1x02 Episode 2

[8.5/10] A really well made hour of television. I struggled a bit with this one at first. We jump around in time and location quite a bit over the course of the hour. Why are we in Mallorca, Spain? Why is Mr. Pine in Dover? What is the import of the back-and-forth with Burr and her American colleague that takes place in London. The handles for this episode are slippery, but once things snap into place, it feels nigh-masterful.

There’s a nesting doll structure to this one. We start in Mallorca and we end in Mallorca. We dip into Dover and exit. And the events in London (and by extension, Switzerland), are marbled throughout. But despite the non-linear storytelling, this one adds up. The leaps across time and space aren’t just a gimmick. They serve the storytelling, giving us an explanation for how Pine is slipping himself into Roper’s entourage,while taking some serious lumps along the way.

And yet, I find myself most intrigued by two characters who aren’t much in focus. One is Jed. She speaks with her (presumably mother) who calls her a filthy whore for consorting with Roper like this, and yet she’s clearly powering through this life in the hopes of providing for a son she’s all but lost in the process. She dances and coos over Roper’s son, clearly filling that empty space in her heart. Jed could be a standard issue femme fatale or fly in the ointment for Pine, but instead she has her own plight, layers, and humanity, which makes her more intriguing than she might be in a lesser story.

At the same time, Tom Hollander’s Corkoran is truly terrifying. Frisky, the bodyguard, seems like a standard issue brute. But Corkoran is perceptive enough to pick up on the fact that Pine is playing some sort of game here, while subtly menacing enough to suggest an unnerving threat while seeming utterly casual about it. I haven’t seen Hollander in much (really just the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and the John Adams miniseries), but he’s knocking it out of the park with a measured performance in limited screen time here.

Then, of course, there’s Olivia Colman. She perfectly walks the line between sympathetic and ruthless here. Burr is rooting out corruption, tearing out the rot in her own roost. We like her because wretches like Dromgoole at MI:6 turn a blind eye, or are in active cahoots, with moneyed interests like Roper, while she’s trying to get justice. But at the same time, she’s willing to put suckers like Pine in rampant danger, set their souls to black in the process, in order to get what she wants. There’s complexity to the character, which I appreciate, particularly in how she straddles the line of good and bad here. More than anything, Collman just imparts a lived in quality to any character she plays, and you 100% buy her commitment to the cause, her affection for her American friend, and her speeches that make you feel like she could be using anyone she meets in service of her larger goals.

I also enjoy the plot of this one. I’ll confess, I’m a little confused about the purpose of Pine’s misadventures in Dover, but they’re compelling on a scene-to-scene basis. We get the idea that he needs to have some sort of criminal record, to create the sense that he’s dependent or indebted to Roper. That way, presumably, Roper believes he has leverage and thus can control Pine, even when Pine’s working his own angle. But the exact mechanics are a little over my head. (Mrs. Bloom suggests that he needed to sleep with the local landlord to assume her baby daddy’s name and passport to throw Roper off the scent; makes sense to me.)

Of course, there’s the tension from the attempted kidnapping of Roper’s son. We see Roper’s steadiness, having clearly been through this sort of thing before (or at least been trained for it) and staying calm and steady despite the threat to his son. We see Jed fall apart, clearly having connected to the boy in the absence of her own son and even offering herself up as an alternative. And we see Pine going all out to make the false flag kidnapping, the fake rescue, and the beating he earns in return, look real. It’s a clever way to earn Pine’s way into Roper’s good graces. Roper’s inner circle is plainly not an easy place to get into, but the scenario is crafted expertly by the powers that be, even as Pine suffers mightily for it.

A third of the way through, The Night Manager offers an incredible hour of television. There’s more beautiful cinematography and tense sequences. The premise of a double agent in the midst of a dangerous man and arms dealer is enough to power this one on its own. Instead, we get lived in character moments for players big and small. Intrigued to see how things proceed now that Pine has wormed his way into Roper’s circle of trust, and sold a bit of his soul in the process.