‘The Night Manager’ (BBC) Series 2, six episodes
The second season of The Night Manager draws unashamedly on the perennial Catholic sources of moral drama: good and evil, judgement and redemption, fathers and sons, sin and forgiveness. With Hugh Laurie reprising his role as Richard Roper, an arms dealer and the series’ very own ‘father of lies’, it reminds us that the Catholic vision of reality provides the most convincing stage on which such dramas can unfold.
The first series saw Jonathan Pine, the night manager of a luxury hotel, infiltrate Roper’s inner circle after finding out that he was responsible for the brutal death of his lover. Pine succeeds, delivering Roper into the hands of his Syrian paymasters. All evidence points to Roper’s execution. When season two picks up – and fair warning: there are plot spoilers ahead – Pine is leading a relatively quiet life operating a surveillance unit for MI6 under the alias ‘Alex Goodwin’. But he goes rogue upon discovering that Roper’s network is still active. Undercover as playboy banker ‘Matthew Ellis’, he follows the trail to Colombia, where we meet the putative villain of season two: the young Teddy Dos Santos. Pine ingratiates himself with Teddy with a view to sabotage. But Teddy, it transpires, is much more than ‘Richard Roper’s true disciple’. He is his son.
