Hagan, the series makes quite clear, is a douchebag and a racist whose red-hat wearing supporters share his unenlightened America-first views (see the rally scene in which Noor cleverly weaponizes their bigotry against Muslim men like Javad in order to escape him). To Monroe, Hagan bemoans the Asian surname on the new building and is coldly reminded that the philanthropist it belongs to is American born and bred.
Jacob Monroe therefore, is not a racist asshole. Neither, it turns out, is he a bad boss. When his fixer Solomon asked for a 10% raise and haplessly negotiated that down to 3%, Monroe happily gave him 15% and a promotion. Unfortunately for them, Night Action’s Catherine Weaver negated the good news when she killed Vega – news that Monroe was visibly upset by hearing.
So, Jacob Monroe is capable of fairness, affection and has the same distaste for soon-to-be US president Richard Hagan shared by every other right-thinking person in The Night Agent. All of this is worth establishing because everything else we know about Monroe tells us that he’s basically the devil.
President Hagan
Over the last eight years, Monroe has fixed three elections for Hagan, smoothing his path to the Oval Office. Most recently, he leaked documents that incriminated Hagan’s opponent Knox and forced him to drop out of the presidential race.
If Monroe hates Hagan, then why? Because having the president of the United States in his control will make him more powerful. Monroe’s business is intelligence brokering. He sources national secrets and sells them on, regardless of the risk to life and national security this may cause. As Catherine Weaver explains to Peter in the season two finale, Hagan’s isolationist policies will actively help Monroe’s business. When international cooperation breaks down, the demand for intelligence sky-rockets. With access to every classified file that passes through the president’s desk, Hagan will be the most powerful man in the world.
What drives him? At this stage, it’s hard to say. Monroe seems to be an extreme pragmatist who’s able to compartmentalise feelings of guilt or empathy in order to continue accruing leverage, money and power. He sold the information leaked by the CIA’s Warren Stocker about the Foxglove chemical weapons project to a USA-hating terrorist hell-bent on getting revenge on America for a past wrong. He sold a list of the names and addresses of Iranians who’d escaped Iran’s oppressive Revolutionary Guard and were living under asylum in Europe straight back to the IRGC. He had apparently no misgivings about allowing a fearsome chemical agent be released in Manhattan or the many deaths he ordered Solomon and his goons to commit.
