Even before FBI Agent Peter Sutherland (Gabriel Basso) discovers a bomb on the Washington, DC, Metro in The Night Agent, it’s clear he’s a stand-up guy. Like, literally. When we first lay eyes on the young agent, he’s offering his seat to a mother and daughter who are carrying groceries.

It’s a good thing he got up, too, because it’s from his new spot on the train that he observes a hoodie-clad stranger leaving a backpack under a seat and slipping out before the doors close. When Peter looks inside the bag, it’s just as he feared: a bomb.

Peter immediately pulls the emergency brake and the car screeches to a halt, giving the train full of commuters just enough time to get off before the bomb explodes. (No thanks to the dude looming over his shoulder, who screams “bomb!” and makes the evacuation way more chaotic than Peter intended.)

Luckily, nearly everyone on board makes it into the tunnel before the blast. And after being knocked unconscious, his ears still ringing from the explosion, Peter is in the middle of a medical examination when he spots the person who left the bag. Even though he’s still recovering from, you know, surviving an explosion, Peter follows his instinct and sprints after the suspect through the streets of DC and into a dark alley.

Sound intriguing? That’s not the only heroic move Peter makes in the first episode of the series, which follows him in his new post in the basement of the White House. Showrunner Shawn Ryan (The Shield) tells Tudum, “The basic pitch that I’ve given is that there’s a very low level FBI agent who works in a windowless room in the basement of the White House, manning an emergency phone that never rings — until the night that it does.” 

“That’s the 15-second pitch,” Ryan emphasizes. “The longer version is that Peter is a young FBI agent who’s grown up around scandal. His father was accused of some treasonous behavior when he was in the White House. But his father died in a car accident before it could be adjudicated either way. He lives under the shadow of, ‘Was his father unfairly accused? Was he actually guilty of this?’ ”

Watch the first five minutes of the episode above, and tune in when The Night Agent debuts March 23 on Netflix — and the phone finally rings.