‘The Night Manager’ Creator Confirms the True Nature of Jonathan and Teddy’s Relationship, and Explains Why [SPOILER] and [SPOILER] Had to Die in the Season 2 Finale

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers from the Season 2 finale of “The Night Manager,” now streaming on Prime Video. 

Nearly a decade after it first premiered in 2016, “The Night Manager” has closed out its belated second season with a pair of tragic deaths and a bruising set-up for its final chapter.

The Prime Video spy thriller, based on the works of author John le Carré, brought back its troubled intelligence agent Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston) for what was initially pitched as a new mission into the depths of Colombia and the treacherous world of young arms dealer Teddy De Santos (Diego Calva). But rather quickly, the series from creator/writer David Farr revealed it wasn’t as divorced from its first season as it wanted viewers to believe.

By Episode 3, Jonathan learns that his nemesis from Season 1, the vicious arms dealer Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie) hadn’t died at the hands of his enemies as he had believed — and hoped. Instead, Roper had faked his death by blackmailing Jonathan’s former handler Angela Burr (Olivia Colman), and disappeared into the jungles of Colombia for cover as he planned his next act. Helping his cause was the son he’d fathered as a young man but largely ignored until he needed something — Teddy, who was eager to help the father he always longed to know. But Jonathan’s infiltration of Teddy’s operation as a Hong Kong businessman managed to get him close enough to the hot-headed young kingpin to develop a relationship with him,  one that blurred the line of romance and danger. Ultimately, Teddy’s affection for Jonathan allowed him to see that he was just being used by his father as a means of resurrection. He is a vestige of Roper’s youth and would never be acknowledged as his legitimate son like Danny (Noah Jupe), his younger offspring  who is tolling away at a boarding school with a chip on his shoulder about his supposedly dead dad.

Courtesy of Des Willie/Amazon MGM Studios

In the finale, allegiances have flipped. Jonathan’s former informant into Teddy’s operation, Roxana (Camila Morrone), has defected to Roper’s side, even going as far as to try and orchestrate Jonathan’s assassination. Teddy, meanwhile, has gone all in on his devotion to Jonathan, while still playing the dutiful son for Roper. In the hope of righting the wrong of helping Roper fake his death, Angela has also cornered Mayra (Indira Varma), the MI-6 chief who is in cahoots with Roper. But Jonathan, Teddy and Angela’s plan to divert Roper’s purchase of an electromagnetic pulse device meant to plunge South America into chaos is thwarted when Roper catches on to Teddy’s love for Jonathan. Their planned ambush is turned on them, and ultimately Roper puts a bullet in Teddy’s head for his defection.

Jonathan manages to get away, albeit beaten, bloody and devastated by the loss of his partner (in all senses of the word). What he doesn’t know is that Angela has also been gunned down in front of her young daughter, in Roper and Mayra’s latest attempt to tie up loose ends.

It took Farr years to crack the code of restarting Jonathan’s story, and Teddy was the key to doing it. It’s why there was never a doubt in his mind that the character had to die by season’s end in order to set up the final chapter of his trilogy of Jonathan and Roper’s battle.

“Roper had to make the most brutal decision,” Farr tells Variety. “I felt he needed to win in some very dark way. But I didn’t just want it to be a plotty thing: It needed to have a very dark emotional cost, so it was always inevitable for me.”

Below, Farr breaks down the complicated relationship between Jonathan (whom he calls by his last name, Pine) and Teddy, why he is adamant it was a love story (to a degree), whether Angela was always on the chopping block and what Season 3 might look like –– when he is done writing it.

Looking back on the second season now, what was the biggest challenge in resurrecting this story after a decade?

The reason we didn’t do it for ages was that I was very anxious about just suddenly plowing into something without a worthy reason to do so. I wanted to find a way to extend this story in a satisfying way that I felt justified it being a trilogy. As is often the way with writing, it helped that I finally had one very clear idea, which was the whole Teddy story. The notion that Roper, as a young man, could have been a gunrunner in Colombia felt right to me. He was cutting his teeth there and had a kid, and in his time of need after the Syrian situation, that’s where he would naturally go for cover and figure out a plan. Once I figured that out, it just happened. 

It also reflects that fathers-and-sons dynamic. It opens up Teddy as an alternative son, and Pine as a surrogate son. So suddenly this whole thing, this very le Carré theme, just fell into place. As you can tell, I’m a fan, and it started to feel really truthful to that world rather than just trying to force a spinoff or an opportunistic second season.

Courtesy of Des Willie/Amazon MGM Studios

The heart of this season is Jonathan and Teddy’s relationship. The promos for the season put their near kiss in Episode 2 front and center. But here at the end, how do you define that relationship? Was it romantic? Was it purely circumstantial for Jonathan?

Pine is a very strange and opaque figure even to himself, right? What was Jed to him in Season 1? Was he really in love with her? I’m not sure. He definitely was in the moment, but rather as an actor is when they play a role in a play. Then the play ends and the actor has to extricate themselves. Spies have that too. Spies enter worlds where they have to play real, but the problem is –– and this is one of le Carré’s great themes as well — you get lost in the maze of that. You don’t know who you are. You don’t know what real love is versus feigned love.

When it comes to Teddy, it’s not that different. He is at one level using Teddy in his operation. But two things can happen at once. I think there is a genuine physical attraction, which is new for Pine, and I stand by it. I think it’s really truthful and important. I think the scene in the villa at the end of Episode 2 is the most erotic moment between them.
Certainly, there are other ways in which Teddy and Pine could have explored each other, and decide to work together in that moment. But there is a very particular way of him diving in that pool, and holding onto his shirt as he’s looking down at him in his arms like he’s Mary looking at Jesus. It’s a very Catholic erotic moment. That physical attraction remains, but it shifts as soon as Roper arrives. As soon as he realizes this guy is alive, in a weird way, that erotic fascination –– I use that word very loosely –– shifts. 
Suddenly, it becomes about saving a man he loves, and realizing that man is a victim. Teddy has done terrible things, as he says himself. But in some ways, he is also a victim, and once again, Pine is suckered into trying to save someone. But as he even says, he causes damage when he falls in love with people. I think he genuinely falls in love with Teddy, but in a slightly different way.

In rewatching the finale, perhaps the most important moment is when Roxana defiantly confronts Roper and pleads that she is not in love with Jonathan, saying, “I didn’t lose my heart to him, and if someone did, it wasn’t me.” That is the moment Roper realizes his son Teddy is not aligned with him anymore, and he has fallen for what Jonathan offers him.

That is what literally cracks open everything. There’s a fun thing about that scene, which we can talk about now, because when we originally filmed it, it went farther. Roper acts out this realization about [Teddy’s allegiance].
That’s the moment when everything falls into place and he realizes he’s being played. Roxana’s key role in the season, weirdly, is that moment. Because it’s her cleareyedness that makes Roper understand, and thus he makes the changes to the weapons drop. In the end, we chose not to put that part of the scene in because it felt like it could give too much away to the audience too quickly. And even later, if we had used it as some kind of flashback, it felt a little unnecessary. But it is also worth saying that moment leads to Roper and Roxy gaining this very strange camaraderie, where they both see they are very similar people. He needs that moment of absolute understanding, and I like the fact that she gives it to him. She’s so far from being what she seems, which is this kind of James Bondian siren. Really, Roxana is the most coolly observant survivor of them all. 

Courtesy of Des Willie/Amazon MGM Studios

She ends up in a similar place to Jed in the Season 1 finale, where we see her seemingly making her escape. But with this new understanding between her and Roper, might Roxana come back into the fold in Season 3?

Well, I’m not at liberty to talk about that.
My instinct is that I’m satisfied with that resolution and Roxana’s journey. But the honest truth is that we are still writing the third season as we speak. Writing is a journey of discoveries. So I don’t really know yet. But I will say, even if she’s got away for good, she’s learned something about herself and it’s not necessarily a nice thing. There was an opportunity there to become a different person, and she didn’t take it.

There is no mistaking the tragedy of Roper killing his own son for Teddy’s betrayal. But did you really have to kill the poor guy? It feels like there could have been so much to play between that dynamic and with Jonathan! Did you ever consider letting him live?

No, because this was the journey that I first thought of, and I see it as a very kind of archetypal story of sons. Roper had to make the most brutal decision. I felt he needed to win in some very dark way. But I didn’t just want it to be a plotty thing. It needed to have a very dark emotional cost, so it was always inevitable for me. Obviously, a couple of other people asked me along the way, like, “Are you sure?” But you know, sometimes you just have to go with your initial hunch. And they all admitted the power is there in that moment. Of course, it also gives us a legacy in Season 3 for Roper and for Pine. Teddy’s death is intensely meaningful in very different ways for both of them. There’s something interesting as well for Danny, who has no idea that Teddy even exists. I will say, I’m excited to work with Noah Jupe because he’s a really special actor. We only used him lightly this season, but he’s very talented and he’s a lovely guy. So I want to write for him in Season 3, which is very exciting.

Not only does Danny not know he had a brother, but he doesn’t yet know that his father killed him either. It means Roper is certainly capable of killing another son.

On one level, any kid who hasn’t seen their father and thought he was dead will obviously be overjoyed. I think that final scene with them is played so beautifully. It’s quite understated, and terribly English. But it has the right impact.

Speaking of impacts, you had the nerve to kill international treasure Olivia Colman at the end of this finale. Did you have to warn multiple nations that a day of mourning was imminent because you don’t just kill Olivia Colman! So why did Angela have to die, and what was Olivia’s reaction?

I know, this is the biggest crime we committed.
But what I will say is that unlike Teddy’s death, which was a complete inevitability and I don’t think the story works without it, Angela’s death was a choice. It was about making a bold choice. From a story point of view, I felt she had unbelievably strong stories in both seasons. In the first one, she is an operational handler, but she’s much more than that. She’s a good angel for Pine. That question of will he stay loyal to her or will he possibly get lured by the Roper seduction was just so beautiful. In the second season, she’s made this quite flawed decision, obviously, which she has to make good on once she realizes what she’s done. Her relationship with Pine is not as pure. It’s all messy and tough and they don’t even end on a good note, which is tragic now. But what I didn’t want to happen very simply was for her to become just a handler with nothing more to do. That’s the last thing I wanted, and Olivia’s very in demand. So it felt like without a really pressing imperative for her moving forward, it might be way more daring and more honest to do what we’ve done.

As for her reaction, it’s classic Olivia. She was like, “Oh, it’s a brilliant idea!” She got the daring of it and she found it thrilling and she loved doing the actual scene itself. But on the day of, and sadly I wasn’t there, she did express to our director Georgi [Banks-Davies] much more bittersweetness. When I finally had a coffee with her, she did say it’s been a massive part of her life. You’ve got to remember, she was genuinely pregnant when she made Season 1. So literally, her child is the same age as the show and it’s got a family quality. This was a really tough decision, not an easy one at all. 

Courtesy of Des Willie/Amazon MGM Studios

This does leave a role in Jonathan’s life for an advisor and a support system, and Hayley Squire’s character, Sally, is poised to step up. 

Oh, yes. I have a strong desire to write for Hayley Squires and Sally. She’s really exciting and beautiful, and there’s a kind of desire to honor Angela’s legacy in that way. Also, I shouldn’t say too much about this but there is a strong sense of Angela’s ghost –– not literally but in the sense of her legacy –– in Season 3. There is a plot reason, but I can’t yet tell you that!

Season 3 was announced with Season 2, so you will get to complete your trilogy. Jonathan got the win at the end of Season 1, and Roper gets a huge win here at the end of Season 2. Do you see Season 3 as a winner-takes-all showdown? 

Of course, we have to have some kind of resolution to all of this. But it may not happen in the way that everyone quite predicts. The journey there, hopefully, will be a little bit different to what might be the most obvious story.

Jonathan has been wounded physically, mentally and emotionally at the end of this season. Did Roper suffer any damage that will affect him going into Season 3?

He’s described as the worst man in the world and all these things. But I don’t think of Roper as some kind of strange robotic monster. You can’t do what he’s done without it having a serious impact. He just doesn’t yet know what that impact is yet, and that’s what is exciting to me as I’m writing.

This interview has been edited and condensed.