The Night Manager season 2 episode 5 spoilers follow.
What does a “Night Manager” actually manage at night? Secret spy stuff? Secret hook-ups? Or secret feelings for the enemy?
As excited as fans have been to resume the adventures of Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston) in season two, what’s actually got everyone talking is the sexy throuple he’s formed with Roxana Bolaños (Camila Morrone) and Teddy Dos Santos (Diego Calva).
How are we supposed to concentrate on espionage when Pine is more concerned with scheming his way into Teddy and Roxana’s pants?
Teddy’s queerness is undeniable, but the jury’s still out on Pine. Questions about his sexuality have dominated talk around this season, with some suggesting that Pine’s playing a role just to get what he wants. Still, it sure seems like there’s something real going on there, and with his identity in constant flux, who’s to say Pine’s sexuality isn’t as well?
Des Willie/The Ink Factory/BBC/Amazon
The truth, however, is that all this steamy interplay between these three is actually a misdirect, as things so often are in spy stories. Because the real ‘love story’, so to speak, doesn’t actually involve Teddy or Roxana at all.
No, the one true focus of Pine’s obsession is Richard “Dickie” Roper (Hugh Laurie). And as we see in this week’s episode, the feeling’s mutual.
The seeds for this forbidden pull were always there. As far back as season one, it always felt like there was an underlying passion to the hatred that these two men shared for one another.
Screenwriter David Farr told The Guardian just recently that “The intelligence world has always been a sexually fluid place,” arguing that “Pine and Roper’s relationship was slightly homoerotic” in season one. Talk then turned to the throuple, but it’s Teddy’s father, Dickie, we should have been keeping an eye on.
BBC/The Ink Factory/Des Willie
As much as we derided Roper’s return and the way in which the writers went about it, it’s still thrilling to see him and Pine finally come face to face again in season two’s penultimate episode.
You might say it was a risky move for Pine to confront his nemesis out in the open, but as he pointed out earlier, “I have to get to Roper before he gets to me.”
Yet it looks like they’ve already “got to each other”, in a sense, as we see in the chat that unfolds.
Pine opens the conversation with a catty jab at Roper, telling him that he “looks older.”
Already commenting on his looks, eh?
BBC
The pair discuss old acquaintances in what very much feels like a game of cat and mouse. Every word is chosen with the utmost care, for fear of letting weakness or something vital slip.
Pine eventually asks Roper to hand himself in and bring his collaborators down with him.
It doesn’t work, obviously, so Pine asks why Roper even bothered showing up at all.
“I hate mess, and I have inexplicable affection for you,” replies Roper.
Oh?
Roper then offers Pine an escape of sorts, a new deal so he can be free of this double life, once and for all.
This power play doesn’t work either, obviously, because Roper can’t be trusted.
“Even when you’re lying on Syrian concrete, you’re lying,” says Pine through gritted teeth.
Ink Factory//BBC
Oh, the gurls are fighting. But instead of threatening Pine with his own visit to the morgue, Roper goes on to say something extremely out of pocket:
“You dream of me every night, just as I dream of you.”
Sounds suss, right?
Things then get heated in a more physical sense when Roper starts talking of Pine’s father. It’s all Pine can do to stop himself from stabbing Roper there and then with a knife on the table.
Boys will be boys, eh? Or is this just a more acceptable way for Pine to release all that tension between them?
Roper and Pine aren’t the first male adversaries to dream of each other every night, and they sure won’t be the last — especially within the spy genre.
Such scenes evoke James Bond’s various clashes with camp villains, most notably in 2012’s Skyfall, when Javier Bardem caressed Daniel Craig’s face while he was tied to a chair.
“You’re trying to remember your training now,” says Bardem’s Raoul Silva. “What’s the regulation to cover this? Well, first time for everything, I guess.”
Columbia Pictures
“What makes you think this is my first time?” replies Bond, hinting that this ain’t his first rodeo when it comes to men.
It was later revealed that the studio actually wanted to cut this line at the time, afraid that people wouldn’t take to James bonding with men.
Now, what would that same studio think of Roper dreaming about Pine every night? Or even the final line in this episode, where Roper simply says, “I want Jonathan Pine.”
Of course, Roper and Pine aren’t going to suddenly make out or run away together in next week’s season-two finale. But there is a history of obsession and forbidden attraction in male face-offs like this, even if the tension remains firmly rooted in subtext.
As such, it feels like Pine is actually more interested in Daddy Roper than his son Teddy, which doesn’t bode well for everyone’s new favourite throuple. Throw Dickie into the mix and suddenly, it looks like Teddy doesn’t stand a chance.
The Night Manager season 2 airs new episodes Sunday nights on BBC One and iPlayer. The One Show airs weekdays at 7pm.
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After teaching in England and South Korea, David turned to writing in Germany, where he covered everything from superhero movies to the Berlin Film Festival.Â
In 2019, David moved to London to join Digital Spy, where he could indulge his love of comics, horror and LGBTQ+ storytelling as Deputy TV Editor, and later, as Acting TV Editor.
David has spoken on numerous LGBTQ+ panels to discuss queer representation and in 2020, he created the Rainbow Crew interview series, which celebrates LGBTQ+ talent on both sides of the camera via video content and longform reads.
Beyond that, David has interviewed all your faves, including Henry Cavill, Pedro Pascal, Olivia Colman, Patrick Stewart, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Dornan, Regina King, and more — not to mention countless Drag Race legends.Â
As a freelance entertainment journalist, David has bylines across a range of publications including Empire Online, Radio Times, INTO, Highsnobiety, Den of Geek, The Digital Fix and Sight & Sound.Â