It gets a little bit James Bond
Feb. 20th, 2026 07:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessThe Night Manager - 2.4
Hugh Lawrie has made it back to equal billing with Tom Hiddleston in the credits and the episode certainly gave Roper as much attention as Pine. Pine stalked him as much as he could and then had to leave him to the local PI. After all, Pine had to build up to basically being James Bond by the end of the episode (if Hiddlestone was on your list for that role.)
It did build up, bit by bit, starting with Burr's happy family life in France with the daughter she’d been carrying in the first series getting interrupted by a furious message from Pine. Then Teddy assured his traumatised/lethal father that it was all in hand, all the wrinkles were about to be smoothed out. Sally did some excellent tradework to allow the prosecutor to escape his flat unnoticed by Teddy’s thug.
Pine made it back to his hotel room, just in time to make it look as if he’d stayed there, as a barely-trusting-him Teddy came to drive him to the airport. Teddy wasn’t quite thorough enough to watch Pine enter the gate and embark on the plane, so he didn’t, though he’d better not be able to make too many more clothing changes in Colombia, because he only had a holdall on him as he went to meet Burr. She explained that she'd lied about Roper's demise because he had threatened them and her kid. Pine lashed out that she’d left him to fight this fight alone; she was clear that never mind Colombia facing a regime change (or how Colombians might feel about that), the ‘British’ (by which this show so means ‘English’) intelligence service (actually, the government) was having a civil war. (On a sofa in 2026, I was snorting in amusement at the nostalgic vanity of the premise that the fallen British empire would get to have a say about a South American country given the Orange ‘doctrine’. And then I wondered 'AM I GOING TO HAVE TO STICK TO HISTORICAL, FANTASY AND SCI FI DRAMAS FOR THREE MORE YEARS?')
Meanwhile, in London, Basil’s surveillance revealed there’d been a big meet in Holland Park. Mayra was snooping around ‘Birch’ and the money, Basil outsmarted her and found a weak link among those who’d been at the meeting, and did that spy thing of lying and charming him into telling him what the baddies in the intelligence service were aiming for and his phone for further intel – the shipment that was being held included some sort of superweapon.
Sally, Pine and the prosecutor met up, with the latter calling a reliable judge. Well, actually, his assistant, who fobbed him off and then called Teddy and his conspirators, which led to trouble for Roxi, who was accused of being alone with the shipment that time. She (wearing the shirt we’d seen Teddy in earlier, I think) protested her innocence furiously but was ordered to stay still, guarded over by one of the thugs who’d messed up earlier that episode. It looked like she wasn't going to be flying back to Florida that day!
Meanwhile, Roper had found out that Teddy had lied to him and that things were not wholly under control. He was hosting an old English friend (who’d been at Holland Park, and who I presume was in the first series, and yeah, maybe I should have rewatched it.) They sang Gilbert and Sullivan together (oh, come off it, it’s 2026. Who does that?) Roper opened up – our PI had sneakily got a mic on his beloved dogs, two of which were named after the Kray twins. One can only hope he recorded what he was hearing as Roper named names of who was in the conspiracy and told his side of the Syria debacle story – apparently his captors were willing to let him go on the hope of getting back their £300 million in three years’ time, which requires some suspension of disbelief, if I’m honest. Oh, and he rubbished Teddy, the cowboy who wanted so much to be his acknowledged son, saying he wouldn’t be coming to the Oxfordshire mansion Roper was planning to live in. He wanted his other son and heir by his side, never mind what Danny or his mother wanted.
The prosecutor thought he had a meeting scheduled with the trustworthy judge. We knew different: Teddy and co were planning to ‘deal with him’. Roxi realised this too and managed to engineer a way of warning Pine, who had just let the prosecutor go to his meeting at the government building, so no way were the guards letting him in. The prosecutor found the assistant and the military conspirators waiting for him and was defiantly unco-operative.
The Bond thing kicked in as Pine (carrying a Chekhov’s gun Sally had given him 'for emergencies’) saw the prosecutor being bundled into a car driven by a street youth at a side entrance, and stole a motorbike to rescue him. The prosecutor was taken to a deserted spot to meet Teddy, who wanted to know why the prosecutor hadn’t done the easy thing, i.e. be corrupt. The prosecutor decided to insult him by calling him a kid, got shot for it, but Pine (as good a marksman as he is a tennis player, never mind that you probably need to practice to be good at both) shot Teddy’s man, and yelled at the driver, who really was a kid, to get away. He and Teddy shot ineffectively at each other, and Teddy realised that ‘Matthew Ellis’ wasn’t at all who he’d thought he was, even at his most paranoid.
Meanwhile Roxi was being driven away nowhere good by one of Teddy’s thugs, but Bond – I mean Pine was able to shoot the driver, get him out of the car, and drive the rather shocked Roxi and kid away. The Bond stuff was definitely thrilling.
Teddy had to phone his father and admit failure. Roper demanded his picture. Hilariously, but effectively, it was faxed to him, and he saw that it was Jonathan Pine, who he’d thought was a worthy but ultimately failing adversary.
Hugh Lawrie has made it back to equal billing with Tom Hiddleston in the credits and the episode certainly gave Roper as much attention as Pine. Pine stalked him as much as he could and then had to leave him to the local PI. After all, Pine had to build up to basically being James Bond by the end of the episode (if Hiddlestone was on your list for that role.)
It did build up, bit by bit, starting with Burr's happy family life in France with the daughter she’d been carrying in the first series getting interrupted by a furious message from Pine. Then Teddy assured his traumatised/lethal father that it was all in hand, all the wrinkles were about to be smoothed out. Sally did some excellent tradework to allow the prosecutor to escape his flat unnoticed by Teddy’s thug.
Pine made it back to his hotel room, just in time to make it look as if he’d stayed there, as a barely-trusting-him Teddy came to drive him to the airport. Teddy wasn’t quite thorough enough to watch Pine enter the gate and embark on the plane, so he didn’t, though he’d better not be able to make too many more clothing changes in Colombia, because he only had a holdall on him as he went to meet Burr. She explained that she'd lied about Roper's demise because he had threatened them and her kid. Pine lashed out that she’d left him to fight this fight alone; she was clear that never mind Colombia facing a regime change (or how Colombians might feel about that), the ‘British’ (by which this show so means ‘English’) intelligence service (actually, the government) was having a civil war. (On a sofa in 2026, I was snorting in amusement at the nostalgic vanity of the premise that the fallen British empire would get to have a say about a South American country given the Orange ‘doctrine’. And then I wondered 'AM I GOING TO HAVE TO STICK TO HISTORICAL, FANTASY AND SCI FI DRAMAS FOR THREE MORE YEARS?')
Meanwhile, in London, Basil’s surveillance revealed there’d been a big meet in Holland Park. Mayra was snooping around ‘Birch’ and the money, Basil outsmarted her and found a weak link among those who’d been at the meeting, and did that spy thing of lying and charming him into telling him what the baddies in the intelligence service were aiming for and his phone for further intel – the shipment that was being held included some sort of superweapon.
Sally, Pine and the prosecutor met up, with the latter calling a reliable judge. Well, actually, his assistant, who fobbed him off and then called Teddy and his conspirators, which led to trouble for Roxi, who was accused of being alone with the shipment that time. She (wearing the shirt we’d seen Teddy in earlier, I think) protested her innocence furiously but was ordered to stay still, guarded over by one of the thugs who’d messed up earlier that episode. It looked like she wasn't going to be flying back to Florida that day!
Meanwhile, Roper had found out that Teddy had lied to him and that things were not wholly under control. He was hosting an old English friend (who’d been at Holland Park, and who I presume was in the first series, and yeah, maybe I should have rewatched it.) They sang Gilbert and Sullivan together (oh, come off it, it’s 2026. Who does that?) Roper opened up – our PI had sneakily got a mic on his beloved dogs, two of which were named after the Kray twins. One can only hope he recorded what he was hearing as Roper named names of who was in the conspiracy and told his side of the Syria debacle story – apparently his captors were willing to let him go on the hope of getting back their £300 million in three years’ time, which requires some suspension of disbelief, if I’m honest. Oh, and he rubbished Teddy, the cowboy who wanted so much to be his acknowledged son, saying he wouldn’t be coming to the Oxfordshire mansion Roper was planning to live in. He wanted his other son and heir by his side, never mind what Danny or his mother wanted.
The prosecutor thought he had a meeting scheduled with the trustworthy judge. We knew different: Teddy and co were planning to ‘deal with him’. Roxi realised this too and managed to engineer a way of warning Pine, who had just let the prosecutor go to his meeting at the government building, so no way were the guards letting him in. The prosecutor found the assistant and the military conspirators waiting for him and was defiantly unco-operative.
The Bond thing kicked in as Pine (carrying a Chekhov’s gun Sally had given him 'for emergencies’) saw the prosecutor being bundled into a car driven by a street youth at a side entrance, and stole a motorbike to rescue him. The prosecutor was taken to a deserted spot to meet Teddy, who wanted to know why the prosecutor hadn’t done the easy thing, i.e. be corrupt. The prosecutor decided to insult him by calling him a kid, got shot for it, but Pine (as good a marksman as he is a tennis player, never mind that you probably need to practice to be good at both) shot Teddy’s man, and yelled at the driver, who really was a kid, to get away. He and Teddy shot ineffectively at each other, and Teddy realised that ‘Matthew Ellis’ wasn’t at all who he’d thought he was, even at his most paranoid.
Meanwhile Roxi was being driven away nowhere good by one of Teddy’s thugs, but Bond – I mean Pine was able to shoot the driver, get him out of the car, and drive the rather shocked Roxi and kid away. The Bond stuff was definitely thrilling.
Teddy had to phone his father and admit failure. Roper demanded his picture. Hilariously, but effectively, it was faxed to him, and he saw that it was Jonathan Pine, who he’d thought was a worthy but ultimately failing adversary.
