Netflix’s New FBI Thriller Is Harshly Dividing Critics & Audiences, But It’s Become A Massive Streaming Hit Anyway

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The new FBI thriller series that just launched on Netflix is already generating a lot of buzz and attention.

The series Absentia launched on November 14, 2025, and quickly became popular, reaching the #2 spot on the streaming service’s worldwide chart by November 25, 2025.

The show is doing better internationally than it is in the United States, where it ranks eighth. Worldwide, only the suspenseful series The Beast In Me is performing better.

I’ve been noticing more and more people talking about Absentia, and it’s great to see! It originally premiered on Amazon Prime Video way back in 2017, and Sony’s AXN helped get those first two seasons out to viewers around the world, which clearly paid off. Wider availability really seems to have helped this show find its audience.

Season 3 of Absentia first appeared on Prime Video in 2020, but only viewers in the United States could watch it. Now, Absentia fans around the world can finally enjoy the latest season, as Netflix has made it available globally.

Stana Katic, known for her role in Castle, stars in Absentia as Emily Byrne, an FBI agent who was kidnapped and held captive by a serial killer for six years. Everyone believes she’s dead, but when she reappears, she’s accused of murder and forced to flee while trying to prove her innocence.

Viewers generally liked Absentia much more than critics did, which resulted in a large difference between its critical score (47% on Rotten Tomatoes) and its audience score (67%).

While Rotten Tomatoes doesn’t have scores from professional critics for seasons 2 and 3 of Absentia, viewers have consistently given it positive ratings: season 2 earned a 77% audience score, and season 3 even higher at 82%.

Reviews for the first season of Absentia highlighted Stana Katic’s performance, but criticized the show’s plot as being too predictable and not giving her enough to work with.

I was reading ScreenRant’s list of Stana Katic’s best work, and they touched on Absentia. Their review pretty much echoed what most critics thought – season one got a 47% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so it wasn’t a huge hit with reviewers.

According to ScreenRant, while the premise of Absentia is intriguing, the central mystery isn’t as compelling as the initial setup, and the show’s quality declines over its three seasons. They also note that it relies too heavily on familiar crime show formulas, preventing it from feeling truly original.

In a 2020 interview with ScreenRant, Stana Katic discussed how the international setting of Absentia added to the show’s realism.

This story resonated with people worldwide, and that’s a testament to the show’s inclusive culture, which our showrunner, Will Pascoe, consistently fostered.

I was so bummed when Absentia got canceled after just three seasons – it had a good run with 30 episodes from 2017 to 2020, but I was really getting into it! Luckily, the good news is you can now watch all three seasons on Netflix, so I’m planning a binge-watching session!

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2025-11-25 19:11