Olivia Colman<\/a>) further investigates the case, she warns, “There’s something beyond Roper, there’s a bigger game\u2026” \u2014 and her young daughter discovers her dead body outside their home moments later.\n<\/p>\n Entertainment Weekly spoke with showrunner David Farr about the impetus to bring The Night Manager back after a decade off the air, the heartbreaking deaths in the season finale, and what to expect in the show’s third and final season.\n<\/p>\n
Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie in ‘The Night Manager’ season 2.<\/p>\n
Des Willie\/Prime<\/p>\n
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How did you first conceive of this second series of The Night Manager? The first season obviously adapted the John Le Carr\u00e9 novel, but you didn’t have additional source material for this next batch of episodes\u2026\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
DAVID FARR: Yes, initially when the idea was brought to me that we would do a second season, I wasn’t keen, to be honest. Because I felt I’d adapted a book by a great writer, and it felt somewhat off piece and a little unnerving to be heading out alone into the wilderness. So I initially declined politely and the years passed.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
And then I had a very clear idea one night which just excited me, which is often how I think it happens with writers \u2014 You don’t tend to conceptually think about things, you know? Instead something suddenly comes which intrigues you and you write it on a notepad. It was basically an image of a young Teddy Dos Santos, a young kid in a monastery waiting for a black car. And I immediately, for some reason, knew where I was. That was I in Colombia, immediately knew.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
And we can now say that it was Roper in the car. It’s been ages not being able to say that! [Laughs] And suddenly, this whole story unveiled: an alternative son, another alternative family. ‘Cause the whole thing is very clearly about sons and families and orphans. And an emotional story. You know, Roper’s gone back to Colombia in his hour of need, where he was in the ’90s as a younger man, and where he fathered a child that he’s kind of denied ever since \u2014 certainly no one knows about in England. And he uses him.\n<\/p>\n
Hugh Laurie in ‘The Night Manager’ season 2.<\/p>\n
Des Willie\/Prime<\/p>\n
That’s the only way to describe it. He may have feelings towards him, but he uses him, he exploits him in order to get back to the high table of British politics and commerce. And that interested me. And then, of course, I had to flip that idea to Jonathan Pine’s point of view, because the show is called The Night Manager, and Jonathan Pine is the night manager, and Tom Hiddleston is the lead role. And then got very interested in the concept that Pine had somehow gone safe in the time between.\n<\/p>\n
I thought, you know, we have a big gap now, because it was five years after the first season that this idea came to me. Why don’t we use that gap? This guy’s buried himself in normality and grayness. All the things he did in season 1, he’s refusing to do. And then suddenly, of course, the dragon smoke starts to appear with Teddy, which eventually will lead him to his nemesis and to the return of Roper.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
Hugh Laurie and Diego Calva in ‘The Night Manager’ season 2.<\/p>\n
Des Willie\/Prime<\/p>\n
I want to talk more about Teddy, particularly his relationship with Pine. What was the inspiration for that dynamic? How would you characterize their feelings towards one another? It’s a very complex relationship that could be interpreted in a lot of ways.\n<\/p>\n
Initially it’s the hunter and the hunted. Pine is after him \u2014 he’s done terrible things. He’s killed some of his team. He’s killed Rex. Then it changes radically, I think, in episode 2, quite early on, where there’s already a strange attraction, which Pine is susceptible to in many ways when he’s in that strange operational hunter mode.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
And this is extraordinary attraction between the two of them, which I think is a flirtation, it’s a seduction going both ways. They’re both playing each other as well, but I don’t think either of them are in control of it. We really wanted to explore that and enjoy that.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
I think the scene that Georgie directed at the end of episode two by the swimming pool \u2014 the, “Make me clean” scene, as we call it \u2014 is probably the key in that one. You know, that’s a very, very unusual way of doing what is essentially a kind of spy allure.\n<\/p>\n
And it excited us, but I was always aware that as soon as Roper pitched up, that relationship would then shift. Somehow the erotic \u2014 let’s call it that, loosely speaking \u2014 would suddenly not work in the same way. It was a realization, rather than the choice, that it just simply can’t work because Pine’s really deep fascination is with Roper. And as soon as that arrives, he reframes Teddy as something very different. I would say the relationship shifts into almost brotherly care and genuine love. I don’t think anyone including me or Tom or Georgie knows exactly what it is, but it has to shift.\n<\/p>\n
But I do know that in episode 6, there’s a genuine, deep, strange love between the two of them. I don’t think either of them really fully understand, but it is a catastrophe for Pine that what happens in episode 6, which for me is very interesting if challenging for the next and final season.\n<\/p>\n
Olivia Colman in ‘The Night Manager’ season 2.<\/p>\n
Des Willie\/Prime<\/p>\n
How did you land on this particular cliffhanger with two major deaths? Did you want to keep Teddy around at any point in the process?\n<\/p>\n
No. The Teddy one was a done deal from the moment I had the idea. The idea included that it was a tragic narrative. I just thought about how, as a writing challenge, acting challenge, directing challenge, you take a guy, you present him as an absolutely vicious, violent man, and then within six episodes, hopefully you turn him into this deeply vulnerable human being who needs saving and who we deeply care about. I really felt it was vital for the end.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
I wanted Roper to come out victorious in this one, but in a very dark way. So that was a set thing, weirdly, and I never veered from that. And no one ever really tried to talk me out of it. I think everyone saw that it’s quite a strong and bold idea.\n<\/p>\n
The Burr one is completely different. The Burr one was a genuine discussion. Having given Olivia such strong material in season 1 and less material, but still very strong material in season 2 \u2014 she’s lied to Pine, for God’s sake, and she has to come to terms with that and then try and make good on that \u2014 there was a risk in season 3 that we might have less of a dramatic narrative for her, that she would just become an operational handler or something. Which is the last thing you ask Olivia Colman, the best actress in the world. So we had a discussion and I said, “Look, I think there’s a really very strong end here.”\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
It came quite instinctively to me, but what I love about Olivia is she immediately seized it as the most exciting and bold idea. And with that was a very strongly bittersweet thing for everyone, because A) she’s the best actress in the world, or British actress, anyway, and B) she’s been part of the family of the show for so long.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
And, you know, her pregnancy in season 1 was a real pregnancy. So in real life, her child was born at the same time that the show was born. And all of that is quite beautiful and strange and tender. It definitely was not a decision to be taken lightly. But I think it was the right one.\n<\/p>\n
Was there ever a version of the very last moments of the finale where you gave her more of a pronounced death scene? I was so shocked when it happened \u2014 it effectively just cuts to her lying there on the ground without much of a transition.\n<\/p>\n
The only decision I made was that it should be from the daughter’s point of view. That was very clear to me because the death is partly about the effect of the death \u2014 the legacy, and another orphan to add to our list of orphans in the show. Rhythmically, there was obviously more material, there’s always more material that we shot that wasn’t in it, but when it came to the edit, it felt better as an absolute gut punch, rather than a more operatic long thing. It just felt good. But I agree, it’s quite shocking for that reason.\n<\/p>\n
Noah Jupe in ‘The Night Manager’ season 2.<\/p>\n
Amanda Searle\/Prime<\/p>\n
I’m so curious about where we’re going with season 3 here, because it feels to me like most of the cards are on the table now. Pine and Roper know that they’re both still alive, and the Colombian scheme succeeded. Do you envision the next season having a similar amount of deception and undercover work? Are we broadening to something different?\n<\/p>\n
I’m in the writing process as we speak, and it’s always an organic thing for me. I don’t write to a preconceived diagram, exactly. But we are gonna stay true to our basic principles of a show. We are a spy show. We are also a very emotional show, a dramatic show about family and loyalty and how the decisions you make in life become the things that define you as a human being.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
And we’re also a sort of political moral drama about good and evil and arms deals. So that will all absolutely stay in place. I think hopefully we’ll do it in a way that not everyone would naturally predict. I think I have to say “Watch the space” a little bit.\n<\/p>\n
The only thing I would say is that Roper’s other son, Danny, who was in the last scene of the second season\u2026 I think Noah Jupe is a very special young actor. And I think there’s more to come from him as a character, and I’m looking forward to that.\n<\/p>\n
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.\n<\/p>\n
The Night Manager season 2 is now streaming on Prime Video.\n<\/p>\n
Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This article contains spoilers for The Night Manager season 2, episodes 1-6. The Night Manager showrunner David Farr…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":["post-263105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}