I’ve really been enjoying watching the BBC’s adaptation of The Night Manager by John Le Carré. Now it’s finished I will feel bereft on a Sunday night! I thought it was a brilliant, compelling piece of TV and I loved watching it.
That said, I do have a couple of questions – to do with the TV series, I haven’t read the book (although I probably should). Readers should note this will contain spoilers, so if you haven’t seen it read on at your own risk.
1. Jonathan Pine is far too … nice. It just didn’t feel right to me. Hugh Laurie plays Richard Roper very well, I think – you feel that beneath the velvet glove there is an iron first. Roper is a dangerous man and I think that comes across perfectly. Tom Hiddleston just made Pine too much of a likeable, nice guy – the way he smiled and laughed, it just seemed such a contrast to the person he was supposed to be. I hope I wasn’t the only person to be thinking this!
2. Pine killed two people while he was on Roper’s team. He didn’t seem to have any compunction about killing. He also didn’t seem too bothered about dying – as he told Angela, “I was living a half life”. So – why didn’t he just kill Roper? Yes, it would have been likely suicidal – but I’m sure there would have been an opportunity to shoot him and run. Why chance it? Why put all that effort into a complicated plan which may or may not work when you could have just killed the guy?
I guess there is always the danger that the organisation would continue with someone else, but I think it would be pretty unlikely if the main guy was taken out. If you’re prepared to kill anyway, and you’re not too worried about dying, this just seems the most logical option to me.
Either way, this whole thing raised the issue of morality and at what point it’s right to do the wrong thing to prevent another wrong thing from happening – but that’s far too big an issue to deal with now!
3. I enjoyed the resolution in the last episode, but as I’ve thought about it the ending is less satisfactory. Halo wasn’t brought to justice, he got away with it, and the corruption in the government wasn’t dealt with. We don’t know exactly what happened to Roper but it looked to me like he was going to be killed by the shady types who were buying his weapons.
I just feel that the conclusion was a little less comfortable than I would have liked – not that this is a criticism as such, but it’s thought provoking.
All in all, a really good series and perhaps the book will shed light on some of these questions…