trust issues
Feb. 4th, 2026 08:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessThe Night Manager - 2.3
I’d accidentally got spoiled for the big reveal at the end of this episode, although in a way, I think it would have been a surprise without much edge, for both intrinsic and extrinsic reasons.
This episode felt like a lot of faffing about, really. We got the sexy three way dance they’d been trailing – Roxi and Teddy’s relationship is so weird! And with all the talk of her father, I got briefly anxious that it was pseudo-incestuous.
We saw more of Roxi and Pine’s fake relationship, and under it a sort of negotiation/battle of wills, although she ultimately came through for him, particularly with the inventory. And then there was a moment of real intimacy, where he found out about her father (did we find anything out about Pine’s parents in the first series?) and she was a bit worried about him, because Teddy was, as he noted, not being particularly trusting, and very much not so when Pine started pushing, because his spying expeditions weren’t producing much. (Who would have thought people doing dodgy things would have moved the paperwork from an attaché case into a safe, eh!?)
I was struck by the fact that Sally didn’t know who Roxanna was, which suggests that Pine hadn’t passed on the immunity deal Roxanna is relying on.
There was mild peril over the $20 million, but what struck me was that Pine didn’t know that Basil was shifting it because of Mayra, so he had faith that it would be there, even as he had to plead for his life as Matthew Eliis on a boat to Teddy. He gave out a bit of the truth about his pass, and Basil got the green light to return the money to the holding account so it could be passed on to Teddy just in the nick of time!
I can’t say I was on the edge of my seat for that, although unlike Pine and Sally, I was increasingly concerned for the Colombian prosecutor they’d pressured into holding the cargo. Because it seemed like he was going to be on the wrong side of Teddy and his associates’ impatience. All of which makes Our Heroes less sympathetic, and hi, western security officers, fictive or not, if your sources don’t trust you, they’re not going to give you what you need.
Why take a helicopter when Pine and the PI could follow you in a car? Well, showing off that you can travel in a helicopter, I suppose.
So Teddy is building a (mercenary?) army from Colombia’s orphans. And Roper isn’t dead. As I said, I had got spoiled – just because I’m falling behind on catch-up, and it’s getting a lot of coverage as a prestige Beeb drama - and wasn’t entirely surprised by the reveal because the flashback confirming Roper’s death had been ambiguous, and if they could get Hugh Laurie back and they’re making it all up, why wouldn’t they?
I’d accidentally got spoiled for the big reveal at the end of this episode, although in a way, I think it would have been a surprise without much edge, for both intrinsic and extrinsic reasons.
This episode felt like a lot of faffing about, really. We got the sexy three way dance they’d been trailing – Roxi and Teddy’s relationship is so weird! And with all the talk of her father, I got briefly anxious that it was pseudo-incestuous.
We saw more of Roxi and Pine’s fake relationship, and under it a sort of negotiation/battle of wills, although she ultimately came through for him, particularly with the inventory. And then there was a moment of real intimacy, where he found out about her father (did we find anything out about Pine’s parents in the first series?) and she was a bit worried about him, because Teddy was, as he noted, not being particularly trusting, and very much not so when Pine started pushing, because his spying expeditions weren’t producing much. (Who would have thought people doing dodgy things would have moved the paperwork from an attaché case into a safe, eh!?)
I was struck by the fact that Sally didn’t know who Roxanna was, which suggests that Pine hadn’t passed on the immunity deal Roxanna is relying on.
There was mild peril over the $20 million, but what struck me was that Pine didn’t know that Basil was shifting it because of Mayra, so he had faith that it would be there, even as he had to plead for his life as Matthew Eliis on a boat to Teddy. He gave out a bit of the truth about his pass, and Basil got the green light to return the money to the holding account so it could be passed on to Teddy just in the nick of time!
I can’t say I was on the edge of my seat for that, although unlike Pine and Sally, I was increasingly concerned for the Colombian prosecutor they’d pressured into holding the cargo. Because it seemed like he was going to be on the wrong side of Teddy and his associates’ impatience. All of which makes Our Heroes less sympathetic, and hi, western security officers, fictive or not, if your sources don’t trust you, they’re not going to give you what you need.
Why take a helicopter when Pine and the PI could follow you in a car? Well, showing off that you can travel in a helicopter, I suppose.
So Teddy is building a (mercenary?) army from Colombia’s orphans. And Roper isn’t dead. As I said, I had got spoiled – just because I’m falling behind on catch-up, and it’s getting a lot of coverage as a prestige Beeb drama - and wasn’t entirely surprised by the reveal because the flashback confirming Roper’s death had been ambiguous, and if they could get Hugh Laurie back and they’re making it all up, why wouldn’t they?
