[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
