Warning: spoilers ahead for The Night Manager season 2 finale.
Who else is reeling after tonight’s final episode of The Night Manager season 2?
It took 10 years for the BBC to bring back the fantastically gripping spy thriller starring Tom Hiddleston as suave spy Jonathan Pine, and it was well worth the wait. Even if this latest finale made us want to bawl our eyes out.
Metro was lucky enough to speak to David Farr, the writer of the show, to dissect every major plot twist, including the death of Teddy Dos Santos (Diego Calva), the gut-wrenching fate of Angela Burr (Olivia Colman), and the heinous Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie) reclaiming his power once again. Plus, how everything will lead to the third and final series of the thriller.
Let’s dig into it.
The demise of Teddy Dos Santos
The trajectory of Teddy Dos Santos’ story in The Night Manager season two was fascinating to watch unfold. At first, he was painted as a clear-cut, malevolent antagonist, whose nefarious business was being infiltrated by Jonathan Pine.
However, as time went on, Teddy and Jonathan went beyond using one another and developed true affection for each other, resulting in the arms dealer betraying his own father, Richard Roper, to join Jonathan’s mission.
In the season finale, Teddy is shot dead by Richard at point-blank range as a distraught Jonathan watches on helplessly. It’s a conflicting moment, as viewers might question if they’re supposed to feel sad about Teddy’s death, given his past and his newfound connection with Jonathan.
So did Teddy and Jonathan truly love each other, and did Teddy become redeemable in Jonathan’s eyes as their bond grew into something real?
‘Yes. I would answer very strongly yes to both those things,’ David told us. ‘One of the things as a writer I found enjoyable as a challenge – and I always have found, I’ve done this before – is to take a character that seems to have done truly terrible things, to be in some sense irredeemable, because I just simply don’t believe in that as an idea.’
David explained that in his opinion, if anyone were to find themselves in certain situations, then they could find themselves doing things that would be considered irredeemable – and that’s ‘definitely true for Teddy’.
‘He is a victim of circumstance. He’s also responsible for his decisions, but he accepts that. I think the moment with his sister in the church is the key moment for that. It’s probably one of my favourite scenes. Diego does that very beautifully when he literally says, “You don’t know what I’ve done.”
‘He comes to terms, to some extent. It doesn’t mean it’s just wiped off the slate in an easy way, but I think he’s understood some sort of journey that he’s been on, which is a redemptive journey, and Pine is crucial to that.’
While nothing ever happens physically between Teddy and Jonathan, except their very close three-way dance earlier in the season and gentle caresses here and there, there’s no denying the way that they feel about each other.
‘I think their love… people have talked a lot about what kind of love it is. Is it homoerotic? I think there is attraction, but I think like in a lot of relationships, it goes in some sense beyond just attraction into something that is about a real, genuine care,’ the writer shared.
Has Jonathan Pine hit rock bottom?
Jonathan faced great suffering in The Night Manager season one, as his lover Jed – Richard’s girlfriend – was tortured and came close to losing her life. But in the end, Jed survived, was saved and Richard was sent into captivity.
Everything’s changed in season two. This time, Jonathan has gone up against Richard once again and lost. Not only in his mission, but also watching his new love Teddy murdered before his very eyes.
‘For Pine, it’s a truly terrible ending,’ David said. ‘There’s no question, because he has once again risked, and this time he’s really lost.
‘With Jed, he risked and very nearly lost in season one, but it came through at some cost. I guess the whole idea of the season is that he swore never to do that again and go safe. And of course, he didn’t, because he couldn’t resist chasing the smoke of the dragon. And this time he has really lost.’
It’s been confirmed that The Night Manager will be returning, so the loss that Jonathan has suffered in the latest finale ‘opens up a very interesting and challenging space about season three in terms of what that’s done to him as a character’.
As for his team, Jonathan’s inside man Basil (Paul Chahidi) was seemingly killed – but this moment happened off-screen, prompting our suspicion that he might still be alive. ‘I can’t talk about any of these things,’ David stressed.
However, the writer was able to openly sing the praises of Hayley Squires as Sally, another of Jonathan’s MI6 allies.
‘I do think Hayley Squires deserves a mention, because I think she’s gorgeous and I’m really excited to work with her more, because she’s got something different to her. Much more underdog-y, I thin,k than Angela Burr, partly because she’s younger, and partly just because of who she is. But I think her Sally is a real gift,’ he said.
Richard Roper is reigning once again
We began The Night Manager season two being led to believe that Richard Roper was dead. We end it with the knowledge that he’s back on top and more powerful than ever.
As thrilling as it was to watch, it was an extremely bleak end to the season – a fact that David outlined as a ‘confluence of three different things’.
‘First of all, I think, let’s be honest – the world is a tough place at the moment. I do believe genuinely that art and storytelling should offer some solace and some hope. But on the other hand, sometimes I think you have to reflect the world you’re in. It just felt right emotionally in this climate, with the way the story was working,’ the writer said.
‘That, I suppose, combines with the second one, which was that I was very, very much aware that Pine won rather splendidly in season one, and unequivocally, and it felt right somehow that the table should turn in some strange way.’
He continued: ‘That then taps into the third reason, which is the third season. I have this instinct that one wants justice, one wants recompense, one wants something better, one wants redemption.
‘So hopefully that gives us an emotional space for season three to launch from. I don’t take it casually ending a season that toughly, but we are dealing with arms dealers. We are dealing with a very thing that’s going on in the world right now.’
Going into season three, it’ll be fascinating to discover how Indira Varma’s duplicitous Mayra Cavendish will continue to play her part, given she’s in Richard’s pocket.
‘Or is he in hers? That’s the interesting thing, isn’t it?’ David remarked cryptically. ‘The power dynamics between those two are going to get interesting. They already are, I think, in episode six. She’s simply a wonderful actress. She’s got enormous power and range, and it’s now my job to make sure we give her even more.’
Do you think Jonathan Pine will finally defeat Richard Roper in season 3?
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Yes – he has to
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No, it's too predictable
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The jury's out
While there were ‘mutterings’ that Hugh was going to reprise his role as Richard, David felt ‘immensely chuffed’ that they managed to carry out his filming for three months without anything being leaked in advance.
‘He was extremely clever in the way he dealt with it all,’ he said of the House actor. ‘He’s a truly wonderful man. He’s obviously now clearly recognised as the great actor he is, because he came from comedy originally. I think it took a while for people to realise what we had.
‘He’s really quite sensational. So to agree, “Okay, I’ll be held back,” and then to realise the power of that, and then to go for it fully, and not be on the posters, and do all of that – I’m very grateful to him. We did a sophisticated deception, as a spy show should.’
What is Roxana Bolaños’ motive?
When viewers first met Roxana Bolaños (Camila Morrone), an associate of Teddy’s, they might have assumed that she would betray the arms dealer to help Jonathan, after falling in love with the British spy.
However, this expectation is completely subverted as Roxana turns her back on Jonathan to work with Richard, a subversion that David confirmed was deliberate.
Despite the betrayal that Roxana commits against Jonathan, the writer has ‘immense sympathy for her’, describing her as ‘an absolute survivor’.
‘When you write, you don’t tend to judge characters. You just tend to write through them, if that makes sense. The judgement comes from the audience. That’s how it should be,’ he stated.
‘I just understand her. I understand the decision she’s made. Whether I would have made different ones, I’ve no idea. But the decisions she’s made are, in some sense, very logical, obviously based on a wound, a very, very strong psychological wound.’
David stressed how the losses that Jonathan, Teddy and Roxana have experienced in their lives – particularly parental losses – unite the three characters.
‘In a sense, they’re all reacting to loss. They’re all reacting to some wound of loss, but in very, very different ways,’ he said. ‘She makes her choice.’
Viewers might not have expected Roxana and Richard to see eye to eye, but the face-off they share in the final episode makes it clear that they have more in common than perhaps even they initially realised.
‘The scene I love personally is the scene with Roper, where they meet eye to eye and understand they’re kind of the same creature,’ David recalled.
‘For me, that’s a surprising but satisfying ending for Roxana’s story, that she realises, “Oh yeah, that’s who I am. I thought maybe I was a kind of idealist, or maybe I could kid myself of something, or maybe I’m capable of love or something, but actually maybe not,” and that interests me as a resolution to her story. I thought that scene between them was powerful. Beautifully done by the two actors.’
Angela Burr’s devastating fate
The delight I felt about Olivia Colman returning to The Night Manager as Angela Burr has now been replaced by utter devastation, after it was revealed in the season two finale that she had been killed. Not only that, but her dead body was found by her young daughter, lying on the ground outside their home.
‘It felt really important that Burr should remain a really totemic presence, narratively,’ David said of her return for the second season.
‘I suppose there was a risk, partly, being very practical, because of Olivia’s continuing [availability], she’s going to be less and less available. She just is. She was really keen to come back for this one. It was wonderful.’
While Angela has a smaller role in season two, David wanted to ensure that she didn’t ‘just become operational handler Burr’ when she came back.
‘In season one, she’s much more than that. She’s the good angel whispering in Pine’s ear, “Don’t be seduced by Roper.” In this season, she’s got a really beautiful narrative, because she’s made, I think, basically, a mistake in the decision she made. She made a very understandable decision, and she makes good on it in the most beautiful way.’
The writer explained that it ‘felt very exciting and necessary to give her a dramatic moment’ in the season finale – and before anyone suspects that it’s fake, he emphasised that Angela Burr is definitely – sadly – deceased.
‘It isn’t a dream, there’s no trickery here. Her legacy will live into season three. That’s important. I can’t tell you how or why, but in that sense, she’s not dead in that sense. Her legacy continues into the next season,’ he shared.
He admitted that it was a ‘hard call’ to write Angela’s death into the script, as he hailed Olivia as ‘probably our greatest actress at the moment, certainly of her generation’.
‘She’s the most wonderful collaborator, utterly brave. She was very in favour of the decision we made. Even though she admitted it was bittersweet, she absolutely understood it and went, “Yeah, let’s do it.” Because it’s the bold choice. Personally, we’re gonna miss her quite a lot,’ he acknowledged.
Is Daniel Roper the next disciple?
At the beginning of the season, before it was discovered that Teddy was the biological son of Jonathan’s nemesis, he was described as ‘Richard Roper’s true disciple’. Now, it appears that Richard’s other son Danny (Noah Jupe) could take up that mantle in the future.
The finale saw Danny reunite with Richard after a decade apart, and after being told that his father was dead. Danny was sporting a small earring for their reunion, as well as a black top, his style looking eerily similar to Teddy’s.
‘Fathers and sons is just such a central theme,’ David outlined. ‘Clearly, you have two very different sons in season two that Roper is, in a sense, strangely creating a hierarchy about, in some very disturbing way. And Pine, I think, is also a kind of weird surrogate third son for Roper as well. They also have almost a homoerotic thing going on as well, it’s all very complex as usual, in a good way.
‘There’s no question Danny will play a much bigger role. Noah is a very special actor, and there’s much more to come from him, so I think you’re right to be excited about that one.’
While it was exciting that several of the original stars of The Night Manager reprised their characters for season two, it felt particularly special that Noah was among them, considering he was a child when he first played Danny in the BBC drama.
‘It was such a thrill that we could get the same guy and that he’s become such a powerful actor in his own right,’ David said of Noah, who recently starred in the Oscar-nominated Hamnet and is set to appear in Romeo and Juliet in the West End opposite Sadie Sink.
‘I can give him really big scenes without any hesitation. He’s ready for all of that and more, and him and Hugh have a very interesting chemistry. So that’s going to be quite an excitement for me going forward.’
Why The Night Manager will end with season 3
Given the critical acclaim both seasons of The Night Manager have received, some might wonder why the thriller wouldn’t continue for several more seasons. But David is adamant that capping it at three seasons is the right direction for the show.
‘I feel like really good television has a shape and a structure and knows when it’s best to end. It feels like this has kind of got that epic trilogy feel to it. At the moment, I’m pretty clear about that myself,’ he said.
‘It isn’t an ongoing detective thing, it just isn’t that kind of piece. It is a story of, fundamentally, a relationship between two men, this very strange relationship. A battle of, you could say, good versus evil, but, of course, it’s more complex than that.
‘But there is some element of that, isn’t there, at a very simple level? It needs to obey that, and it needs to resolve in a way that hopefully satisfies at least some people.’
The Night Manager seasons 1 and 2 are available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
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