Today's Episode
We watched it. Every episode covers the latest installment(s) of a different TV show.
Today's Episode
The Night Manager (S02E01-03)
It’s been 10 years, but The Night Manager is back for Season 2 on Prime Video. David Farr returns to John le Carré’s spy world, with Tom Hiddleston picking up where he left off, now working under the alias Alex Goodwin and running the covert Night Owls. On the pod, we cover episodes 1–3, the new mission and the fallout from Season 1, plus similarities and comparisons to other espionage stories. We also get into new and returning characters, standout moments, head-scratching choices, twists, early reception, and our rating. Tune in and welcome to Today’s Episode!
Welcome to today's episode, the podcast, where we discuss the most recent installments of a different series every show. It is Tuesday, January 13th, and I think we should start off with this fact. The top four highest-grossing animated films of all time at the global box office are all sequels.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so like Toy Story 3, I imagine. Well, I'm gonna give you an opportunity.
SPEAKER_02:You can name them.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. I'll go with Shrek 2, Toy Story 3, Inside Out 2, and then what would the last one be? Incredibles 2?
SPEAKER_02:You got one of them right. Okay. It goes in order like this. Number four is Frozen 2 at$1.46 billion. Zootopia 2 at$1.6 billion. Then Inside Out 2. That's the one you got right at$1.7 billion. And for the highest grossing animated film of all time, Nezha 2 at$2 billion. Now, all of those were the secondary version of the original story, right? Just like today's episode is going to be the first three uh installments of the Night Manager season two. Which came out first, do you think? The original Zootopia or the original The Night Manager?
SPEAKER_01:The Night Manager. Because the Night Manager came out in February 2016, and then Zootopia came out, I think, uh like May of 2016. March 4th.
SPEAKER_02:It was a very close answer, actually, because February 21st versus March 4th. But in comparison, they both have their sequels coming out around the same time. TV shows usually don't go in hiatus for this long, right? Is there a specific reason that they decided to wait? Was it because of Marvel? Was it because of COVID? Was it just because they didn't think that they were going to do another season of this?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, it you know that it was based off a book, right? By John Lake Corey that came out in 1993.
SPEAKER_02:And since then, they've had a different adaptation that takes place in a different part of the world. Like it's not even a U.S. production, it was a UK production.
SPEAKER_01:No, it was an Indian adaptation that was released in 2023.
SPEAKER_02:Right. So they've had the it was it the same exact story, do you know? Tom Hiddleston did basically the same character.
SPEAKER_01:I I don't know about that, but I do know that John Lake Corey, he didn't want to make a sequel because he never wrote a sequel book and he wasn't even really that keen on making season two.
SPEAKER_02:How are you pronouncing his last name?
SPEAKER_01:John Lake Horay. Is that how you say it? Yeah. Okay. And so he didn't want to make a sequel, but he then at the very end, because he died in 2020.
SPEAKER_02:Like Oh, and they were like, oh, well, screw him then.
SPEAKER_01:Well, no, no, no, no. It was David Farr. He was speaking to him right before he died, and then he actually gave his blessing to make season two.
SPEAKER_02:This feels like a Game of Thrones situation where maybe he misheard him.
SPEAKER_01:Um okay But you when you talk about like how long uh breaks are, ten years is a lot for a TV. It's a happy valley break. Because well, well, it's a happy valley actually took seven years, and that was planned, but this wasn't planned at all. And then you look at like things like curb your enthusiasm from season eight to season nine, that took six years. It maybe doesn't hit the like level of twin peaks where that took 25 years to come back, but it's still quite a while.
SPEAKER_02:And I mean, Tom Hiddleston, Olivia Coleman, and Hugh Laurie, they weren't not famous back then. However, it feels like, especially with Olivia Coleman, her career is way bigger. Tom Hiddleston, probably the same. Hugh Laurie is the only one who's kind of like stayed at the same level he was at because post-house, he's done these. He's done these shows every once in a while.
SPEAKER_01:He was the one that originally tried to option the novel himself, and he always envisioned himself playing Jonathan Pine. Hugh Laurie did? Yeah. That's amazing. He pushed for changes even while they were filming because uh they already had Tom Hiddleston, so they're like, we're going to give him the role. But Hugh Laurie had notes and he went to David uh for a lot and was like, I think that Jonathan Pine should do this. And David Farr had to be like, focus on your own.
SPEAKER_02:It's like, oh wow, they told him to back off.
SPEAKER_01:They had a little bit of a tiff, but from what I understand, I think that like things have been settled ever since.
SPEAKER_02:All right. Well, it reminds me of Ariana Grande, right? Where she really wanted to play the main character, and then she was like, but there's no one playing this nice witch or whatever. So I'm gonna take that role too. Um, yeah, let's let's jump into this character. It's it's like any espionage show that you've seen before: Jack Ryan, Little Drummer Girl, Tehran, Homeland, the agency, slow horses, and treason, except that this one is kind of like a James Bond character who's at the focal point of it. Jonathan Pine, he's a former British soldier, turned luxury hotel night manager. Uh, he's recruited by British intelligence officer Angela Burr, this is season one, Olivia Coleman, to under go undercover and expose a philanthropist who is actually an international arms dealer, Richard Roper, played by Hugh Lori. And over the course of, he's only like a night manager for two episodes. I do want to throw that out there. That was my biggest gripe of season one. In fact, I almost turned it off because by episode three, he is he never goes back to that job.
SPEAKER_01:But what about it? Could it be the title as a MacGuffin, where it's like not really actually about the thing?
SPEAKER_02:No, it's upsetting because it's like I really wanted to see a series where it was all under the night manager's focus. Like he was a hidden spy, but he also worked nights.
SPEAKER_01:So this is like almost the continental, like a John Wick world where it's like the hotel's a cover for something. That's it.
SPEAKER_02:Or the Quentin Tarantino movie where you have Tim Roth playing, I forgot, the like bell attendant or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. So he gets away with a lot of crazy stuff, just like James Bond would. He goes by a ton of names. By this season, it's up to like, I would say, eight. I have them listed somewhere on my notes. How do you keep track of it? And then every girl, what? How do you keep track of all the different names that he would have to like? When you when you buy the DVD for this, they send out one of those Scrabble worksheets and you just fill in the title of the names. Okay. So again, James, like James Bond, every girl that he meets is like this gorgeous woman who eventually falls in love with him and is caught up over her head, and all she wants to do is get out of like this industry where where all these felons are are running around doing crazy stuff. Season two begins where season one sort of leaves off. So Hugh Laurie, by the end, Richard Roper, he gets caught. And not only is he caught, he's not brought in by the British authorities. He's actually caught by some of the people he was screwing over. And so it looks like he's going to be killed. And that is kind of what they confirm in in the first episode because they jump to 2019. They go from 2016 to 2019. Angela Burr, uh, Olivia Coleman returns for one scene with uh Jonathan Pine, Tom Heddleston, to identify Roper's course, uh corpse. And you see his body in Syria on a slab table, and he is dead. He actually doesn't donut.
SPEAKER_01:You actually see Hugh Lori.
SPEAKER_02:He returns for a corpse. Well, that's the thing is like at first I was like, well, Hugh Laurie is doing Tehran now, very similar themed show, and it almost feels like he couldn't possibly do multiple things. So I wasn't super surprised, and I had even read beforehand that they do officially kill him off within the first few seconds of this next TV show. He's dead. He's he's 100% dead.
SPEAKER_01:I do I do want to correct you. You said at 2016. I think that the original takes place in 2011 and then it does a four-year time jump. So I think where we are right now is 2015.
SPEAKER_02:No, it starts at 2019. So it's like four years after I think where they left off. You could be right about where they started, because what I think happens is that they show him in 2011, and that's where he's in Cairo, and it's the fall of Mubar. Oh, okay. So it's a so it's a five. Or he tries to save this girl. A year or so later, he's working in the Swiss Alps, or he's like in he's in Switzerland somewhere, maybe Zurich, and that's when he runs into Richard Roper again. And then after that, I think it's like even another year later when he actually joins. So I think the first season takes course over the court, it takes place over the course of like four years.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so that makes more sense.
SPEAKER_02:So now in 2019, uh they confirm that Richard Roper is dead, and then they do another time jump. No longer, this is kind of Olivia Coleman's goodbye. She is no longer in charge. And Jonathan Pine has absorbed a new identity. She has usually when you go into witness protection, you're thrown into like Wisconsin or whatever the UK's version of Wisconsin would be. Some like dead end tower kind of. Instead, here he actually joins MI6. He his name is now Alex Goodwin, and he is in charge of uh a surveillance unit called the Night Managers. No, they're not called the Nows. I was just saying, if you were listening to the listening, they're called the Night Owls. The Night Owls. Okay. And so they stay up late and they spy on people.
SPEAKER_01:If you remember, uh, I remember for Terminalist Dark Wolf, that was supposed to be a prequel, but Taylor Keish, he kind of joined, I felt like an MI6 type of unit as well. And I remember I compared that to Countdown, is the where uh Jonathan Pine joins that anything like Countdown.
SPEAKER_02:This is the second season begins a lot more like Black Bag. You know, that Michael Fassbender movie? Like he's a very serious individual. He hasn't told anybody about where he's from. The only one who knows is his boss, Rex Mayhew, who he reports to. But uh again, Alex Goodwin, who uh that is the name I will refer to him until he changes names again. Okay. Alex, our main character, he is working with the Night Owls and Rex Mayhew, his boss, reports to Riverhouse. Riverhouse in the first season was working with Hugh Laurie's Richard Roper character, and uh they were evil. So, like within MI6, there were two counterbalancing agencies, and one was start trying to eat the other one, and Riverhouse was really bad. So, this is supposed to represent that they've changed, that they've uh turned a page. Yeah, that they've turned a page. Not only are they helping uh Rex Mayhew, who they fired in the first season, but uh the chief Myra, who runs River House, she is giving them like more money. Their budget is expanding, it looks like they're growing. Uh Myra is played by Indira Varma from Game of Thrones and all that stuff. You'd recognize her. Yeah, so Alex is in the middle of one of these uh regular night owl operations, watching like a hidden casino game in a hotel when he recognizes someone who steps in. Now, he's not supposed to recognize this person, but because of his past life, where he was Jonathan Pine or Andrew, whatever, he recognizes one of Roper's old allies, a mercenary named Yako. And so he tells his team, I know this guy's evil, and I know that I'm not supposed to know this guy's evil, so I'm gonna run an unsanctioned surveillance operation. You guys do not have to participate, but obviously his team's like, we're gonna participate and they're gonna help him anyways.
SPEAKER_01:This reminds me a lot almost of um 24. Yeah, I know it's kind of the opposite way around, but in season three, Nina Myers, I remember I think she was in Mexico trying to buy this virus because that was the main thing in season three, and Jack Bauer was there, and she realized when Jack Bauer was there at the virus that he was undercover, but she was evil, so it was kind of like she recognized him and and sold him.
SPEAKER_02:We got a lot of that in this show where one person recognizes another person. It's gonna happen a little later on, but Alex reports this to Rex. What he reports to Rex is that they follow Yako, and then he meets with someone who then meets with someone who ends up eventually trailing to Riverhouse and Myra. So Riverhouse is back at it. They're shady still, you know? And so he tells Did you ever buy that they were good? Yeah, of course. Indira played an endearing character. But she is evil, I think. And Rex, he says the classic thriller line: I've got something to tell you, Alex. You gotta meet me tomorrow, and I'll tell you all everything you need to know, all this important intel. And of course, he ends up. Oh, he's dead. Yeah, he's dead.
SPEAKER_01:There's no question about it.
SPEAKER_02:He's dead, but it does lead Alex to his next clue. He's able to use uh Rex's cell phone, the one that he keeps hidden, to track down this other lady named Roxana. Roxana is obviously going to be the femme fatale or or like the girl of the season that is going to be his romantic interest. Um, she replaces Jeb from the first season. So Roxy, she seems at first like she's an innocent uh Colombian lady who's setting up a shipment between two places, but it turns out later on that she actually works for the big villain who the night owls identify as Teddy dos Santos.
SPEAKER_01:And why does it always have to be like a phone? It feels like that's that's the main thing that people use whenever they uh whenever like indie spies shows. It's always the thing that gives them information that they're gonna do.
SPEAKER_02:It's a point of contact, but yeah, no, he it was the quickest way in which he could identify who Roxy was and find her in like London at the time. They take Roxy, they stick her in a safe house. She doesn't want to stay there, so she contacts Teddy directly, but they don't know this yet. So what happens is that Alex and his team head, they're still following Yacko. They head to Spain. And in Spain, Yacko's supposed to meet with Teddy, and in fact, he does. We see Alex watching that interaction happen in the lobby. Alex has super hearing, like that is one of the things he does throughout the series, is that he's just able to hear conversations so far. And at the same time, the bad guys tend to have conversations wide out in the open. They're not afraid about they don't go to like a secret room or anything. Right. But they've also bugged Yaco's suitcase, which ends up being the big problem because that's when Teddy gets suspicious. He thinks Yacko's evil. He also realizes that this whole operation is happening at the hotel. So he plants a bomb. He kills off the entirety of Alex's team that is in Spain at the time, and he blows up part of the building. Like he blows up the hotel room. So Alex is on his own at this point. It almost seems like Alex might be dead, but at the same time, I left episode one thinking more like he's going to get so much blowback from River House. River House is gonna blame him totally for this.
SPEAKER_01:You know, it's so it's weird because I was going to compare this to Kingsman, uh, the Golden Circle, because they this is based off of no source material. This is just something that David Farr wrote.
SPEAKER_02:The character is winging it, and so were they.
SPEAKER_01:And so with Kingsman, I know that they used up the comic book. So when they came out with the sequel, uh it it was just based off of no source material either. But there's something that happens 20 minutes into Kingsman and the Golden Circle that is almost exactly like that, where a huge team, like team members, just end up dying and kind of the main character is on his own for a little while.
SPEAKER_02:It's not just that, it's what I was talking about with the tropes because you look at Condor, you look at Rabbit Hole, you look at uh what else? Mission Impossible, even Suicide Squad, you can say at the beginning. You can say Suicide Squad or Echo 3, Jack Ryan. Like it happens a ton where like a huge portion of the team, maybe not all the team, but a bunch of them are assassinated in the first episode, and our main character has to work from there, you know? Yeah, and so they have to re-establish who the new team is. So episode two does that. Riverhouse comes down hard on the sole survivor uh who's still in London. The other one like quits his job or something like that. But Sally is going to be his Chloe, Alex's Chloe this season from 24. She uh would be in charge of the Night Owls. However, the Night Owls have been instantly disbanded by, of course, Riverhouse, who is easy to be like, oh man, you never should have done this. So Alex, who's still alive, uh, teams up with Sally, and then this guy named Basil, Basil comes out from Riverhouse saying, actually, I'm a good guy, and they believe him. And so he's gonna be the tech guy who's also spying on Riverhouse for them for the rest of the season. He stays in London. Sally and Alex head to Columbia because they want to stop this arms deal from happening. Right? Right.
SPEAKER_01:Does everything make sense over? Yeah, no, no, I understand it.
SPEAKER_02:It's just, I'm wondering how the show did because, like, if they're just trying to re-establish a new team, it's the same plot from the first season where there's an arms deal and they need to get close to the main guy so that they can like infiltrate it. The difference is this time they got a piggy bank. Apparently, no one has touched Roper's funds that uh Jonathan Pine had uh sent over the$300 million that he had, or I don't know if it was in pounds, but I think it was in dollars, that they just put onto an account somewhere and it's just been hanging loose. Nobody's taken it. So they have millions of dollars to use, his piggy bank, they say. And then they take up new identities. So Alex is no longer Alex, he's going to be Matthew now or Max, because when he's working with a detective uh in Colombia, he's Max. And when he's working to try to get close to Teddy, he's Matthew. But Alex is just completely gone. Like he's he's not gonna use that again. Yeah, for the most part, I think well, until the end of the mission, I guess. But yeah, so Basil stays in London, Matthew and Sally headed to Columbia. He ingratiates himself into Teddy's life. Now, the way they did it in the first season was he got beat up saving Roper's kid, right? Right. And uh to the point where he almost died. So they sort of believe that he was legit. This time he goes about it a less physical way. Oh, is this a swimming pool scene, or is that just later? No, that happens later. That's also to build trust, but it's for a different reason. That was more like a baptism uh thing. But like in the in the first way that he introduced introduces himself, he's trying to play this like Playboy guy with a bunch of money that he needs cleaned. Um, and they need money. The Teddy needs money because he's being gridlocked from making this arms deal. They get into the the weeds about that, but it doesn't really matter. So uh Matthew is playing tennis at this fancy hotel. He hangs out with the bodyguard of Teddy or his number two, and then that's how he meets him, and then he's invited to a party. Who shows up but Roxy? And and they have a little bit of a moment where it's like, hey, you you betrayed me and got my whole team killed. And she's like, meh, you know, like I didn't mean to. I'm actually a prisoner myself. And so just like Jeb or all the or the girl from the first episode of the first season, she's now the third girl who is uh is going to be seduced by Matthew's charms at the same time as wanting to be clear.
SPEAKER_01:I I wanted to ask, how old is Roxy? Like how old is she supposed to be? Because like uh 30. 30, yeah, because Tom Hiddleston is 44 years old. Well, when he did the first season, he was 34 years. But then that woman that played Jeb, I think she was 24. So they keep on casting people that are significantly like there's an age gap between right.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I'm I'm happy they didn't cast Leonardo DiCaprio in the main role because then they'd be even younger. But yeah, so Roxy convinces Teddy to use Matthew's money because Matthew and Roxy have worked out a situation where it's like you help me, I help you, I'll I'll send you back to Miami or wherever you want to go, and uh you can live your life. And she's like, fine. Uh, but she's a little less willing to be seduced than I would say that Jeb was. So they're not like sleeping with each other almost instantly, like that that relationship had it. Uh so Teddy then he's still suspicious. He drugs Matthew, he throws him in the water, and it's kind of a reminiscent thing to season one. It like this was there a reference. Season one is almost too present in this season. They're they're playing it beat by beat the same way. Also, they are throwing in some fun references. Like he killed this guy named Corky in the first season, and in the first episode, he has a cat named Corky. That was really funny.
SPEAKER_01:Isn't that kind of messed up though?
SPEAKER_02:That like he would be. I think it goes to show that this guy does not have PTSD. Like he's just a machine when it comes to how he's able to go through things. He does have empathy, he does feel bad for these women primarily. Um, but he also feels bad when his team dies and stuff like that. He's just not like he doesn't have those panic attacks that you see in a lot of shows.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know. I haven't seen the episodes, but it seems like that almost helps the TV series because it seems especially with six episodes.
SPEAKER_02:It would be hampered and it's already a slow burn, so it'd be an extra slow burn if he was also struggling with a PTSD uh situation. But because he's having to embrace identity after identity after identity, I think the whole point is he forgets who he is.
SPEAKER_01:But there's no like quick clips where they like show something from season one for like one second.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but that's more to show the similarities between Teddy and Roper because we find out really early on, it's kind of hinted at strongly, so strongly, you're like, why are they doing it? That Teddy is the bastard son of Roper. Like Roper at one point went to Columbia, had sex, and uh, and he would visit Teddy on the occasion. And Teddy was raised in like a monastery. So he's way more religious and grounded than his father was, even though he's playing by the same playbook. Like he's still doing these, he's he's making an army and he's doing drug or arm, he's arming up uh the people and he's making these giant deals and he's trying to pretend to be a philanthropist, just like his dad, but he's not as cynical as uh Richard Roper was.
SPEAKER_01:Do you think that Teddy is a better villain than Richard Roper in the first season?
SPEAKER_02:No, no, no, no. I think Hugh Laurie is just like he, like you said, he loves that character. So I think between him and Hiddleston, that was one of the reasons why the first season is so loved, is because of that dynamic between the two of them. And I wasn't really even that upset when they killed him off because I understood why. But um I do have a little bit of a reservation with how trusting they are of Roxy. Everything is so dependent on this girl who's already shown that she's untrustworthy and like his, she could ruin everything. Everybody could be dead in an instant, and all they would have to do is really just like they wouldn't even have to torture her.
SPEAKER_01:I was wondering what you were going to say about her because I know she was one of the people that started in one of my favorite shows of the last few years, Daisy Jones in the six. She was even nominated for an Emmy with that. And they have a lot of people buying the show.
SPEAKER_02:She's not the main girl, she's not the yeah, she's not the main one from that.
SPEAKER_01:Well, even Basil that no, no, no, she was like third name down. But even Basil that you were talking about, he's a Tony nominated actor, and then like Teddy Dos Santos. I assume he's going to be big in the next couple years because he was in Babylon, the Damian Chiselle film. So they definitely have the talent that you're talking about.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. I mean, there's big shoes to fill with the amount of talent they have here. And I like the way that they incorporate a lot of the season one cast because, again, they didn't just not have Olivia Coleman there. You even see a quick backflash of Hugh Laurie moving on the table when he's dead. Like it that was the one PTSD moment that he had where he was like, Roper is still in his head. He's envisioning it. He was dreaming it, I think. And then you also see one point he goes and visits Roper's kid. Now, I don't know if it's the same kid from 10 years ago or if they recast for Danny, but basically just to tell him that his dad was dead. Um, but that happens in episode one. Episode three, you have Teddy, and he's really wanting his money. He wants the shipment to go down, and Matthew needs the opposite to happen. So, Matthew, because he's unable to find the files in time that he needs to to prevent this. So Sally's been working with Alejandra, the lawyer, to try to like stall the shipment as well, but she needs evidence. And so what uh sorry, uh Matthew does is that he has to blow his cover a bit. And during uh a dinner scene with Teddy, as they're waiting for his 20 million to come in and finance this thing, he kind of lets out that he knows that Teddy is an arms dealer and that he's uh doing all this nefarious activities. And he's doing it in such a sly way where it's like um he's kind of bragging about it. He seems like he's drunk, like not enough where Teddy thinks he's like some sort of agent, but it does scare him a bit so that he sends his number two to go look in on the files and bring Roxy with him. And that allows Roxy to then make copies of those files, which was exactly what Matthew needed.
SPEAKER_01:Was Matthew trying to feign confidence? Was he he was playing it up, right?
SPEAKER_02:This was Matthew knew that without the proof, he was going to the the Alejandro guy wasn't going to be able to stall the process anymore, the prosecuting attorney in Columbia. Legit dude. Um, and so the only way to get Teddy to show them where the real files were, because they weren't in the briefcase, is if uh he scares him into checking on them. And so that's why the number two goes and does that. And then Teddy, he doesn't like that uh Matthew's just talking his ear off. And so he takes Matthew out on his boat and he throw, he attaches an anchor to him, throws the anchor off because he thinks the 20 million is fake. It's not coming in. And so we see this scene happening in River House uh in London, where River House is getting very suspicious of these funds too. And so the 20 million that needs to be in the right account is pulled at the last second. And so it looks to Teddy like everything's going bad and he needs to kill Matthew. And then at the last second, Basel is or whatever his name. I keep on wanting to call him Basil because that's how that's how yeah, it's B-A-S-I-L. Yeah, but they pronounce it differently. And so when he puts the money back, that's when Teddy realizes okay, Matthew may be a real dude here, and we can't just kill him. And so he makes friends with him, he takes him out, he apologizes, he says, Let me tell you about my family, my past. And so he tells them about how his father uh died six years ago, and obviously Matthew already knows that.
SPEAKER_01:Do you get the story that the number two, and I don't know if this is the way they would go with it, is like getting jealous of how close he is to.
SPEAKER_02:That was kind of like season one, and the number two is definitely a little bit more suspicious, but we don't see him uh post the um boat scene, I think, uh interact with Matthew at all. Okay. All that we see is that Matthew is hanging out with Teddy a lot over like the next day until Teddy's like, I got one last meeting. And this is where um everybody, Sally, uh Basil, and and Matthew are all under the impression that that he is meeting with his boss. Like there's another boss, and and that boss's name is like something Hansen. Um, and and the problem with that is that Sally finds out through her research, and then I think they also have like a private detective on the island there that they're going around with. That's the guy who he he calls himself Max to. So that private detective doesn't confuse him as Matthew. He says, This Charles Hansen guy or whatever his name is, he's been dead for like four years. And so they tailed a helicopter.
SPEAKER_01:Did you did you have any uh sneaky suspicion as to who it was prior to them showing it?
SPEAKER_02:It depends on what you mean. I went the full three episodes thinking that Hugh Lori was 100% dead. Like I tried to make that pretty clear in the podcast. They went through the effort of introducing this villain and saying he is the heir apparent, so we don't need Hugh Lori. It made sense his character arc finished up, but it doesn't mean you didn't miss the guy. And so when I guess it was like the last 20 seconds when I was like, they're gonna do it, aren't they? They're gonna after everything, and then it made more sense why Hugh Lori came back for just that split moment in that flashback to turn towards him. And then it also made sense why they were so adamant because uh as much as I've been talking, they spend scene after scene going and trying to figure out that Teddy is Roper's son. They wouldn't need to do it all that much. Uh yeah, if you were if it wasn't going to play into later. And so, lo and behold, he goes to the restaurant, uh, or or they're spying on this restaurant, and Matthew is staring there and he hears the voice first. And as soon as you hear Hugh Laurie's voice, you're like, Oh my god, Richard Roper's alive. And so he walks on the screen and he's got a big beard, kind of like in startup season two, where they're on an island or something and like weird stuff happens.
SPEAKER_01:So they actually show him. I thought that you just heard his voice.
SPEAKER_02:You hear his voice, and then he steps into the camera because uh at the same time, uh, Matthew sees it through his through his uh iPhone camera, whatever he's taking pictures with. So he can't believe it. And then that's where the series jumps from. Like tropey, seven out of ten. It's a good, well-shot directive thing that I will not watch the rest of to I'm back on board.
SPEAKER_01:It was so cool. People were calling the twists amazing. The reason I was asking about it is some people were thinking that it was going to be Sandy Roper's financial director. That's what some people were guessing about.
SPEAKER_02:No, his number two back then.
SPEAKER_01:Right, right. That's so that's why I was mostly asking if if that's no, I did think about that.
SPEAKER_02:Where when are we gonna see someone else? Also, I was like, if he is really that close to his father that he's doing the same sort of arms dealing, why aren't, or why isn't Matthew more afraid that he's gonna get recognized by one of like uh his other people? He's already recognized Yacko. So why has none of the other people that have been working for Teddy also worked for Roper and been like, that's not that's Andrew, whatever is facing.
SPEAKER_01:Well, yeah, and that's that's my question. What like do you have any theories as to how uh how Richard Roper ended up being alive?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, you didn't really have to explain. Like the thing is to save the twist for now was so smart because had they just kept the first episode and you had him on the cover still, and you're just like, okay, it's another season with Hugh Laurie. Nah, right. You'd just be like, okay, so he talked his way out of it. But this, like, they gave a legitimate death where you were like, yeah, no, the the way they left things, I really wish that he could have like, you know, meandered it or like found a way out of it, but it makes a lot of sense. This guy deserves to be dead. Um, so bringing him back, it's like when the Joker returns, you know, the Joker has returned to the Batman, and now you've got the main main villain, plus this new villain who is suddenly he makes a way better, like secondary awesome villain than he does as the main main awesome villain.
SPEAKER_01:So the secondary that you were talking about in the series, he almost turns into like the third string, right? Yeah, but that guy was more of a henchman.
SPEAKER_02:Right. That's more like his bodyguard, uh, the one who's hanging out with Roxana. But the interesting thing now is that they only have like three more episodes, right? So they have to really rush because they had to rush, I think. What was going on with Teddy is they were trying to re-establish the relationship that Andrew had with Richard Roper in the first season, which they spread out over the course of five episodes. He didn't know in him in the first episode, but they had five episodes to do so. In this, it was like a speed run of that. He had two episodes to get just as close with the guy. And then now you're introducing the main guy. I just hope they have enough time to do it justice. At the same time, it's like an hour each episode. So maybe.
SPEAKER_01:Time magazine said everything clicks into place after the revelation at the end of episode three. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So it kind of felt like that sort of moment to me. I haven't had that, like, you know, the shock down you're spying, you know, where you're like, oh, this is this is wicked. This is really, really, really cool that they did this. And again, it pulls the whole show for me, reception-wise, to an eight out of 10. Um, and I will continue to watch it to see where it leads. Um, and and now anything's up. I like when is what's her face gonna come back? Olivia Coleman. Oh I feel like she has to come back now. Angela Burr. And it's so good as far as timing-wise, not just because the Venezuelan like crazy international politics going on, but also because like they couldn't have predicted that Hugh Lurie was also gonna be the secondary in another espionage thriller. This one on Apple kind of going over the same territory of the places that he was in the first season. Not exactly, but you know, that's crazy. Like, how did he did he tell them beforehand, like, I'm gonna be doing two spy shows and they're gonna come out like right on top of it?
SPEAKER_01:I actually Hugh Lurie, I don't think, has really given any interviews and it makes like it makes sense, yeah, because because this is coming out. It reminds me also a little bit of Justified City Primeval, the ending when Boyd Crowder, you see him, and then uh and then Timothy Oliphant, Raylon Gibbons, it's like you're not sure if he's going to come back into play, but they're bringing in people, yeah, from the first season. So it seems cool. My one of my questions was if it seemed like his uh corpse in the first episode lessened his entrance, but it almost sounds like you're saying here if they hadn't had a corpse, I would have probably been more suspicious.
SPEAKER_02:It was the fact that they had the corpse there where I was like, well, then they're gonna have to explain a lot. It's kind of like the Sherlock Holmes thing where it's like you see him fall off the uh what was it, uh, building in season two. And it's like, that was awesome, but now explain it. This one, I I really don't care as much about the explanation. I just kind of want to see how soon Teddy or Richard Roper is going to have the realization that this tool of a dude is back in in his weeds and like he can do nothing to like he hasn't even visited his other son. I doubt that he's done anything, like he's been playing it so low-key, and yet still we have Jonathan Pine like messing things up for him. So he's got to be really upset about that.
SPEAKER_01:I always found his name funny because Richard Roper is the movie critic that replaced Gene Siskel and Siskel and Ebert. And both him and Hugh Laurie are 66 years old. Oh, so so it's kind of ironic. Only you would know that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Uh I do have the list of names if you want. Steven, Michael, Alex, Jonathan, Andrew, Matthew, Max. And I don't even think that, like, I think I'm missing a couple. It's just so almost almost like 10. Episode by episode, Tom Hiddleston is just everybody. The main acting is all good. I would say there was one moment where Roxy, I would I didn't like it. Like, I think she dropped her accent or something. And then, like, yeah, uh, I feel like at this point, if Riffer House isn't taken down, it's inexcusable. It's like, fool me once, fool me twice. No, no, no. These guys are bad news. And uh it also, I will like nitpicky, but like, why did they give the night manager who was turned into an agent, like he's in charge of an entire squadron? This season, unlike in the first season where he was in charge of himself, and if he got himself killed, well, that sucks. But in this thing, he's like controlling all these other chess pieces at the same time. It's so unrealistic. This guy has a will of steel, he gets drugged and he's still able to maintain his cover while drugged. He has super hearing, like we talked about. He's able to hear all these conversations happening so far away. They underestimate him continually. Like they know he's smart, and yet they still don't realize he's able to memorize things instantly, which I get is like a thing that agents do. And he never has to do laundry. Whenever he's in another scene, he's always like well dressed up because he plays that character, and we never see him doing the laundry.
SPEAKER_01:IMDB agrees with your eight rating. That's what it has. It also has a 91% on Ron Tomatoes. The audience score is a little bit down from season two.
SPEAKER_02:It hasn't gone through yet. Like this twist is gonna change things.
SPEAKER_01:And I know that like the first two episodes, Empire Stylist, they said that they both gave it four out of five stars. And from what I saw about episode three, it's it everyone is like, yes, thank God Hugh Lori is back.
SPEAKER_02:They're they're really it just feels more like a season one continuation rather than a season two now. It feels like, oh, we kind of tripped you out for a little while, but here's the real thing. The only thing that would make it better is if then Matthew volunteers or or gives his resume to the hotel that he's staying at to take over as the night manager. And then this series can truly be.
SPEAKER_01:I was gonna say, yeah, at the end of season two, he gets that job, and then we're right back at the start.
SPEAKER_02:I think everybody in the show should become night managers. They should quit all this trying to catch each other, put the millions aside, and then just become a team of night managers, you know? Thanks for listening. We'll see you on the next episode. Hope you enjoyed this one. Bye.
SPEAKER_01:Bye.