A few weeks ago, I’d written about the first episode and the general buzz surrounding BBC’s new, greatly hyped production of John le Carre’s celebrated spy novel, The Night Manager . The series wrapped up last week, ending the rollercoaster ride of emotion that viewers underwent each time they saw an episode.
Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston) is the night manager at the Nefertiti Hotel in Egypt. One night, the girlfriend of the most powerful man in Cairo gives him access to information about an arms deal that her boyfriend’s family had with one Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie), a British industrialist whom she calls “the worst man in the world”, which could potentially alter the fate of the political situation in Egypt. Pine alerts the British embassy about the deal, and does all he can to protect her, but fails. The British Embassy, with the exception of one person, Angela Burr (Olivia Colman), becomes conspicuously silent, and Sophie is forced to come back to the hotel, where she dies a gruesome death. Pine, who is now traumatised by the events, takes up a new job as a manager in a ski resort in Switzerland, where he meets Richard Roper again.
The wounds reopen, and Pine contacts Angela Burr again. We learn that she is a British enforcement agent who has been trying to nab Roper and his illegal weapon deals throughout her career, but with little support because Roper has the entire British intelligence in his back pocket. She asks him if he would commit to becoming a spy for her, and infiltrate Roper’s ranks, gain his trust, and ultimately, expose him. Pine agrees, setting off a motion of events which forms the series.
Tom Hiddleston is excellent as Jonathan Pine, the spy who blazes his way up Roper’s ranks with a combination of his sort of self-deprecating “Who, me?” charm, and his tolerance for brutality. When the series was aired, there was a great deal of talk about Tom Hiddleston being the most obvious candidate for the next James Bond — a sentiment that I agreed to initially, and as the series progressed, it felt like one that even the show’s makers shared — why else would Pine be made to order a martini at a casino?
Olivia Colman does even better as the unwavering, and very pregnant Angela Burr, who is dogged in her pursuit of Roper despite all the odds (and the government) not being in her favour. Tom Hollander as Major “Corky” Corkoran, Roper’s sharp-tongued right hand man, and Elizabeth Debicki as Roper’s beautiful girlfriend, Jed, are also stunning in their portrayals of their respective characters.
If you’ve read le Carre’s novel, you’d know that Richard Roper is a malevolent businessman, who, after seeing little children choke and die from a gas bombing in a school in Kurdistan, starts peddling the chemical to his buyers. Hugh Laurie, during the promotions for the show, said that he had “impudently imagined” himself portraying Pine the spy, not Roper the arms dealer, because he “loathed” the character. Laurie then said that he decided to play him anyway because “there is something intoxicating about someone who has put themselves beyond the bounds of laws, who has the confidence, the daring, the kind of madness.” I haven’t read the book yet, but I’ve no doubt that Laurie’s Roper is much more terrifying than le Carre’s.
