The Night Manager Recap Season 2 Episode 6: Roper Strikes Back

Spoiler Warning: This recap contains MAJOR SPOILERS of the second season finale of The Night Manager. The show is available in Prime Video, please make sure to watch it first before reading on. 

‘I am the man who will not explode’, Jonathan Pine as Alex Goodwin told his therapist/ evaluator at the beginning of the second season, as his fingers dug into the skin of his hands that bore the marks of a man who has struggled, silently, for some time. It had been six years since he and Angela Burr went to Syria to identify Richard Roper’s body, six years since he assumed the Alex Goodwin persona and worked as head of a small surveillance unit that focused on high end hotels in London. He had a cat named Corky, named after Tom Hollander’s much missed character Major Lance Corkoran from the first season, which was an early indication apart from how tired he looked that Roper’s Majorca circle was still not far from his mind, or his dreams.   

Since that conversation, Jonathan has lost most of his Night Owls team, learned that his old nemesis Richard Roper was alive, and now has lost his allies Rex Mayhew (killed on the orders of Mayra Cavendish), Alejandro Gualteros (shot by Teddy), Basil (killed after he was tortured, again under Mayra’s orders), Martin (killed whilst helping Jonathan escape), Teddy (shot by Roper in front of Jonathan after their plan to bring down the worst man alive unravelled), and Angela (shot dead outside her home in France and found by her young daughter). With the notable exception of Sally, every member of Jonathan’s support team has now perished, and he was left in that jungle with only young Tavo to help him survive. Richard Onslow Roper emerged the victor in round two of his duel with Jonathan Pine. If The Night Manager powers that be decide to begin the third season with the man who declared he would not explode actually exploding, going on soldier mode and hunting down Roper and his allies, tapping the killer in him along with the spy, well, that would be cathartic after what we went through with this finale.

Was it shocking to see how thoroughly Jonathan lost to Roper in this finale? Sure. Was it all that surprising? Not so much. The Majorca operation was carefully planned by Angela Burr, with backing from Rex Mayhew; they were two very experienced intelligence agents. When Angela went to Colombia to meet with Jonathan and own up to her part in making him believe that Richard Roper died in Syria, she warned him that he was going through the operation haphazardly, the very reason why she did not tell him that Roper was alive even after they had left Syria safely. Angela wanted more time to set things up properly, but Jonathan was feeling too angry and betrayed to listen to her. To be fair, with little support and no government backing at all, Jonathan almost got Roper a second time. Almost. Teddy Dos Santos, once Eduardo Vidal, laid on the forest floor with a bullet in his head because of almost. 

When Jonathan slipped a trap Roper set for him, using Roxana as bait, a furious Roper who suspected she tipped him off asked her when she fell in love with him. The ghost of Jed hung in that scene, even on the torture threat, for it was Frisky, the same man who held Roxana, who tortured Jed, too, at Roper’s command. Roxana insisted that she did not lose her heart to Jonathan, and it was then that Roper figured out it was Teddy who did.

Did Teddy betray Roper out of love for Jonathan? This could be interpreted a thousand ways, let’s explore one here – that Teddy’s betrayal of Roper was separate from his love of Jonathan. Jonathan read Teddy well, he saw the young man underneath the crime boss. He even saw Teddy at a particularly low point, when Teddy self-harmed in his office. What was brilliant about Jonathan’s manipulation was that his care for Teddy was real. Yes, Jonathan infiltrated Teddy’s operation with the goal to understand it and bring it down, but as Jonathan got to know Teddy, as Jonathan understood the position he was in, how he, too, was manipulated by a master criminal in Richard Roper who used the boyish affection and devotion of a son to a father, he wanted Teddy to be all right, too. The love that he cultivated in Teddy, he began to feel, too, and in their final conversation alone, there was almost this desperation in Jonathan to get Teddy through that night alive. He told him how deceiving Roper was entirely different from deceiving Jose Cabrera. He insisted that Teddy make Roper believe that he still loved him, the way he loved him when he was a boy at the monastery and he was this remote but kind English father who visited him once a year. The pain and anger was in Teddy’s voice when he asked, ‘Like a dog?’, recalling that recording of Roper comparing his own son to his hounds. Jonathan confirmed this, and implored him to have faith. Teddy said goodbye, and Jonathan told him again to have faith. 

Jonathan did try. He told Roper all he had ever wanted was to please him. They drove to the landing site together, where the EMP was supposed to be delivered, only, Teddy got Cabrera to agree to divert the plane to a different location, after Jonathan ‘confessed’ under torture that the plane contained 50 paratroopers who were coming to kill Cabrera and his men. The new destination was an unused military base in San Marcos where unknown to Cabrera, Sally waited with Consuelo Arbenz and her team, prepared to document the arrival of an English weapon on Colombian soil. When a furious Cabrera brought out Jonathan, Teddy broke cover. 

Roper may credit Jonathan’s manipulation skills and general attractiveness to Teddy’s betrayal, but it was ultimately Roper’s own misdeeds that doomed his relationship with his son. For one thing, he never considered Teddy a true son. In his mind, his only son and heir was Danny, the one who was at boarding school in England, not the one who has lived a hard life trying to gain money and power, and later, the affection of his long lost father. 

The parallels with Roper shooting his dogs after he realised Jonathan or someone in his team effectively used his affection for them to spy on him were there, uncomfortable but present. It was not enough for Roper to simply remove the tracking device from the collar. The dogs had to die, the very reminders that at least for a time someone outsmarted him. In those precious few seconds when it seemed as though Jonathan and Teddy had won, Teddy put a gun to Roper’s head. Roper dared him to do it, sprouting some Macbeth as he did so, and my word, Hugh Laurie’s delivery was stunning. Would Teddy have pulled the trigger? We would never know, because Frisky called in the nick of time with the news of the second aeroplane, the one with the EMP device that Roper had promised Jose Cabrera. Roper had pulled a fast one on Jonathan. The plane that was diverted to Sally and Consuelo contained only one red rose. The container with the EMP arrived via parachute in the Cabrera camp as promised, and Roper had the upper hand again.

Teddy hesitated to shoot Roper. Roper did not hesitate to shoot Teddy. 

‘You demand love by tyranny’, Jonathan told Roper, and it was interesting that the second season ended with Roper picking up the now grown up Danny from boarding school and the two of them driving up to their new house in Oxfordshire, as the radio spoke of the 600 dead from the civil war in Colombia that begun with the power cut. The one person Roper insisted on getting back to was not just his own blood, he was also the one person who loved him with the purity of a child, until their time together was cut off by Roper’s incarceration. It was Teddy at the monastery all over again, except this time, Danny had actually spent much of his childhood with his father. Roper was not just a once a year occurrence to him. Roper told Jonathan that he was ‘hell bent on plunging a stake into my f***ing heart’, after taking aim at his girlfriend Jed and his son Teddy, and turning both of them against him. There was only one person left whom Roper genuinely cared about. I need the third season as soon as possible. 

Rating: A

You can access Recap Lab’s full coverage of The Night Manager via this link.

Strays

🌳Consuelo Arbenz had to escape her military escort to help out Sally, whom she knew as Jane. I wonder what happened to her after Jose Cabrera’s plan succeeded.  

🌳Jonathan and Roper’s meeting at the hilltop restaurant was part of a larger plan. The photos Martin took of the meeting and the recordings he made, which were spliced to make it look like Roper planned to betray Cabrera, were amongst those Teddy showed Cabrera to convince him that Roper betrayed him.

🌳The way Juan taunted Teddy about Jonathan, he almost seemed drunk with power, perhaps from proximity to Roper, who had begun relying on him as he (Roper) kept a wary eye on his son. Teddy pretended they were going to meet Cabrera, but when Juan found out Jonathan slipped the Roxana trap, he suspected Juan warned Jonathan, and the two got into a fight. Teddy shot Juan, and later with Jonathan, they tossed his body down the ravine.  

🌳Mayra’s phone conversation with Roper regarding postponing the planned coup devolved into name calling and threats. Roper knew Mayra ordered Rex Mayhew’s killing, and promised that if he went down, he would take her with him. 

🌳Teddy took the bound and gagged Jonathan to the Cabrera camp, where there were hundreds of child soldiers. Teddy made it look like Jonathan was working with Roper to betray Cabrera. Jonathan was tortured, initially by Teddy who was hitting him for real but also controlling it to avoid inflicting too much damage. But when Cabrera took over, incensed that Roper seemingly compared him to a mosquito, the beating became much too real, and Jonathan was badly hurt. 

🌳Sally messaged Basil once she and Consuelo were in position, and it was Angela who replied. That was how Sally found out her long time co-worker had either been imprisoned or killed. 

🌳Angela got the photo that linked Roper with Mayra Cavendish, likely along with a few other documents, from Sandy, whom she threatened with the parole board. I really hope Roper finds out about this in the third season because I need another brilliantly written scene between these two long time friends. Angela’s final pitch was perfect; she told Sandy to stop taking the bullet for Roper because he would never take one for him. 

🌳Roper talked to Roxana about how his mother would economise when his father’s auction house faced dire straits. He, too, would adapt, and used as an example getting sandwiches instead of roast beef in boarding school, which I was tempted to mock but truly, kids could be cruel when someone in their circle could not match them in what they were used to, be that in the food they ate or toys they bought or clothes they wore or vacations they took. He told her he was shedding a skin now, thanks to her, and though he left without clarifying himself, that was likely in reference to leaving the pretence of being a father to Teddy behind. 

🌳Roxana was allowed to live and leave, and I wonder if that was because she was the one person Roper knew was able to successfully resist Jonathan Pine’s charms.

🌳To the end, Teddy still called Jonathan ‘Matthew’, though he must have known that was not his real name. When Teddy walked out of that shack, he said goodbye to the man he met and knew and bonded with; that was Matthew Ellis.

🌳Mayra tried to frame her actions as just part of her job but Angela would have none of it. Though Angela wanted a public trial, she knew the service would not survive it, so she demanded that Mayra submit her resignation letter by the next day. When their carefully planned operation fell apart, Mayra walked out of the library triumphant and alluded to visiting Angela in France. 

🌳Before she was killed, Angela was dictating what could be a voice memo where she spoke of a bigger game, something beyond Roper, and that she had a name.

Episode Writer: David Farr

Episode Director: Georgi Banks-Davies

Original Release Date: February 1, 2026

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