A return to glamorous spy action
Jan. 4th, 2026 02:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessThe Night Manager 2.1
I reread my posts about the show from when it aired in spring 2016 (I was very nitpicky!) in lieu of rewatching it, and then watched the show live. I’m probably not going to follow the schedule, but rather catch up with it in rotation with the other drama shows I’m watching. It was gripping enough, even though there’s a strong whiff of it not being based on a book, and so basically televised fanfiction.
It started a few years after the first series ended with Pine and Angela (played by ‘and Olivia Colman’ which felt right given her success since and the role she played in this episode) in Syria, identifying a dead Roper. The body would then be burned and he'd officially be a missing person.
We moved on to the current day, where Pine was working for the Night Owls as Alex something. (Is the whole Night Owls thing a justification for the title? Why bother when Pine stopped being a night manager quite early in the first series?) They were a team of ex hotel employees cum trained spies, working for MI5. ‘Alex’ had just got a three year extension for the project under affable supervisor Rex, but the MI5 shrink wasn’t impressed by his quiet ‘everything is fine’ answers – perhaps because she could see his giveaway, fidgety hands, if not in the close-up that we saw them. We knew Pine was haunted by flashbacks, avoiding human contact outside of work, had made his niche and climbed into it. (Did he name his cat Loki as an injoke? I didn’t quite catch that.)
And then ‘Alex’ saw someone who’d worked for Roper when doing surveillance on someone else at work. He reported it to Rex, who knew about his past as Pine, Rex pooh-poohed it, but gave him a new number to call and kept the picture of the guy. The MI5 chief was at the same event, Rex’s sixtieth, and queried whether Alex thought Rex was all right. Alex loyally said yes, although Rex’s behaviour had been ambiguous, such as meeting a young woman he didn’t want Alex/Pine to know much about.
Alex made his team (who were loyal but various levels of ‘this is unusual, boss’) do surveillance on the guy from his past, which led them to a meeting with a middleman who mentioned working for a ‘disciple of Richard Roper’s’ !!! They followed the middleman, who went to a house that turned out to belong to MI5, where Alex learned he’d met with the MI5 chief. Well, that clarified loyalties a bit.
Alex arranged a meeting with Rex at Rex’s house to share all of this, and was on the way there, when he was overtaken by police cars, and Rex’s missus called. It looked like Rex had died by suicide, but it made no sense, as Rex had been about to meet Alex. Alex took advantage of his access to find clues that led him to a secret phone. It had photos and one other number, that of the young woman.
Alex tracked her, made her come with him by showing her Rex’s phone and announcing he was dead. He took her to a hotel (that his people had wired), where she explained her relationship with Rex, which gave them a company’s name. The owner turned up in the pictures on Rex’s phone – pictures of someone involved in bloody guerrilla action. She wanted to fly to Florida, but was told she’d have to stay put. She said she was going to be sick, her handler let her to go the bathroom, where she took out a secret phone – Alex having taken hers (implied, if not shown.)
Alex did some further investigation, going through Roper’s effects, and finding pictures of Teddy dos Santos, which seemed to suggest a link with Roper. He then went to visit Danny (Roper) for the first time. The now teen was not impressed with ‘Michael Birch’ pressing him for information. Pine accepted this, but then told him that his father was dead, and he was sorry.
The team (Hailey Squires’s character is really good at tradecraft) bugged the south African who’d first tipped Pine off, and they were headed for Spain, following him, with guns, where there was to be a meet with dos Santos. Alex/Pine got to do lots of spy stuff, but it went wrong, as dos Santos was paranoid enough to find the bug, shoot the contact, take the bag and its contents, get Alex’s colleagues shot, blow up his hotel room (one really dodgy bit of smoke effects in yet another drone shot), and drive off. Alex was running away from the blast, fate unknown (I mean, he’s sure to survive, but he wasn’t up to answering the phone.)
Oh, and a gunman came to the room where the Colombian-born young lady whose name I really should have taken in was hidden, so her handler is also toast.
All the while Angela is in retirement somewhere in France, if Rex was to be believed.
It was definitely propulsive and, in the moment, compelling. Hiddlestone makes for a great lead as the traumatised Pine, feeling obliged to return to action (which he’s good at) and a bit guilty about dragging his colleagues into it. The MI5 chief being on the other side works, and the main antagonist, somehow, being a disciple of Roper’s is a bit too on the nose. They’re definitely aping the first series’s style. I’m fairly sure they got Hugh Laurie to cameo as an older, bearded Roper, turning up in Pine’s nightmares. Dos Santos is a bit swashbuckling (sorry, it’s that one earring.)
I reread my posts about the show from when it aired in spring 2016 (I was very nitpicky!) in lieu of rewatching it, and then watched the show live. I’m probably not going to follow the schedule, but rather catch up with it in rotation with the other drama shows I’m watching. It was gripping enough, even though there’s a strong whiff of it not being based on a book, and so basically televised fanfiction.
It started a few years after the first series ended with Pine and Angela (played by ‘and Olivia Colman’ which felt right given her success since and the role she played in this episode) in Syria, identifying a dead Roper. The body would then be burned and he'd officially be a missing person.
We moved on to the current day, where Pine was working for the Night Owls as Alex something. (Is the whole Night Owls thing a justification for the title? Why bother when Pine stopped being a night manager quite early in the first series?) They were a team of ex hotel employees cum trained spies, working for MI5. ‘Alex’ had just got a three year extension for the project under affable supervisor Rex, but the MI5 shrink wasn’t impressed by his quiet ‘everything is fine’ answers – perhaps because she could see his giveaway, fidgety hands, if not in the close-up that we saw them. We knew Pine was haunted by flashbacks, avoiding human contact outside of work, had made his niche and climbed into it. (Did he name his cat Loki as an injoke? I didn’t quite catch that.)
And then ‘Alex’ saw someone who’d worked for Roper when doing surveillance on someone else at work. He reported it to Rex, who knew about his past as Pine, Rex pooh-poohed it, but gave him a new number to call and kept the picture of the guy. The MI5 chief was at the same event, Rex’s sixtieth, and queried whether Alex thought Rex was all right. Alex loyally said yes, although Rex’s behaviour had been ambiguous, such as meeting a young woman he didn’t want Alex/Pine to know much about.
Alex made his team (who were loyal but various levels of ‘this is unusual, boss’) do surveillance on the guy from his past, which led them to a meeting with a middleman who mentioned working for a ‘disciple of Richard Roper’s’ !!! They followed the middleman, who went to a house that turned out to belong to MI5, where Alex learned he’d met with the MI5 chief. Well, that clarified loyalties a bit.
Alex arranged a meeting with Rex at Rex’s house to share all of this, and was on the way there, when he was overtaken by police cars, and Rex’s missus called. It looked like Rex had died by suicide, but it made no sense, as Rex had been about to meet Alex. Alex took advantage of his access to find clues that led him to a secret phone. It had photos and one other number, that of the young woman.
Alex tracked her, made her come with him by showing her Rex’s phone and announcing he was dead. He took her to a hotel (that his people had wired), where she explained her relationship with Rex, which gave them a company’s name. The owner turned up in the pictures on Rex’s phone – pictures of someone involved in bloody guerrilla action. She wanted to fly to Florida, but was told she’d have to stay put. She said she was going to be sick, her handler let her to go the bathroom, where she took out a secret phone – Alex having taken hers (implied, if not shown.)
Alex did some further investigation, going through Roper’s effects, and finding pictures of Teddy dos Santos, which seemed to suggest a link with Roper. He then went to visit Danny (Roper) for the first time. The now teen was not impressed with ‘Michael Birch’ pressing him for information. Pine accepted this, but then told him that his father was dead, and he was sorry.
The team (Hailey Squires’s character is really good at tradecraft) bugged the south African who’d first tipped Pine off, and they were headed for Spain, following him, with guns, where there was to be a meet with dos Santos. Alex/Pine got to do lots of spy stuff, but it went wrong, as dos Santos was paranoid enough to find the bug, shoot the contact, take the bag and its contents, get Alex’s colleagues shot, blow up his hotel room (one really dodgy bit of smoke effects in yet another drone shot), and drive off. Alex was running away from the blast, fate unknown (I mean, he’s sure to survive, but he wasn’t up to answering the phone.)
Oh, and a gunman came to the room where the Colombian-born young lady whose name I really should have taken in was hidden, so her handler is also toast.
All the while Angela is in retirement somewhere in France, if Rex was to be believed.
It was definitely propulsive and, in the moment, compelling. Hiddlestone makes for a great lead as the traumatised Pine, feeling obliged to return to action (which he’s good at) and a bit guilty about dragging his colleagues into it. The MI5 chief being on the other side works, and the main antagonist, somehow, being a disciple of Roper’s is a bit too on the nose. They’re definitely aping the first series’s style. I’m fairly sure they got Hugh Laurie to cameo as an older, bearded Roper, turning up in Pine’s nightmares. Dos Santos is a bit swashbuckling (sorry, it’s that one earring.)
