5.24.2016

Television: The Night Manager 1.3

. . . In which Tom Hiddleston becomes a terrible "manny." He emotionally manipulates a child in order to use said child as a pawn in a potentially deadly game, and he steals the kid's phone besides.

Jonathan (Hiddleston) continues to be hounded by Roper's (Laurie) security team, so he—and from the outside Angela—work to get this particular sniffer dog by the name of Corky off the job. By planting seeds of suspicion of his own, and by making a show of bonding with young Danny, Jonathan appears to slowly win Roper to his side.

Meanwhile, it's made plain that uppity-ups back in London are in with Roper. They continue to insist there is no need to take any action on Roper. So Angela, and by extension Jonathan, may have their legs cut out from under them if/when their work is brought to light. Worse still, Jonathan might (is likely to, based on previews, but then again they edit those fairly broadly) be compromised. One can only hope Angela has buried things deeply enough.

Of course things continue to be dragged down by a pseudo-romantic plot in which Jonathan can't stop thinking about Roper's wife. I'm sorry, but I just find it so difficult to believe him as a person who can't keep it in his pants. It probably doesn't help things that women always seem to be crying when he's around. He does, however, discover that Mrs. Roper (wasn't The Ropers a sitcom?) is also spying on her husband.

Minor annoyance: the On Demand feed repeated one portion of the episode. Someone should fix that.

I do wish they'd make The Fall and Rise of Peter Stoller into a miniseries. I feel like more happens in that book than seems to be happening here. Tom Hiddleston would make a good Peter, too.

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