[For The Night Manager “Part Six” or any other recaps on Fetchland, assume the presence of possible spoilers.]

AMC Summary:
Part Six. Roper and his team return to Cairo while Pine mobilizes his plan, and Burr makes a last stand.

We open as Dromgoole shuts down Angela Burr’s whole deal. He’s punishing her for using the mole at MI6 and having troops raid Roper’s trucks at the Syrian border; trucks that carried merely agricultural equipment and supplies. Thus Burr’s office and operation close down. But then just as she says farewell to the office, Angela gets a call from Pine. Now she knows Roper and his crew are in Cairo for the final deal and thus her mission continues. Having never really been well-supported anyway, Burr doesn’t let lack of resources restrain her now that she’s finally in a position to succeed.

Meanwhile Freddy Hamid, the villain from “Part One” shake hands with Pine after Roper’s introduction. At last we’ve reached the final stage of the arms deal. They’re finalizing it when the buyers ask about the recent incident when Roper’s trucks were searched at the Syrian border. Roper assures them it won’t happen to them here. So, the buyer transfers $300m into Roper’s Tradepass account and they all shake hands. Afterward at the hotel bar Jed and Pine pretend to smile, laugh and finger flirt under the bar while whispering, about stealing Roper’s documents out of the hotel room safe. Jed mutters how she can’t take being with Roper anymore and wants to run away but Pine insists they have to nail Roper first.

Next we see Pine reunited with Burr and meeting Steadman for the first time at the Cairo hotel. They tell him they have no resources beyond the two of them, a cowboy and pregnant lady, and this suggest that maybe Pine wants to pull out of the operation now. But of course our hero says no way. He’s come this far, etc. Then Pine approaches his old friend in the hotel kitchen (remember from the Part One?) and finds out he’s head chef now. Thanks to his old buddy, Pine’s got the local hookup again.

In their hotel room Jed asks Roper to put her earrings in the safe, then watches him and memorizes the combination. Along with Hamid and Pine, the “Ropers” gamble a bit at the hotel casino and in the process Jed relays the vault combination to Pine using a bet at the roulette table. He then texts it to Burr, who’s ready and waiting like a pregnant woman on her due date. In fact, it’s a look she’s got down pretty solid at this point. Angela sneaks into Roper’s room with the help of Pine’s kitchen connection, opens the safe, and takes out a certificate of sale. Right then Burr’s almost discovered by one of the security guys but she’s saved by Steadman’s call (allegedly from the front desk) distracting the security guy and enabling her narrow escape. She gives the front desk and envelope with the certificate in it for Pine who brings it to the kitchen guy’s brother – trading for a BIG favor. We like it that Angela was the one doing the hard stuff in this part of the story. Kudos to The Night Manager for evolving hollywood portrayals of pregnant ladies. This one’s fearless, brilliant, and she gets the job done. Bravo.

Meanwhile shit-faced, drunk Hamid has Pine for a driver and caretaker. Uh oh. Pine takes him home and promptly slips a mickey into Hamid’s drink. After Pine hands him the drugged whiskey, he asks Hamid if he remembers having a girlfriend named Sophie and did he kill her? Hamid then recognizes Pine as The Night Manager and thus they tussle by the side of the pool with Pine strangling Hamid before gently placing him in the center of the pool for a round of dead man’s float. Did he really have to drug the guy first? Clearly he doesn’t have the best upper body strength but c’mon, Pine, you’re not that much of a weakling.

Next we see a team of locals affiliated with Pine’s kitchen friend assembling in vans, ready for action. Pine shows them Roper’s certificate of sale and they say all he has to do do implement their big plan is memorize a number for keying into his phone later. The next morning Jed receives a breakfast tray compliments of Mr. Birch and there’s the certificate of sale tucked inside for her to return to the safe. But when Jed tries to put it back, the digital safe just keeps reading ERROR on the keycode. Turns out smug Roper is watching Jed from the doorway. He tells her the jig is up, he knows she “let someone steal from the safe” and this time there’s no Corky left to blame.

Pine then transfers the $300m out of the Tradepass account but we don’t know to where exactly. In fact, we never find out this significant information. Meanwhile in Roper’s room, Frisky slowly drowns Jed in bathtub spurts of torture to find out whom it was she allowed into the safe. Roper tells Jed he thinks it’s Pine because he saw how close they were at the casino. Apparently their whispering was detectible after all. Those silly, stupid lovebirds couldn’t resist touching hands. Then Roper and Pine leave the hotel to finalize the deal out in the desert but, of course, Hamid is nowhere to be found. Pine says he left him “sleeping like a baby at his house,” but it’s not even a little believable. Roper takes him to a shed and ties him to a chair for a Frisky beating. He shows Pine a picture of Jed, who’s way ahead of him on that count and already all beaten to a beautiful bloody mess. Roper says he knows Pine killed Corky and Hamid, “…and you would have killed me, I suppose,” then he insists Pine has to fulfill the transaction with the buyer or his beloved Jed will die. Frisky then knocks on Burr and Steadman’s hotel room door with quivering Jed guarding him like a shield. But Burr manages to shoot Frisky down. Applause again for the awesomeness of our pregnant hero.

At the last arms deal transaction out in the desert, Pine finally keys those numbers he memorized earlier into the phone. This sets all the trucks of arms afire with explosions. The munitions are gone so, the buyer immediately says he wants his money back. But Pine has transferred it out of the Tradepass account so Roper can’t return the buyer’s money. The buyer then threatens him and Roper screams back furious, calling him a “little brown rat” and saying he’ll give him the money back when he’s good and ready. Roper then pulls a gun on Pine and says he’ll have to return the money to the Tradepass account or Jed dies. “You’re paying $300m for the girl,” he says. But we never find out if this transaction actually occurs.

In the next scene Pine goes back to Roper’s hotel room with him and Burr is waiting; ready to confront him. Roper calls Dromgoole to retaliate but gets rebuffed. Angela then talks to him about sports day but Roper replies that he’s never killed anyone, stolen, or even fiddled on his taxes. That’s the thing about the kind of evil-doing Roper engages… it’s so easily whitewashed into nothingness because he remains at a safe distance from those he harms. Just then Steadman appears at the door with Cairo police to arrest Roper for contravention of Egyptian import laws and conspiracy to commit murder. They handcuff Roper, who sneers and says he’ll be out by morning anyway. The police then lock him in the back of an armored van with the disgruntled munitions buyers. It seems likely those guys believe in torture and dismemberment given their “shopping” interests. Roper’s probably not going to make it anywhere by morning after all.

In the end Jed and Pine happily walk hand-in-hand then smooch just outside the hotel. She’s headed back to see her son in the States with a promise from Pine to visit soon. So, we’re left with some unanswered questions in the end. Is the $300m in Pine’s bank account? What’s up with Angela’s baby, bludgeoned hubby, relationship with Steadman, and standing at work? Now that we love Burr we know virtually nothing about what’s next for her. Another interesting irony at the end lies with Pine as a character; now a cold-hearted killer and high stakes thief. Angela takes out Roper only to leave behind what appears to be simply a new brand of Roper – Jonathan Pine. In just the last day, Pine stole $300m and strangled a man with his bare hands. We know fetchland said early on that Pine would be more interesting if he was edgier or at least had a dark side but this shift’s a tad ridiculous and abrupt. Pine goes from white knight to Roper twin in a virtual snap of the finger. When Angela tried to convince him to give up on the mission and Pine insisted on continuing his argument was that his life had no meaning before this mission. Roper literally gave his life meaning… So, Pine took Roper’s girlfriend, his freedom, and his three hundred million dollars. Maybe for Pine this mission was really about becoming Roper more than taking him down. Of course, now we know this whole mini series was simply a setup for Tom Hiddleston to segue-way into being the next James Bond – good for him and his dashing blue eyes. But what does it mean for the 007 franchise? Compared to the prospect of Idris Elba’s intriguing hotness and charisma, this Bond scenario feels a bit too wafer thin and pasty for our taste.

–Katherine Recap

[For The Night Manager “Part Five” or any other recaps on Fetchland, assume the presence of possible spoilers.]

AMC Summary:
Part Five. Roper attempts to find the traitor by gathering his entourage; Burr and Steadman face opposition.

Part Five turns out to be an extended version of the trixter game cups. As the game begins Pine and Roper are headed to the Haven, a refugee camp in Kasimli (Southeast Turkey) and “a safe haven for the wretched of the Earth” as Roper calls those he helps philanthropically. Roper greets the refugees for photo op purposes then exits quickly to conclude his Tradepass arms deal. Turns out the Haven really serves as more of a military haven; packed with Roper’s troops, ie. ex military mercenaries. Roper tells Pine he’s aware that Angela Burr somehow has his classified documents about Tradepass. So, when Pine says uh oh, maybe you should delay this final transaction then, Roper replies that he’ll “plug the leak” whomever it is. But when Roper says plug the leak he really means, “kill the bastard”. He only said it the more polite way because he’s British.

Roper has Pine familiarize himself with the weapons manuals right away so that night he can lead the arms demonstration for the buyer, Mr. Barghati. It’s an impressive display that creates a spectacle of orange on the pitch of the desert sky and Pine’s quite knowledgable and confident considering he only spent one day learning the stuff. His sad sunburnt face in the glowing light of napalm is our only hint that Pine’s still on Burr’s side at this point. The next morning the buyer leaves after completing the transaction and Pine writes down the license plate numbers on his trucks – another clue that he’s still true blue.

In the next scene Burr gets home after a long day at the office only to get a call from Dromgoole who’s in a car just outside her apartment. So, then he comes to the front door and they chat in the doorway. Dromgoole asks where she got the Tradepass papers and accuses her of having someone on the inside. She simply must tell him who it is. Then he recites his philosophy treatise on Ayn Rand, the greater good, the whole wide world, “your own safety” etc. to try to convince her. But Angela Burr cannot be enticed and shuts the door in his smug face. Whether you like The Night Manager or not, the villainous character name Dromgoole simply demands acknowledgment for its glorious and apt repugnance.

Jed then arrives at Haven with Corky and we soon see the Roper relationships of yore unravel to unrecognizable. Roper confronts Jed about being the leak and in the process smacks her hard across the face. Then he gets called away before doing further damage and Pine slips in to help Jed. He even tells her why he’s really doing all this – British intelligence etc. Pine then promises to get her out of there and they smooch longingly just before he exits. Roper comes back into the tent then and Jed tells him she took a photo of his list with her phone. She implies that Corky was the leak saying that he told her not to leave her phone lying around. Roper appears to believe Jed and they exchange creepy ice cold “I love yous” to seal their alleged newfound trust.

Next Pine wire-cuts and slips outside a fence surrounding the Haven; just barely passing the armed guards on duty. Once free, he slips into a waiting cab and gives the guy 200euros to hand a note to the woman from Istanbul Hotel room 314. When Pine gets back to the fence Corky awaits him there with fists of fury clenched and ready. But Pine ends up taking the power position in their fight so that when Roper comes out to investigate the ruckus Pine has the upper hand and says he caught Corky trying to sneak back inside the fence. The cab driver then arrives at the Istanbul Hotel and asks for the woman from room 314. He gives her the license plate notes from Pine and she immediately sends them to Burr. Angela sends the numbers to Steadman and tells him to bring the info straight to the military with no Langley involvement. Steadman does exactly as she says, so the US military stops the buyer’s trucks at the border to investigate.

Meanwhile we see Roper and Pine watching those same trucks via satellite video tracking their progress to the border. Roper even brings Jed in to watch too. They then see the trucks are actually filled with agricultural equipment and supplies – the very stuff Roper claims to be dealing on the face of this whole deal. He quips to Pine “They didn’t watch the cups did they?” referring to the three cups magic trick. Then Steadman asks a baffled Angela if she’s ever thought that Pine may be a double agent, or is at least working both sides. When Angela gets home that night her place has been ransacked and her husband bludgeoned. It’s not her finest hour… and she’s still got childbirth on her imminent horizon.

The next morning Roper tells Pine he knows now that Corky was his Judas and now that he’s gotten rid of him he can finally finish and fulfill the Tradepass deal for real. The Brits and Yanks investigators are officially off his tail now – it’s all clear for takeoff. So, Roper gets on the phone with Mr. Hamid from Cairo and the whole story’s coming full circle now. In fact, they’re staying at the same hotel where Pine was The Night Manager not so long ago in “Part One”. Of course the memories flood back as soon as he walks through the archway entrance. His lady love/one night stand lies dead like a ghost before him in the very same suite where Jed and Roper now stay. Bereft and romantically inclined Pine is back with a vengeance.

This was the best part of The Night Manager thus far and just in time too. It’s all coming to a crashing climax in the next episode as every single character (other than that schmuck, Langbourne) seeks personal revenge; Angela Burr most of all. She ends the episode bursting with baby, foiled in the Roper mission yet again, and with a bludgeoned husband to boot. This woman seethes with righteous anger and the only thing that can quell her rage is taking down Richard Roper. She’s got Steadman, Pine, and Jed on her side. Unfortunately, Burr’s not really aware of the Pine/Jed support. She currently has no military backup and her baby’s coming any minute. If anybody’s sipping a cool drink on the white sands of an island paradise at the conclusion of this thing, we hope it’s her.

–Katherine Recap

[For The Night Manager – “Part Four” or any other recaps on Fetchland, assume the presence of possible spoilers.]

AMC Summary:
Part Four. Pine becomes part of Roper’s inner circle; Burr questions the safety of her source.

This Night Manager – “Part Four” would be better titled “They Finally Do It” … but instead we have the gloriously descriptive, “Part Four”. Our title works for two reasons, Pine finally sticks it to Jed and, in the main plot line, Roper finally does his arms deal. Technically, though it’s actually Andrew Birch who does the deal, signs the papers, and provides the retinal scan. This is also the episode where they finally reveal to us just how despicable Roper really is. of course, we’ve heard how he’s the “worst man in the world” but thanks to Angela Burr’s storytelling in “Part Four” we truly get the picture.

Speaking of “picture” this show integrates current cellphone technology into the story in a perfunctory manner. Why more spy stories don’t do this these days makes no sense. Of course spies would be using their phones all the time! It’s the most realistic thing about “The Night Manager” and gives it a sense of “now” that works. The episode opens with Roper explaining to Pine how he’s the straw man in the arms deal. He’ll play Andrew Birch and all the contract signing and dealing will be done in his name. Then Danny and Jed come in so Roper can say goodbye to his son as he goes back to be with his mother, location classified.

Speaking of classified, Burr has a secret meeting with Harry, an MI6 agent from her old days working there. Harry says Halo is Dromgoole, the head of MI6, and Felix is Langley in London. They’re falsifying MOD certificates with Harry’s help. This is corruption and fraud. So, a contrite Harry gives her helpful documents that she and Steadman analyze with their team. Through these docs, Angela finds out Roper and Langbourne are on a plane to Instanbul with a man named Andrew Birch. Burr then realizes that Pine may now be Andrew Birch.

Jed then confronts Pine, asking if he’s Andrew Birch, Thomas Quince, or Johnathan Pine. He says he can’t tell her. For some reason this mystery gets Jed really hot. So, they go up to his room and do it. Question now is whether Andrew Birch is a sentimental schmuck like Pine with his lady in Cairo or more like the douchebag he was as Thomas Quince in Devon – just lovin and leavin them. Or perhaps Birch is a new brand of blue-eyed babe. He certainly seems comfortable in Roper’s world now.

Meanwhile Roper talks with Langbourne about how Halo and Felix at MI6 are getting skittish. In fact, they’re extremely agitated because they now know Burr has Harry’s documents implicating them in the deal. Halo and Felix assume it was Apostel that snitched. So, guess who’s found dead at the end of the episode? Yes, Apostel’s a goner. This means we need to worry about Burr now. Our pregnant hero faces imminent danger from all sides.

The next day during the contract signing part of the deal the sellers do a biometric iris scan of Andrew Birch and take a look at his bank account, which miraculously contains three hundred million dollars. Pine’s come a long way from being “The Night Manager” now.

Part two of the deal takes place late at night on a cargo ship. The sellers then do another retinal scan on Birch and the purchase gets authorized. They give Birch/Pine special vodka and convey the arms from their cargo ship onto Roper’s trucks. The next day Roper, Langbourne, and Birch will fly out to the buyer with enough weapons to start a war.

Monitoring from her office Burr tells a coworker about when she first learned about Richard Roper. Burr calls it “School Sports Day,” an event she attended in Baghdad while stationed there. At an outdoor park families were playing sports and celebrating with picnics when someone released Sarin gas at the event. This tortured and killed 112 children and 58 adults. Burr saw Richard Roper at “School Sports Day” taking it all in and then he started selling Sarin soon after. So, she knows Roper got the idea from seeing that horror. What she saw as a tragedy he saw as a great way to make lots of money. This was the origin for Burr’s obsession with nailing him.

Late that night Jed calls Pine “just to know he’s there” but instead of cooing back, he tells her to get off the line. Pine knows Burr’s team is listening. The next morning Angela says Pine’s in too deep. Pine retorts that Burr can’t nail Roper without him. She’s certain to get him, though, as long as the operation goes forward. Angela still insists Pine has to flee the operation but Instead he notifies Roper that being monitored by police. So, Roper calls for a full evacuation, everybody on the road in ten minutes. Pine leaves with Roper, off the grid now and officially pisses off Burr who’s mad pregnant at this point. Anyone familiar with pregnancy rage knows that the real action hasn’t even started yet on “The Night Manager” so stay tuned for the inevitable blitzkreig.

–Katherine Recap

[For The Night Manager “Part Three” or any other recaps on Fetchland, assume the presence of possible spoilers.]

AMC Summary:
Part Three. Pine uncovers secrets about other members of Roper’s household; Burr and Steadman recruit someone.

The third part of The Night Manager opens at the Madrid home of Apostel, one of Roper’s arms dealer business buddies. He’s having a party for his teen daughter’s birthday and makes a spectacle of giving her, “The most expensive necklace” in front of all the party guests. Then Apostel talks business with Langbourne and dances with Jed until one of the maids calls him away because his daughter has just hung herself in the bathroom. Jed is then disappointed when Roper blows off the birthday girl’s death in a callous manner saying she inconvenienced his meeting schedule with her suicide.

Then Frisky brings Pine’s to meet with Roper and Corcoran soon joins to interrogate Pine about his “sordid” past. “Makes a man wonder who you really are,” Roper says. Then he suggests maybe it’s time for Pine to become somebody new since there’s a worldwide warrant out for him. Pine acts like he’s gonna leave but he can’t. It turns out Roper has confiscated his passport. They want him to stay in the cottage down the beach until Roper figures out what to do with him. It’s a forced welcome into the fold. Corky, though, still doesn’t trust him and wishes he’d just walk into the sea with stones in his pockets, Virginia Woolf style.

Burr tries to watch Roper’s island retreat machinations through binoculars from across the water but can’t see much. Pine jogs and plays tennis with Roper, then he asks to take Danny into town for a change of scenery. As they’re leaving Corky tells Pine he noticed a gap in his history and he’s going to find out where Pine was and what he was doing during that time. So, on his outing with Danny, Pine lures Burr over to listen in on his conversation with the boy. In this scene we see that Burr’s pregnancy has advanced quite a bit so Pine must have been with Roper many months at this point. Through his conversation with Danny, Pine alerts Burr that Corcoran is investigating the gap in his resume, in other words – his time in Cairo. In a later scene Danny also reveals to Pine that Roper’s got a secret hidden room off his bedroom that he calls “The Citadel” with a special key and an alarm they check every day at eleven.

Meanhwile Steadman tells Burr that since Apostel’s daughter killed herself he’s been attending church daily and even called the investigators in Madrid to say he has information about a big arms deal about to go down. The guy’s contrite as fuck. So, Burr approaches him at church and tells him she’s his guardian angel. She claims that if Roper wasn’t in Apostel’s life maybe his daughter wouldn’t have killed herself. Although this isn’t really logical or even a reasonable thing for a stranger to say, Apostel isn’t thinking clearly. Burr then tells him he can find redemption by assisting her and taking down Roper. The first step will be extricating Corky from Roper’s inner circle. Right away Burr puts Apostel to this task.

Next we finally see the big meeting between Apostel, Roper, and Langbourne. During it Pine listens in on Jed talking to her mother and crying. He interrupts to tell her the guests are arriving and sees her partially naked in the process – just a side boob, really. But much is made of it by Pine who apologizes later. During the party he and Jed go for a walk along the beach and she says she doesn’t care who sees her naked but makes him promise not to tell anyone she was crying. Then Jed strips down and skinny dips to prove her point about nudity and though Pine refuses to join her in the water, it’s obvious he wants to. We’re meant to understand that women are Pine’s speical weakness and yeah, we get it. He’s here in this mess to avenge a woman he literally slept with once. But guess what? Being into women isn’t really so unique. It’s what straight guys do. You’re not so freaking special, Pine!

While at the meeting Apostel tells Langbourne that “Mr. Bargatti,” the guy with the arms to sell, is concerned about Corky and thinks he’ll run off at the mouth because he’s a big drinker. So, when Langbourne passes along this info to Roper, he starts alienating Corky a bit from the inner circle. Corcoran is an instinctual fellow and immediately senses something is off. Speaking of Langbourne, it turns out that hot potato teen he was flirting with isn’t his daughter at all. She’s the family nanny. We were right about him screwing her, though. Langbourne’s wife tells Pine all about it on the sexy end of the pool where all the action seems to happen at Roper’s place. She also divulges a ton of insider info about the arms deal going on between Bargatti, Apostel and Roper. Her motivation for this seems rather implausible as all she gets out of it is a half-ass back rub from Pine while he puts sunscreen on her. Then Pine sends a surreptitious text to Burr and Steadman using Danny’s cellphone to give them all the dirt Ms. Langbourne told him about the arms deal.

Next there’s a big Roper meeting in Monaco but Corky and Pine aren’t invited. While Jed and Corky are out galavanting, Pine goes through Jed’s personal effects and finds a picture of her little boy and the secret Citadel key. Right at eleven am he uses the “testing the alarm” frame to enter The Citadel and take pictures of Roper’s secret documents. While there he finds a distinctive golden hair that clearly belongs to Jed. When she comes home and finds him there Pine tells Jed she has to be more careful about leaving evidence that she broke into his office and spied on his papers. So, now they share two secrets, well three if you count the nudity but Jed doesn’t count that.

Speaking of secrets, one of the MI6 peeps meets with Roper and Langbourne to tell them about Burr and Steadman’s operation. So, he’s a double agent of sorts and then it turns out Halo itself – a division of MI6 is in on the whole deal. This is also in the documents Pine photographed. Then Roper and Jed have a huge fight over the phone where she accuses him of hiding stuff and he confronts her about having a secret kid. Meanwhile Pine’s texting the documents he photographed to Burr and Steadman. This is when they discover Halo’s involvement. In this rapid unfurling of two parallel secrets, the truth comes out on both sides of the story, personal and business.

When Roper’s back from Monaco he has a present for Pine, a new identity and passport but first Pine needs to witness a document for Roper. He’s going to be Andrew Stephen Birch now and sign on to a “new company” with this new name. Best line from “Part Three” of The Night Manager is when Pine asks about what he’s signing and Langbourne says, “Jesus, for a murderer on the run you’re pretty bloody picky”. While reading it over Pine sees that he’s officially replacing Corky as Roper’s right hand man. Then as “Part three” concludes Roper says, “Welcome to the family, Andrew,” and thus Pine’s in like Flynn. We can only presume/hope he’ll ruin this picture perfect postcard family situation by banging Jed in the near future. That beautiful face of his is just begging for another beating. At least we think so.

–Katherine Recap

[For The Night Manager “Part Two” or any other recaps on Fetchland, assume the presence of possible spoilers.]

AMC Summary:
Part Two. On the island of Mallorca, Roper’s life of luxury is ruined; Burr continues recruiting Pine.

The Night Manager continues with the same black and white take on the world for this second part although it does make a grand effort to muss up the hair of our hero, Jonathan Pine. His new boss even tries to make him eat a cookie (biscuit cause they’re Brits) after saying, “You’re too perfect Pine!” exasperated. So, Pine spends this part of the story dirtying his britches and creating a dark legend about himself so Roper will want to hire him and he can infiltrate the worst man in the world’s empire.

“Part Two” opens as gorgeous half-naked Jed gets an unwelcome phone call from her mother. She’s brusque with her mummy and then asks about “Billy” and her mother gets nasty saying, “As if you care. They say he doesn’t even ask about you anymore,” which makes Jed cry. Then she says the money’s coming at the end of the month right before her mother tells her not to forget that she’s a dirty whore. So, then Jed swallows about half a bottle of pills, puts on a dress, and joins Roper, his son, Danny, and some friends to go for a fancy dinner. They speedboat to another part of the island in two parallel boats, then disembark at a divine dining spot. One of Roper’s buddies is a chap named Lord Langbourne who dances creepily close with his teenage daughter after dinner.

Then a robbery rudely interrupts their frivolity. Guys with guns and tattoos take their jewelry and money but then also seize Danny for ransom. Corcoran, Roper’s right hand man, offers them a swift one hundred thousand dollars and Jed tries to get them to take her instead. But she’s broken, along with Roper, when they take the boy and leave saying they’ll contact Roper with further instructions soon. Because Danny’s quite young, maybe eight at the oldest, it’s pretty tragic even though it’s also during this scene that we find out Roper’s bodyguards are named after cats – Frisky and Tabby. Maybe it’s partly sad because that first scene showed Jed’s lack of “Billy” and then the dinner reveals her close bond with Danny. So, in the back of our minds we’re thinking this relationship with Roper’s son is her way of replacing “Billy,” who’s probably her son. As the kidnappers leave with Danny they spy someone watching them and, of course, it turns out to be Pine.

Next the story slips back to six months before as Burr enlists Pine for the Roper insider job. Angela promises to resettle him after they nail Roper; with a new name, job, and life. All he has to do is help her nail Richard Roper. She tells him they’ll have to create a fake criminal record for Pine so that Roper will discover it, “And not a word to the River House,” she warns – that means MI6 and thus Pine’s permanent record. In the next scene Pine joins her ready for his assignment and he even wears an army green jacket to prove it. When Burr says he’s too perfect she tells Pine to drill down to his deepest inner psychopath and mine that part of himself for material every minute of the day. He’s gotta become comfortable being the second worst man in the world now until this job is done.

During his transition into second worst man, Pine begins a violent career as a local drug dealer in a small town. He literally shoves drugs down the throats of future customers before threatening their lives if they don’t buy his drugs from now on. In his free time Pine watches Youtube videos of Roper talking about his philanthropy project and then runs the hills and valleys with gear strapped all over him like a heavily armed air force ranger. During this period of time Pine also breaks the heart of a local single mother, gets into a barroom brawl, and steals another identity. He’s thus cemented himself into the echelon of “bad guy” presumably enough to now move on to his real goal of infiltrating Roper’s inner circle.

Meanwhile Andrea teams up with American agent, Joel Steadman who specializes as an enforcer against illegal arms dealers. He and Angela know each other and go out for a drink after he speaks at a meeting with the British intelligence team. Steadman tells her about his latest mission to move against Roper. He’s in Madrid now and was behind a meeting between Lord Langbourne and a shady lawyer. Steadman got pictures of the meeting but nothing actionable. Burr says she can help him do even better work but needs financial help for her “inside man” in return. Angela’s pregnancy is revealed at this stage as a minor subplot just so that we’re all clear that Burr’s the madonna to counterbalance Jed’s whore.

Then we see Pine in Mallorca saving Danny from the kidnappers and sending him back to Jed and Roper. Turns out he’d paid the kidnappers to “make it look real” but then right after Danny leaves Pine attacks them so they’ll come at him hard. He succeeds and they end up beating him nearly to death. The kidnappers leave Pine to die and (once returned to his relieved Roper parents) Danny points him out as the one who saved him. Roper recognizes him as Pine and says they’ll take care of him and protect him from now on. Corcoran then runs a background check on Pine which Angela and Steadman hear about from their home base. So, now they know he was successful at getting inside. They follow up with a warrant for his arrest so Roper will take him deep into the fold. Angela explains to Steadman that since Pine’s crossed the bridge it’s now their turn to burn it.

Pine’s a wreck. All bloody bruises and bandages, he rides via private ambulance to Roper’s Mallorca island retreat. Jed wakes him for a hazy “hello” at the house at one point just to ask if there’s anyone they should call but he doesn’t answer. Danny thanks him for saving his life and reads to him from a book about sea creatures but Pine doesn’t seem to notice. Eventually after much time has passed, Pine can sit up. Now it’s Corcoran’s turn for a visit with Pine. Roper’s right hand man makes it clear he doesn’t trust Pine. He tells Pine he knows how he stole from the hotel in the Alps where he worked. Then Corcoran says he thinks Pine’s stringing them along and not really as bad off as he seems. Frisky, the bodyguard, isn’t particularly friendly with him either but Pine’s got his sea blue eyes on the cold cycle. He’s not feelin’ shit these days, folks.

In the last scene we see Roper arrive home in a helicopter and then come straight inside to see Pine. He sits on the edge of the bed next to him and pulls the sheet up over Jonathan’s chest. “You sleep now… and tomorrow we’ll find out who you really are,” he says. This ending points to a theme we see throughout “Part Two” – the idea of secret identities. Pine has three different identities in the episode. Jed has her secret “Billy” and her hidden mother. Roper has his philanthropist facade and loving father role to keep up along with the weighty burden of maintaining his street cred as worst man in the world. Even Angela adds quite a wrinkle to her identity after being an intelligence officer for twenty years, with her newfound motherhood role. And now Pine is about to take on his most challenging identity of all, Roper insider. Here’s hoping for some sexytime in the next installment of The Night Manager. Maybe between Pine and Jed? This would help grant even a tiny morsel of truth to the claim of “ruining Roper’s life” the AMC summary claimed for “Part Two”. Roper lost his son for less than an hour and then everything went back to normal in his luxurious life. Let’s see some real ruin, AMC! We want Pine to bring on the pain.

–Katherine Recap

[For The Night Manager “Part One” or any other recaps on Fetchland, assume the presence of possible spoilers.]

AMC Summary:
Part One. A Cairo hotel night manager receives a plea for help from a well-connected guest.

If you love old school spy stories with exotic locations and binary hero/villain characterizations, The Night Manager will be your late night TV viewing pleasure. Our hero, Johnathan Pine (played by the wholeheartedly British Tom Hiddleston), begins the story as The Night Manager of a chic Cairo hotel during the Arab Spring. A dutiful but romantic loner, he’s good at his job but easily seduced by pretty ladies and a compulsive urge to save the day. The other side of this story’s coin is the dastardly Richard Roper (played by our favorite TV doctor, Hugh Laurie) described in an early scene as “the worst man in the world”… but really just a good old fashioned greedy fuck like every other one percenter you’re likely to meet these days.

The story opens as the Arab Spring riots peak and thus we see Mr. Pine help his hoity toity hotel guests quietly flee the country as President Murabak resigns and Cairo thus descends into a state of somewhere between revolution and anarchy in the streets. Pine’s obviously hellbent on being “of service to all” so one of the guests, Sophie Alekan, mistress to a notorious gangster-type named Freddie Hamid, takes advantage of that. She has Pine make her coffee and then quickly enlists him as her savior and lover. After all, getting coffee for pretty ladies is such a slippery slope – at least in the world of John le Carre it is.

She has Pine make copies of classified documents so that he can’t help but notice they’re invoices for a ton of deadly war-mongering weapons. These papers connect her boyfriend, Hamid, with a company called IronLast, Richard Roper’s company – but we don’t yet know that part so shhhh. Sophie tells Pine if something is to happen to her, an “accident”, he should give the envelope of documents to his friend, Ogilvey who’s with the British Embassy in Cairo. Johnathan mentioned knowing Ogilvey to Sophie before and thus we’re meant to presume this is why Sophie’s chosen Pine as the one to give the information about the weapons arsenal. There’s also the fact that she keeps giving him the “let’s bone later” eyeball up and down, but that could just be the frosting on her whistleblower cake.

Pine gets frazzled by the impact of these documents on his innocent constitution and immediately uses his connections in the hotel kitchen to find the whereabouts of Freddie Hamid. They hook him up quickly and with only two polite and savvy phone calls to other Cairo establishments Johnathan discovers that Hamid is currently meeting with a Mr. Roper. So Jonathon Googles “Roper IronLast” and finds a Youtube video of a philanthropist speech Roper gave about one of his charitable organizations. He seems like a fine old chap in the video… OK not really. He watches Roper talking about all the good he does in the world and then Pine scans down the invoice of weapons to the bottom of the list where it says “napalm”.

In the next scene Jonathan brings the IronLast ammunitions invoice to his buddy Ogilvey at the British Embassy but won’t tell him where he got it. Ogilvey then sends it to the International Enforcement Agency in Victoria, England and they immediately recognize the name Ironlast as Richard Roper, shake their heads like “here we go again,” and begin investigating anew. Their leader, Angela Burr, then meets with an intelligence representative to talk about “the art of the possible” but it seems the British government would rather weaponize a monster like Roper than embrace the ongoing Egyptian revolution which will likely have a much more unpredictable financial outcome for them. Shocking surprise.

Next Sophie calls Jonathan up to her room and says she needs to know who Johnathan showed the papers to because apparently Roper was warned and thus Freddie Hamid beat her to a pulp for leaking the documents. This is the scene where Sophie describes Roper as “the worst man in the world” even as she says her Freddie merely has “a temper”. Next we see Jonathan at the hotel front desk as Freddie comes in to demand entry for Sophie’s room. The reluctant Mr. Pine brings him to the room but in the previous scene he’d surreptitiously moved her to another room. Ha ha! Foiled again, Freddie. Now Freddie’s freaking out on the phone with Roper and tells him he’s looking for Sophie and “handling it” along with some arabic which Jonathan pretends to not understand but clearly does.

Then we see Jonathon secreting Sophie away to an undisclosed location far away where she can’t be found. She whispers “come with me… please” using her best sensual magic and, since he has blood in his veins and a boner in his pants, Pine joins her. They drive out to the hideaway and gyrate the night away under mosquito netting. In the morning she tells him her real name is Samira. Apparently, now Pine loves her. He gets a text saying that Hamid is looking for Sophie so Pine says she’ll need to leave the country in order to stay safe. He says maybe he can get her to London using his connections (Ogilvey) then leaves to return to the hotel and make arrangements. Once there, Ogilvey tells him the authorities were grateful for the documents. Jonathan retorts that if they were thankful why did they tip off Roper? To this Ogilvey doesn’t answer and instead pivots. Pine doesn’t notice the pivot, though, because Ogilvey says he knows Pine’s source was Sophie and that she’s Hamid’s “ex girlfriend” and that’s a problem. Ogilvey knows he has Pine’s attention now. He says Sophie’s only chance is to convince Hamid that she knows nothing about the documents. She can’t go to London because the British government are on the side of Freddie Hamid, who’s worth billions to them and sending Sophie there will only tip off Hamid and Roper even more that she ratted them out. So, Pine immediately calls Sophie and tells her he won’t be able to get her to London after all. She’s crushed and angry, believing her death imminent. But Pine insists all will be OK even though he has no evidence to back up that claim.

Then the International Enforcement Agency investigation into the IronLast invoices gets abruptly cancelled. So, Angela Burr calls Ogilvey to see what’s going on and the next thing we know she’s following up that conversation with another call. This one’s extra urgent and to Pine. Burr leaves a message saying Pine has to get Sophie out of the hotel because her life’s at risk. Then Angela leaves a number where she can be reached. Sophie has already settled back in at the hotel by the time Angela leaves this message. So, when Jonathan gets Burr’s voicemail he races to Sophie’s room. But he’s too late and finds her dead, covered in blood on the floor.

Flash forward four years later and Pine now works as The Night Manager at a hotel in the Swiss Alps. Late one night Richard Roper checks in and Pine’s aware that there’s a package waiting for his esteemed “worst man in the world” guest. He welcomes Roper warmly and when Pine introduces himself as The Night Manager a flash crosses Roper’s face as if he recognizes the name and title as significant. He then asks where Pine previously worked and Pine lies, not mentioning Cairo. Roper has a sexy young lady friend with him, named Jed, who wears yellow with strategic daring. Jed’s also got a noteworthy slick hairstyle and cold-hearted gaze. Pine lies once again to Roper and says the parcel he’s awaiting hasn’t arrived yet. After meeting with them Pine quickly takes a timeout to vomit before opening Roper’s parcel, taking notes on the contents, and then reclosing it to send up to his suite. Later he extricates whatever’s left from Roper’s package – little gold nubbins, it seems – after going through the evening’s trash bags. Fun and sexy stuff, night managing. The significance of the little gold nubbins remains unclear to us in “Part One” but the fact that Pine is breaking all the rules, lying and going through garbage bags, makes him a bit less of a tight-ass goody goody, so we’re all for it. They seem to be some sort of modern day version of microfiche or film, the kind of stuff spies frequently hid up their butts back in the day.

Later at home Pine finds the number Angela Burr left on his voicemail the night Sophie died four years ago and he calls her. He then returns to work that night and sees Roper negotiating and socializing at a clandestine meeting. By chance, Pine and Roper meet outside in the snow briefly after the meeting. Roper makes a comment about how anyone else would have tossed their cigarette when a paying customer turned up, so good for Pine that he didn’t. It seems that maybe Roper does know of Pine’s connection to Sophie and this is his way of trying to make him squirm a bit. The next day Pine meets with Angela Burr over lunch and gives her the little gold bits of Roper loot he got out of the trash. He tells her about the clandestine meeting at the hotel the night before. Then as the episode closes Angela asks Pine what he’s prepared to do about all this. It seems inevitable that Pine will do just about anything, haunted as he is by Sophie/Samira.

–Katherine Recap