With Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie<\/a>) on the verge of an arms deal that will destabilise Colombia\u2019s peace and (somehow) repay his Syrian creditors, focus moves to the seductive powers of Jonathan Pine. Successfully \u201cturning\u201d Roper\u2019s pouting illegitimate son and obedient lieutenant Teddy (Diego Calva)<\/a> allows Pine to inveigle his way into the Colombian rebels\u2019 operation. \u201cYou can be free,\u201d Pine implores Teddy. \u201cBut not with him alive.\u201d Sadly, for Teddy, it is Roper who comes out on top\/ \u201cI forgive your immortal soul,\u201d he whispers to his son, before putting a bullet into his forehead. \u201cBut not your mortal one.\u201d There is no mercy, either, for Olivia Colman\u2019s Angela Burr, whose power struggle with MI5 Chief Mayra Cavendish (Indira Varma), ends with her bleeding out in the French snow. And so the series, which seemed to be building towards some retribution, ends with Roper restored, rolling through the Cotswolds in a blacked-out Range Rover, while it is Pine\u2019s turn to end a season bruised, bloodied and running for his life. So much for justice. <\/p>\n This lack of resolution contrasts with the ending of the show\u2019s first season. There, Richard Onslow Roper \u2013 a grippingly malevolent force \u2013 was delivered into the merciless hands of his enemies by the combined forces of Burr and Pine. It felt a reasonable conclusion (somewhat more definite than the ending of le Carr\u00e9\u2019s novel) and remained that way for 10 years and three episodes. But just as Tom needs Jerry, Holmes needs Moriarty and Neo needs Agent Smith, The Night Manager needs Richard Roper. Hugh Laurie<\/a>\u2019s return, for the second half of this series, has injected it with renewed energy. He has a weight of charisma that Hiddleston lacks; Roper chews the scenery, while Pine remains, true to his name, immovably wooden. \u201cI pride myself on being an adaptable man,\u201d he purrs, sinisterly. \u201cWhen circumstances demand it, I shed a skin and pick up a new one.\u201d <\/p>\n The return of Roper to narrative primacy meant that characters like Camila Morrone’s Roxy, Paul Chahidi’s Basil and Hayley Squires\u2019s Sally are relegated to bit parts in the denouement. At its heart, this is a story about fathers and sons \u2013 both Roper and the child he fathered in the mountains of Colombia, and Roper and the superspy he engendered over the course of the first season\u2019s rough apprenticeship. \u201cYou\u2019re a real big game hunter, aren\u2019t you Jonathan,\u201d he observes. \u201cFirst my American sweetheart, now my very own son.\u201d But Pine\u2019s relationship with Teddy feels far less plausible than his earlier intrigue with Jed, Roper\u2019s willowy consort played by Elizabeth Debicki. Indeed, Teddy\u2019s damascene conversion comes across as rushed and improbable. He regresses from hard-bitten guerilla leader to a blubbering daddy\u2019s boy. Pine\u2019s sympathy for Teddy, too, seems to forget the events of earlier episodes, where Teddy blew Pine\u2019s beloved colleagues to smithereens. I guess all is forgiven if you have those cheekbones? <\/p>\n These twisting loyalties reveal a lack of integrity to Le Carr\u00e9\u2019s source material. Above all else, Le Carr\u00e9 was a ferociously plausible writer. His situations could have been lifted from the redacted files of British Intelligence, and his characters always seemed motivated by distinctly human foibles. Pride, fear, envy, anger, revenge. But, in this second series, Pine has become a dead-eyed monomaniac, and while Roper\u2019s desire to return home, to England, feels tangible, his plan \u2013 brokering continental chaos in South America \u2013 is wild and unruly. Despite the huge gap between the first and second series of The Night Manager, this run of episodes has ended up feeling like a bridge to the show\u2019s inevitable third season<\/a> where Roper will, once again, be in a position of power and Pine, once again, the outsider nipping at his heels.<\/p>\n![\"Video](\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/img\/logo-white-out.svg\"){kind=logo}
<\/p>\n