From: YourName@YourISP.com
'The Night Manager' Season 2 Isn't Worth the Decade-Long Wait
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To the extent that "The Night Manager" has survived in the
cultural memory since the limited series - adapted from the
John Le Carre novel on the same time - aired a full decade
ago, it was as a showcase for pretty people in pretty places.
(It made sense that director Susanne Bier would go on to helm
"The Perfect Couple," a murder mystery starring Nicole Kidman
and set at a destination wedding in Nantucket.) For a while,
the show seemed like it could kick off a Le Carre revival;
Korean auteur Park Chan-Wook delivered an underrated take on
"The Little Drummer Girl" with rising star Florence Pugh the
following year. But the trend never took off, and "The Night
Manager" lived on largely as images of Tom Hiddleston, Hugh
Laurie and Elizabeth Debicki swanning around Switzerland and
Mallorca. Much like an actual vacation, its transportive power
was directly linked to its finite end.
Ten years later, however, "The Night Manager" is back, as is
Hiddleston's soldier-turned-hospitality-professional-turned-spy
Jonathan Pine. Screenwriter David Farr has extended Le Carre's
story past its original conclusion, resulting in an odd hybrid:
characters like Pine and his handler Angela Burr (Olivia Colman)
remain the same, while the director (Georgia Banks-Davies), the
BBC's American production partner (Amazon Prime Video, taking
over from AMC) and the setting are all new. In shifting the
action to Colombia, "The Night Manager" can at least continue to
deliver on stunning vistas and escapist intrigue. But after
watching all six episodes of Season 2, I still wasn't convinced
this property - no hotel pun intended - needed revisiting, let
alone expansion. At least a very dark cliffhanger ending sets up
an already announced Season 3, even if it somewhat contradicts
the easy-viewing appeal.
Set nine years after the events of Season 1, Jonathan no longer
works in hotels - the profession that first brought him into
contact with arms dealer Richard Roper (Laurie), whose body he
and Angela identify in an opening flashback, and served as a
compelling, specific hook. (Thanks to Jonathan, Roper owed
hundreds of millions of dollars to some powerful creditors, who
kept him captive for years before dumping his corpse in Syria.)
Instead, Jonathan helps run a remote surveillance squad within
the Foreign Office known as the Night Owls, spying on targets
(often in hotel rooms!) remotely and at all hours of the day. But
despite the new job and a new, assumed name, Jonathan is still
haunted by his experience with Roper, an amoral hedonist whose
luxurious lifestyle was bankrolled by bloodshed. When an old
associate of Roper's resurfaces, Jonathan throws himself back into
the fray in pursuit of a man billing himself as Roper's spiritual
successor: Colombian arms magnate Teddy Dos Santos (Diego Calva).
Colombia is a country beautiful enough to deliver the stunning
scenery one expects of "The Night Manager," from lush jungles to
historic cities, and stable enough to host a major TV production.
But the memory of decades-long civil unrest, largely ended by a
peace agreement signed in 2016, is still fresh enough to provide a
real-life context for Teddy's machinations. Calva is a captivating
screen presence whose raffish charisma is a solid substitute for
Laurie's plummy, posh playboy - though the one-time "Narcos:
Mexico" star deserves more roles beyond the Central American
underworld, like his naive dreamer in Damien Chazelle's 2022 film
"Babylon." "The Night Manager" is nonetheless Jonathan's show, and
while Season 2 has its moments, it's ultimately unable to cultivate
him into a George Smiley-like figure. Smiley, a more famous Le Carre
creation, could tie together multiple otherwise unrelated stories
over multiple books (and subsequent adaptations). Jonathan doesn't
hold up to the same sustained scrutiny. The same chameleonic
blandness that makes him so suited to espionage makes for an
inherently unmemorable hero.
The shamelessly Bond-inspired opening credits to "The Night Manager"
- soaring strings over graphics of guns firing and rosaries
shattering - no longer align with Jonathan's tortured, traumatized
mental state. An entanglement with Miami-based shipping broker
Roxana Bolaņos (Camila Morrone) recalls that iconic character's
revolving door of paramours, and Jonathan's new boss Mayra (Indira
Varma) could give Judi Dench's M a run for her money in hard-nosed
severity. But Hiddleston's aged-up, haunted Jonathan is more dour
than debonair, even if he retains the actor's easy elegance. I can't
say I spent much time in the intervening years since Season 1
wondering what became of the reluctant spook, nor did I find him an
especially enjoyable hang after our reunion. New colleagues Waleed
(Anil Desai), Basil (Paul Chahidi) and Sally (Hayley Squires) never
rise above the level of accessories to Jonathan's obsessive pursuit
of closure, let alone to that of a potential co-protagonist.
"The Night Manager" eventually establishes a more direct link between
the two seasons, a blatant bit of revisionism that still facilitates
a more dynamic back half of this new chapter. By then, however, it's
a little late. The viewer has long since started to wonder why Farr
didn't set his sights on another Le Carre yarn, or simply started
fresh in Colombia without the need for British interlopers. Season 1
of "The Night Manager" was a success, but not such a world-conquering
hit that a follow-up is almost economically mandatory, as with "Big
Little Lies." Season 2 is not without enjoyable intrigue, yet never
proves worth the risk of opening a closed (literal) book.
The first three episodes of "The Night Manager" Season 2 will be
available to stream on Amazon Prime Video on Jan. 11, with remaining
episodes streaming weekly on Sundays.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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