‘The Night Manager’ Season 2 Review: Tom Hiddleston Ups His Spy Game in Prime Video’s Sultry New Adventure

Nearly a decade after it first aired, “The Night Manager” still stands among the god-tier of AMC’s golden age of programming. Tom Hiddleston led the taut, tense spy thriller as Jonathan Pine, a military officer turned quiet hotel manager with a grudge, who infiltrates the elaborate criminal operation run by arms dealer Richard Roper (a divinely duplicitous Hugh Laurie) — all under the watchful eye of his intelligence handler, Angela Burr (pre-Oscar win Olivia Colman).

Adapted from the John le Carré novel, the BBC series was stylish, cutthroat and icy in its tone, despite its Mediterranean setting. Jonathan’s increasingly reckless means of pinning down Roper’s dastardly deeds provided some of the most intense spy craft of the century. So it’s no wonder, nearly 10 years later, series creator David Farr couldn’t resist dropping Jonathan back into the belly of the beast for another round — this time on Prime Video.

Still, it might be a bit of a surprise to see “The Night Manager” back for a belated Season 2, given the tidy and karmically satisfying ending of the original run — and the fact that the last time it aired Obama was still in the White House. Nevertheless, the new episodes arrive with Hiddleston and Colman in tow, seemingly stitched into a new global story of espionage and deadly stakes. But this isn’t the from-scratch fresh start the trailers may want viewers (especially new ones) to believe. In fact, the past is so important to this new story that revisiting the original run should be pre-requisite homework for viewers who haven’t given much thought to the crusade of Jonathan Pine since 2016.

That being said, for those who do the work or even those who just jump back in cold turkey, what awaits them in “The Night Manager” Season 2 is a cleverly crafted thrill ride that exceeds its predecessor with sultry confidence and a razors-edge willingness to flirt with danger. In the new episodes, Jonathan is living as Alex and working for the admittedly lower-stakes “Night Owls” branch of MI-6, whose members watch and collect evidence but never engage in the fun. It’s a safe position from which Jonathan can keep himself out of the blast range, having already felt the sting of it in 2016 when he barely made it out of his tango with Roper alive.

But the real reason Jonathan has all but put himself in a prolonged timeout is because Roper still haunts him. A cold open reveals Roper, as suspected, didn’t survive his capture by the scorned Middle Eastern weapons buyers, with whom Jonathan sabotaged a deal worth $300 million. Jonathan and Angela arrive to identify the body before they part ways, him to the bowels of the Foreign Office’s International Enforcement Agency and her to a quieter life in a world without Roper. But even seeing his lifeless corpse –– at least from afar –– doesn’t keep Jonathan from feeling like his former adversary still dictates his life from the grave. Especially when an assignment leads him directly to a former associate of Roper.

Born from his obsession with and hunger for Roper’s chaos, Jonathan ingratiates himself with a new operation run by Teddy Dos Santos (Diego Calva), a cocky, handsome Colombian arms dealer who has been deemed Roper’s heir apparent. Is it true though? Is the legacy of Richard Roper living beyond its deity? Jonathan can’t help but find out, and when someone close to him dies mysteriously, it cracks open the past’s foothold in the present.

Everything else that happens is under strict embargo, so no spoilers here. But one thing that is apparent from the beginning is how easily Hiddleston slips back into this role as the untouchable Jonathan, who hasn’t quite mastered how to untangle his life, his capacity for love and his desire for danger. He’s distant, as a means of exuding some control. He’s mysterious to the people closest to him, even his therapist (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), who cautiously warns that sealing himself off emotionally will only create a more devastating implosion when his emotions outgrow the tiny corner of living in which he has secluded himself.

Ever the empathetic note to the story, Colman still packs a punch even though she isn’t as central this season as she was the first time around. Yet, she remains a lynchpin in Jonathan’s tether to the past, and her limited appearances are wielded with maximum impact as only a Colman sighting can. The most intriguing new additions to the cast are the two people in Jonathan’s sights –– Calva’s Teddy and Camila Morrone’s Roxana Bolaños, an associate of Teddy’s whose attraction with Jonathan is his preferred brand of peril.

Calva, best known for Damian Cazelle’s underrated but ascendant Old Hollywood epic “Babylon,” is the real unpredictable element here. Like Laurie in Season 1, Calva is tasked with playing a titan –– albeit a greener one — in his industry who elicits fear from those around him, while also being just curious enough about the charming and striking Jonathan to let down his guard. Calva’s boyish demeanor brings a livewire menace to Jonathan’s new target, one who is not yet as refined as Roper was and therefore even more threatening. Morrone, similarly, has to play two sides of the same coin: a loyal subject of Teddy’s who walks the tight rope around him just like everyone else, and the survivalist who sees Jonathan as a potential out if she’s willing to take the risk.

A real sleeper favorite of the season though is Hayley Squires as Sally, Jonathan’s one-woman support team who has to exist even more in the shadows than him and assumes greater risk by moving in and out of the world he’s trying to stand tall in. Squires is the perfect partner for Jonathan, bringing the humanity, warmth and emotion that he simply can’t muster or chooses not to.

“The Night Manager” isn’t perfect in its return though. In a world of shifting loyalties and veiled plans, the series isn’t quite willing to go as far as it seems tempted to. The trailers understandably grabbed people’s attention with what seemed like the makings of a passionate moment between Hiddleston and Calva, with Morrone watching from the wings a la Zendaya in “Challengers.” But don’t tune in if you are looking for Jonathan to blur the lines of his sexuality to get his man. While there is an undeniable attraction between the two men, they can’t seem to decide what to do about it and neither can the show, which is disappointing given the new layers of vulnerability that could be drawn out for Jonathan and Teddy.

Nevertheless, this unexpected continuation of “The Night Manager” understands it arrives in a different era than its debut. It moves at a faster clip, and it never lets Teddy lull Jonathan and the audience into a treacherous sense of safety quite like Roper did. But perhaps most crucially to its mission and the audience’s enjoyment, it lives with the unsettling reality that the past is never dead. Even if you see its corpse in front of you.

“The Night Manager” Season 2 releases new episodes Sundays on Prime Video. Season 1 is now streaming.

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