It’s not exactly that we have impatiently been waiting 10 years for a second season of The Night Manager.
There was never supposed to be a follow-up to the 2016 espionage thriller adapted from a John le Carre novel, and starring Tom Hiddleston as a spy who infiltrated the operations of a malevolent arms dealer.
(OK, yes, every arms dealer is malevolent, but the world is kind of weird and things that we used to take for granted as fact keep getting reversed, so maybe it doesn’t hurt to point out obvious truths.)
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Hiddleston was so dapper, sexy and a little bit dangerous – and, very much in his favour, tall with excellent posture – as Jonathan Pine, the role shot him up the list of those most likely to take over from Daniel Craig as Bond.
A decade on, Hiddleston is now too old to play Bond as the producers look to reboot the iconic character with a younger actor, but Hiddleston is exactly just right to step back in the shoes of Pine.
Tom Hiddleston as Jonathan Pine in season two of The Night Manager. Credit: des willie/Des Willie/Prime
It’s also a bonus, because we all assumed The Night Manager was a one-and-done, especially after le Carre died in 2020. Before his death, apparently le Carre had given the TV series’ writer David Farr permission to do another instalment if they can land the right idea.
Was this second season the right idea? Yes and no, it’s a mixed bag,
But the stakes are so much lower because it hadn’t been built up with 10 years of impatient anticipation. We all only discovered it had been greenlit in 2024, and then kind of forgot about it because it had been so long.
And, well, “Hiddleston as sexy spy” has enough appeal to more or less carry the whole season. Especially while we wait out the ongoing hunt for the next Bond.
A very quick recap if you need it: Pine is former British military who was working as a hotel night manager in Egypt when UK foreign office agent Angela Burr (Olivia Colman) recruited him to go undercover within arms dealer Richard Roper’s (Hugh Laurie) operation.
He thwarts Roper’s scheme to sell arms to some Syrian baddies, who takes the villain captive at the end of the first series.
Tom Hiddleston as Jonathan Pine in season two of The Night Manager. Credit: des willie/Des Willie/Prime
Ten years on, Angela has retired to France, after she and Pine identify Roper’s dead body but cover up his death, sometime in between. Pine is now working for MI6 but as a surveillance manager under a different name. His team, including the resourceful Sally (Hayley Squires) doesn’t know who he really is or his role in taking down Roper.
During a routine job, a familiar face pops into view, someone from Roper’s old crew, and Pine’s Spidey senses are tingling. He goes off-book to shadow him, and coupled with a surprise, his full spy-mode is reactivated.
There a couple of new antagonists on the scene – Teddy Dos Santos (Diego Calva, from Babylon), a Colombian arms dealer who calls himself the true disciple of Roper, and Roxana Bolanos (Camilla Morrone), a Colombian businesswoman whose slippery loyalties make her an unknown quantity.
Pine, like Bond, is a seducer who can read people and exploit their desires and vulnerabilities, and the filmmakers have included a little near-menage-a-trois between their three very attractive leads.
It doesn’t have as much heat as you want it to have, but it’s also not an ice bath.
Tom Hiddleston, Camila Morrone and Diego Calva in The Night Manager. Credit: Des Willie/Prime
The Night Manager season two is a show of two halves, cleaved by a big twist at the end of the third episode which changes the energy of the series. If you find the first few chapters a little dulled, just wait until that reveal.
The Night Manager was always a bit ridiculous, but spy thrillers almost always are. Unless they have the gravity of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, probably le Carre’s best known work, which was adapted into a superb film starring Gary Oldman, they usually push too far what you’ll believe.
But that’s the fun of it, and with Hiddleston in the lead, with Pine’s confidence and slickness, you’ll still want to be seduced, just like a mark.
The Night Manager season two is streaming on Prime Video
