floorboards.”

Toby Jones leads the cast with a performance that’s both pitiful and quietly chilling. Vicky McClure is also praised as Winnie, his loyal wife whose faith is gradually and shattered.

Stephen Graham brings nuance to Inspector Heat, a hardened investigator whose suspicions grow as the case unfolds. Reviewers have been full of praise for the cast, with one viewer writing, “Toby Jones can do little wrong for me… he played the hapless, hopeless, desperate and cowardly Verloc brilliantly.”

Visually, the production spares no detail in recreating the late-Victorian atmosphere. Gaslit streets, peeling wallpaper, and fog-laced alleys all add to the oppressive tone, immersing viewers in a world of unrest and surveillance.

But it’s not just aesthetics. The series captures the political unease of the time, where monarchist powers clamped down on civil liberties in the face of growing socialist and anarchist threats.

“It’s a gritty, realistic story of desperate people trying to survive and succeed in a terrible situation,” another viewer commented.

The Secret Agent is available to stream now on Netflix.