{"id":509010,"date":"2026-01-11T17:51:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T17:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/509010\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T17:51:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T17:51:15","slug":"the-night-manager-season-2-jonathan-and-roper-are-still-entangled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/509010\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Night Manager’ Season 2: Jonathan and Roper are still entangled"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article contains spoilers for the first three episodes of \u201cThe Night Manager\u201d Season 2.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t inevitable that \u201cThe Night Manager,\u201d an adaptation of John le Carr\u00e9\u2019s 1993 spy novel, would have a sequel. Le Carr\u00e9 didn\u2019t write one and the six-episode series, which aired in 2016, had a definitive ending.<\/p>\n

But after the show\u2019s debut, fans clambered for more. They loved Tom Hiddleston\u2019s brooding, charismatic Jonathan Pine, a hotel manager wrangled into the spy game by British intelligence officer Angela Burr (Olivia Colman)<\/a>. And at the heart of the series was the parasitic dynamic between Pine and his delightfully malicious foe, an arms dealer named Richard Onslow Roper (Hugh Laurie)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The show was so good that even the story\u2019s author wanted it to continue. After the premiere of Season 1 at the Berlin International Film Festival, Le Carr\u00e9 sat across from Hiddleston, a twinkle in his eye, and said, \u201cPerhaps there should be some more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the first I\u2019d heard of it or thought about it,\u201d Hiddleston says, speaking over Zoom alongside the show\u2019s director, Georgi Banks-Davies, from New York a few days before the U.S. premiere of \u201cThe Night Manager\u201d Season 2<\/a> on Prime Video, which arrived Sunday with three episodes, 10 years after the first season. \u201cBut it was so extraordinary and inspiring to come from the man himself. That\u2019s when I knew there might be an opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Time passed because no one wanted a sequel of less quality. Le Carr\u00e9 died in 2020<\/a>, leaving his creative works in the care of his sons, who helm the production company the Ink Factory. That same year, screenwriter David Farr, who had penned the first series, had a vision.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t want to rush into doing something that was all style and no substance that didn\u2019t honor the truth of it,\u201d Farr says, speaking separately over Zoom from London. \u201cThere was this big gap of time. But I had this very clear idea. I saw a black car crossing the Colombian hills in the past towards a boy. I knew who was in the car and I knew who the boy was.\u201d<\/p>\n

That image transformed into a scene in the second episode of Season 2 where a young Teddy Dos Santos (Diego Calva) is waiting for his father, who turns out to be none other than Roper. From there, Farr fleshed out the rest of the season, as well as the already-announced third season. He was interested in the relationship between fathers and sons, an obsession of Le Carr\u00e9\u2019s, and in how Jonathan and Roper would be entangled all these years later.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

Teddy Dos Santos (Diego Calva) is revealed to be Roper\u2019s son.<\/p>\n

(Des Willie \/ Prime Video)<\/p>\n

\u201cTeddy crystallized very quickly in my head,\u201d Farr says. \u201cAll of the plot came later \u2014 arms smuggling and covert plans for coups in South America. But the emotional architecture, as I tend to call it, came to me quite quickly. That narrative of fathers and sons, betrayal and love is what marks Le Carr\u00e9 from more conventional espionage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was enormous depth in his idea,\u201d Hiddleston adds. \u201cIt was a happy accident of 10 years having passed. They were 10 immeasurably complex years in the world, which can only have been more complex for Jonathan Pine with all his experience, all his curiosity, all his pain, all his trauma and all his courage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farr sent scripts to Hiddleston in 2023 and planning for Season 2 began in earnest. The team brought Banks-Davies on in early 2024, impressed with her vision for the episodes. Hiddleston was especially attracted to her desire to highlight the vulnerability of the characters, all of whom present an exterior that is vastly different than their interior life.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery character\u2019s heart is on fire in some way, and they all have different masks to conceal that,\u201d Hiddleston says. \u201cBut Georgi kept wanting to get underneath it, to excavate it. Explore the fire, explore the trauma. She came in and said, \u2018This show is about identity.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m fascinated with how the line of identity and where you sit in the world is very fragile,\u201d Banks-Davies says. \u201cI\u2019m fascinated by the strain on that line. In the heart of the show, that was so clearly there. I\u2019m also always searching for what brings us together in a time, particularly in the last 10 years, that\u2019s ever more divisive. These characters are all at war with each other. They\u2019re all lying to each other. They\u2019re deceiving each other for what they want. But what brings them together \u2026 instead of pushes them apart?\u201d<\/p>\n

The new season opens four years after the events of Season 1 as Jonathan and Angela meet in Syria. There, she identifies the dead body of Roper \u2014 a reveal that suggests his character won\u2019t really be part of Season 2. After his death, Pine settles into a requisite life in London as Alex Goodwin, a member of an unexciting intelligence unit called the Night Owls.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

Angela (Olivia Colman) and Jonathan (Tom Hiddleston) meet in Syria, four years after the events of Season 1.<\/p>\n

(Des Willie \/ Prime Video)<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s half asleep and he lacks clarity and definition,\u201d Hiddleston says. \u201cHis meaning and purpose have been blunted and dulled. He is only alive at his greatest peril, and the closer his feet are to the fire, the more he feels like himself. He\u2019s addicted to risk, but also courageous in chasing down the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

That first episode is a clever fake-out. Soon, Jonathan is on the trail of a conspiracy in Colombia, where the British government appears to be involved in an arms deal with Teddy. It quickly becomes the globe-trotting, thrill-seeking show that captivated fans in Season 1. There are new characters, including Sally (Hayley Squires), Jonathan\u2019s Night Owls\u2019 partner, and Roxana Bola\u00f1os (Camila Morrone), a young shipping magnate in league with Teddy, and vibrant locations. Jonathan infiltrates Teddy\u2019s organization, posing as a cavalier, rich businessman named Matthew Ellis. He believes Teddy is the real threat. But in the final moments of Episode 3 there\u2019s another gut-punching fake-out: Roper lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea was: We must do the classic thing that stories do, which is to lose the father in order that he must appear again,\u201d Farr says. He confirms there was never an intention to make \u201cThe Night Manager\u201d Season 2 without Laurie. \u201cWhat makes it work is this feeling that you are off on something completely new,\u201d Farr says. \u201cBut that\u2019s not what I want this show to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hiddleston compares it to the tale of St. George and the dragon. \u201cThey define each other,\u201d he says. \u201cAt the end of the first series, Jonathan Pine delivers the dragon of Richard Roper to his captors. But after that, he is lost. The dragon slayer is lost without the presence of the dragon to define him. And, similarly, Roper is obsessed with Pine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jonathan realizes the truth as he sneaks up to a hilltop restaurant to listen in on a meeting. Banks-Davies opted to shoot the entire series on location, and she kept a taut, quick pace during filming because she wanted the cast to feel the tension all the way through. She and Hiddleston had a shared motto on set: \u201cThere\u2019s no time for unreal.\u201d Thanks to her careful scene-setting, Roper\u2019s arrival and Jonathan\u2019s reaction were shot in only 10 minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt everything we talked about for months and everything we\u2019d shot up until that point and everything we\u2019d been through was in that moment,\u201d Banks-Davies says. \u201cThere are so many emotions going on, so much being expressed, and it\u2019s just delivered like that. But it was hard to get us there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farr adds, \u201cIt is the most important moment in the show in terms of everything that then follows on from that.\u201d He wrote into the script that Roper\u2019s voice would be heard before Laurie was seen on camera. \u201cIt\u2019s more frightening when something is not instantly fully understood and seen,\u201d he says. \u201cYou hear it and you think, \u2018Oh, God, I know that [voice].\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Hiddleston wanted to play a range of emotions in seconds. He describes it as a \u201cmoment of total vitality.\u201d Right before the cameras rolled, Banks-Davies told Hiddleston, \u201cThe dragon is alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter all the work, that\u2019s all I needed to hear,\u201d he says. \u201cThis moment will be memorable to him and he\u2019ll be able to recall it in his mind for the rest of his life. He is wide awake, and reality is re-forming around him. His sense of the last 10 years, his sense of what he can trust and who he can trust, the way he\u2019s tried to evolve his own identity \u2014 the sky is falling. There is a mixture of shock, grief, disenchantment, disillusionment, surprise and perhaps even relief.\u201d<\/p>\n

As soon as Jonathan arrives in Colombia and meets Teddy, a calculating live-wire dealing with his own sense of isolation, he becomes more himself. Hiddleston expresses him as a character desperate to feel the edge. Despite his layered duplicity, Jonathan understands and defines himself by courting risk.<\/p>\n

\"A \"A <\/p>\n

Teddy (Diego Calva), Jonathan (Tom Hiddleston) and Roxana (Camila Marrone) get close. \u201cThis is a character who pushes his body to the limit and sacrifices enormous parts of himself at great personal cost to his body and soul,\u201d Hiddleston says of Jonathan. (Des Willie\/Prime Video) <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a character who pushes his body to the limit and sacrifices enormous parts of himself at great personal cost to his body and soul,\u201d Hiddleston says. \u201cHe goes through a lot of pain, but also there\u2019s great courage and resilience and enormous vulnerability. That\u2019s what I relish the most, these are heightened scenarios that don\u2019t arise as readily and in my ordinary life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI could feel that shooting moments like this,\u201d Banks-Davies adds. \u201cLike, \u2018It\u2019s right there. Are we going to get it?\u2019 Our whole show exists in that space between safety and death.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roper\u2019s presence sends a ripple effect across the remaining three episodes. As much as Jonathan and Teddy are in opposition, they are parallel spirits, both with complicated relationships to Roper. Hiddleston describes them as \u201ca mirror to each other,\u201d although they can\u2019t quite figure out what to be to each other. And neither knows who the other person really is.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is interesting, isn\u2019t it, that my first image of him was 7 years old and that stays in him all the way through,\u201d Farr says. \u201cThis sense of this boy who is seeking something \u2014 an affirmation, a place in the world. And he\u2019s done terrible things, as he says to Pine in Episode 3. All of that was present in that first image I had.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hiddleston adds, \u201cThere is a competition, too, because Roper is the father figure, and they both need him in very different ways. Teddy is a new kind of adversary because he\u2019s a contemporary. He\u2019s got this resourcefulness and this ruthlessness, but also this very open vulnerability, which he uses as a weapon. They recognize each other and see each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

The characters\u2019 dynamic is at the root of what drew Banks-Davies to the series. \u201cIt\u2019s not about where they were born, it\u2019s not about their economic status or their religion or their cultural identity,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s about two men who are lost and alone and solitary, and see a kinship in that. They are pulled together on this journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Season 2, which will release episodes weekly after the first drop, will lead directly into Season 3, although no one involved will spill on when it can be expected. Hopefully they will arrive in less than a decade.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt won\u2019t be as long, I promise,\u201d Farr says. \u201cI can\u2019t tell you exactly when, because I don\u2019t know. But definitely nowhere as long.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the thrill for us, of knowing that when we began to tell this story, we knew we had 12 episodes to tell it inside, rather than just six,\u201d Hiddleston says. \u201cSo we can be slightly braver and more rebellious and more complex in the architecture of that narrative. And not everything has to be tied up neatly in a bow. There\u2019s still miles to go before we sleep, to borrow from Robert Frost, and that\u2019s exciting. It\u2019s exciting for how this season ends, and it\u2019s exciting for where we go next.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This article contains spoilers for the first three episodes of \u201cThe Night Manager\u201d Season 2. It wasn\u2019t inevitable…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":509011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,19919,3404,227707,8761,227710,227708,216022,3351,2961,224,5337,227709,227706,5950,4370,162970,97361,1628],"class_list":{"0":"post-509010","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-character","11":"tag-episode","12":"tag-farr","13":"tag-father","14":"tag-final-moment","15":"tag-georgi-banks-davie","16":"tag-john-le-carre","17":"tag-jonathan","18":"tag-la","19":"tag-los-angeles","20":"tag-losangeles","21":"tag-night-manager","22":"tag-roper","23":"tag-season","24":"tag-show","25":"tag-teddy","26":"tag-tom-hiddleston","27":"tag-year"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115877739615443455","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}