When the Night Owls’ cameras spot a mercenary who worked for Roper setting up a new arms deal, Jonathan leaps into action, following a trail that leads him to Spain and then Colombia, through suspicious deaths and exploding bombs, and to the show’s inspired new villain. Diego Calva is magnetic as Teddy Dos Santos, the gunrunner whose ties to Roper are so strong he calls himself “Richard Roper’s true disciple” and who follows his mentor’s playbook. A sophisticated philanthropist on the surface, he has a lavish lifestyle (the better for the show to bring us into extravagant locations and houses), and he is surrounded by armed bodyguards. Wily and elusive, he has ties to Colombia’s military and the British government. It is dynamic to watch as he and Jonathan engage in cat-and-mouse mind games and ruses.
Jonathan enters Teddy’s world by taking on yet another persona, the dashing millionaire Matthew Ellis, a hard-partying risk-taker. Learning the true nature of these men – if such a thing as their “real” identities even exists under all the subterfuge – is as much a part of the story as any arms deal. “Who are you, Matthew? Why are you really here?” Teddy asks at one point, while in the trailer he says of himself, “You have no idea who I really am.” These rivals are really well-matched.
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Hayley Squires brings a spark of energy to all her scenes as the down-to-earth Sally, part of Jonathan’s Night Owl unit, who joins him on the ground in Colombia. And Olivia Colman appears again as Angela Burr, the MI6 intelligence officer who recruited Jonathan in the first place. Only two of the six episodes were made available in advance of the series’ release, so it’s impossible to know how much Colman will appear over the next stretch, but she’s barely in those early instalments.
It is also impossible to say whether another important new character will become more than the cliché she is at the start. Camila Morrone plays Roxana Bolaños, a shipping broker who seems to be Teddy’s girlfriend. She is the formulaic glamorous, sexy woman who is sleeping with the villain, and who may be willing to help the hero, but also might be playing him. Where Teddy is a deliberately enigmatic character, so far the stereotypical Roxana is just a dud. And at times the dialogue includes some very clunky foreshadowing. Certain lines – you’ll know them when you hear them – are signposts that someone in that conversation will not survive another day.
The trailer also includes a scene with Jonathan, Teddy and Roxana all embracing in what looks like a steamy threesome. Whatever that turns out to be, there is a homoerotic charge in some scenes between Jonathan and Teddy. Whether that is just another ruse on the part of one or both is exactly what we’re meant to wonder. It’s one of many questions that makes the series, with all its shadows and ambiguity, irresistible.
The Night Manager begins on BBC1 in the UK on 1 January and on Prime Video internationally on 11 January.
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