So, the second episode of The Night Manager Season 2 gives us a pretty clear idea about who Eduardo “Teddy” Dos Santos is, and what he is trying to do. He’s not just some random arms dealer from Colombia; he’s actually related to someone Jonathan Pine has been trying to forget so badly. The thing is, Teddy’s words, his ideology, and his business model—everything about him—remind Pine of his worst nemesis, Richard Onslow Roper, and he just can’t let things rest until he has stopped Teddy from rebuilding Roper’s dream. But the question here is how? How’s Pine going to bring down this new Roper? Well, Pine and his new team already have a plan in mind, so without any further ado, let’s jump straight into it and find out what happened in the second episode of season 2.
Spoiler Alert
The Night Owls Are Terminated
So, as I expected, the corrupt MI6 chief, Mayra Cavendish, didn’t waste a moment to terminate the Night Owls unit. Pine and his team had been secretly investigating Cavendish’s involvement in the illegal arms trade, and she couldn’t afford to get exposed. In the previous episode, Pine had seen Cavendish meeting with Adam Holywell, a middleman, who had likely fixed the deal between the UK arms dealers and Colombian import company, Barquero Commerce. This secret meeting gave Pine the idea that Cavendish might be the one supervising the trade so that the shipments would reach their destination without any interference from the British government. In short, the botched mission in Spain gave Cavendish the excuse to shut down the unit without any further discussion. However, she was eager to know how much dirt Pine and his senior, Rex Mayhew, had dug up on her. She brought in Sally Price-Jones, a member of the surveillance unit, for an official inquiry, but Sally didn’t reveal much, and there was no other way for Cavendish to find out more about Pine’s investigation, because he had covered up his tracks before disappearing. If you remember, in the previous episode, Pine had asked Sally and Mike to wipe all data from the system so that there was no record of their covert operation. Additionally, Basil used his connections to forge some documents to convince Cavendish that Pine had died in an explosion in Hotel Rusinol, so she knew that no one was investigating her anymore. Most of Pine’s agents had been shot dead in the field, and she had no other use for the surviving members, which was why she terminated the unit and gave Sally some time off.
Basil Is An Ally
We all had been thinking that it was Rex Mayhew who helped Pine erase his past and start anew as Alex Goodwin, but it turned out it was Basil Karapetian who had been helping Pine from the shadows. After returning from Spain, Pine decided to visit Sally, which was when he came across Basil, who was waiting for Pine at Sally’s house in Wales. Basil told Pine that he knew everything about his past and how he brought down Richard Roper. Now he wanted to help Pine stop another antagonist, that is, Teddy. So Basil, Pine, and Sally teamed up to devise an intricate plan to get into Teddy’s inner circle. At first, Sally gave an anonymous tip to Alejandro Gualteros, a public prosecutor in Medellin, who had been investigating Teddy’s company, Barquero Commerce, for a long time. Sally believed Alejandro could turn out to be a trusted ally and therefore informed him about Alcestis, the vessel carrying illegal arms to Colombia. Alejandro impounded Teddy’s shipment and froze his company’s bank accounts until further notice. This meant Teddy needed an active cash flow to carry out his plans, and that was where Matthew Ellis came in. Well, Matthew was just another identity for our night manager that would let him befriend Teddy and find out what he was actually up to. And to solve Teddy’s cash flow problem, Pine decided to use the money that he had stolen from Roper. Remember the 300 million that Pine had transferred from Roper’s shell company so he wouldn’t be able to pay back his captors? Well, it turned out Basil had kept the money safe to fund these covert missions overseas.
Pine Lands in Medellin
As soon as Sally and Basil created a new identity for Pine, our night manager was ready to take on another adventure, and this time his destination was Colombia. Pine, in the guise of an ex-Swiss banker from Hong Kong, landed in Medellin and checked into the Gran Melia hotel to get close to Teddy’s lawyer, Juan Carrascal. While playing a game of tennis with Carrascal, Teddy noticed Pine and did a background check on Matthew Ellis, only to find out that he was a wealthy man with a penchant for risk-taking. In short, Matthew Ellis seemed like the right fit to become his investor. Shortly after a meeting with Teddy at the Medellin Gun Club, Pine got a call from Carrascal, inviting him to Teddy’s fundraising event for his organization, Aurora.
Roxy Is Alive
Everything was going according to plan when Pine suddenly came across Roxana “Roxy” Bolanos. She knew Pine’s real identity and could jeopardize his entire operation, but before she could expose him, Pine pulled her into a corner and told her that he could get an arrest warrant issued against her if she opened her mouth. He told her that she was an accessory to Rex Mayhew’s murder and would be extradited to the UK for further investigation. Okay, I know Pine lied to her because, in reality, Pine had no real authority to do so, given his agency believed he’d died in an explosion in Spain. And he said all that just to intimidate Roxy because Pine knew that she wasn’t working for Teddy out of her free will. So, long story short, everything Roxy had told Pine in London was a lie. Barquero didn’t hire her to facilitate the trade between the UK and Medellin because her family was from Colombia. Instead, she met Teddy some five years ago in Miami, and since then, he had been in touch with her. Teddy likely threatened her into working for him, but the episode didn’t reveal much about it, and I guess we will find out more about it in the next few weeks. Additionally, it wasn’t Roxy who contacted Rex Mayhew because she suspected Barquero was doing some shady business. It was Mayhew who found her, as he had noticed some traffic between Colombia and the River House, and Roxy’s name showed up frequently in the records. It’s likely that Mayhew had been investigating Cavendish’s involvement in the illegal arms trade for a long time, but hadn’t kept any records or involved anyone else in the investigation for their own safety. Nevertheless, as soon as Mayhew contacted Roxy, she told Teddy about it, and likely on his orders, she flew to London to find out how much Mayhew knew about the shipment. And later, she told everything to Teddy, who ordered a hit on Mayhew and made it look like a suicide. It could also be possible that Teddy might have asked Cavendish to clean up the mess before Mayhew could jeopardize their operation. Also, in the previous episode, it was Teddy whom Roxy had contacted while Pine kept her in a safehouse. The man who shot Pine’s agent, Tony, was later seen partying in Teddy’s apartment, so Roxy wasn’t just responsible for Mayhew’s death, she was also linked to the death of Pine’s agent.
Okay, going back to the plot, the reason why Teddy introduced Roxy to Pine was because he knew that Matthew Ellis had his vices. Through Roxy, he wanted to find out more about the man, specifically whether he would be a good fit for his business or not, but as it turned out, Pine was one step ahead of Teddy. He blackmailed Roxy into convincing Teddy that Matthew Ellis was the man he needed to solve his cash flow crisis.
Teddy Is Likely Selling Arms to Jose Cabrera
So, here comes the tricky part: what was Teddy really planning to do with the weapons? Well, earlier in the episode, Teddy sought help from General Horacio Sanchez of the Colombian army to put pressure on the public prosecutor so he would release his shipment, and this unlikely meeting between the two suggested that Teddy might be supplying arms to the military. The question here is, why was the military buying weapons from an illegal arms dealer? Okay, did you hear the news report Pine was watching on TV? It was an official statement from the Colombian Attorney General Consuelo Arbenz, who had issued an arrest warrant against the politician Jose Cabrera, whose family had tyrannized the country for more than a decade. The news report also had a soundbyte from Jose himself, and from the looks of it, Jose didn’t seem like a nice guy. You can spot some uniformed men with guns standing behind him, who could be a part of Jose’s private militia which he had been using to terrorize the country. However, before pointing out Teddy’s role in all of this, I just want to remind you of the first scene of The Night Manager Season 1, where the people of Cairo rose in protest against the current government, and to crush this uprising, Freddie Hamid, a member of the most powerful family in Egypt, had ordered a number of weapons, including napalm, from Roper’s company, Iron Last. So, Teddy’s not just following Roper’s business model; he is also adopting his methods and ideology. In short, he’s trying to replicate what Roper did in his glory days. And if my guess is correct, then I think Teddy’s not selling weapons to the military. Instead, he’s selling directly to Jose Cabrera, who is planning a coup with the military to seize the government using illegal British weapons delivered to him by Teddy. And this takeover would take place in a week’s time, that is, on the ten-year anniversary of Colombia’s peace process.
The Mystery of the Last Shipment
Sally, through her investigation, found out that in the last two years, Barquero Commerce had received six shipments from the UK, all coming on different ships and under different cover names. However, the previous shipments were of around 20 containers, but the most recent one, the one they had been tracking, had only one container, which I know made you all curious as to what was really inside it. Okay, as I mentioned earlier, the Hamid family had ordered napalm from Roper, which makes me wonder if this shipment could contain a similar weapon of mass destruction. And this was why Teddy was so concerned, because he couldn’t conclude the deal without delivering the napalm. And I am not saying Cabrera or the military had plans to deploy it, but having a weapon of mass destruction in their arsenal will give them an upper hand when it comes to bargaining with the current government, and force them to hand over the power without any further discussion. But that’s just my theory, and Pine will eventually find out what’s really inside this container after he steals the diplomatic briefcase that contained the shipment list. He saw the briefcase lying in Teddy’s apartment, and I believe in the next episodes, Pine will be able to take a look at this list.
Teddy Is Roper’s Son
Yeah, this was one of the major revelations of the episode. I had a feeling that this might be true when Pine found Teddy’s picture in Roper’s archives, but I didn’t want to go shooting in the dark. So while Roxy was making arrangements to get Matthew Ellis into Teddy’s setup, Pine embarked on a little side quest of his own. In the previous episode, he had found a photograph of a Colombian woman in Roper’s archive, and later in episode 2, he saw the same picture in Teddy’s wallet, which made him believe that this woman could help him find out more about Teddy’s past. So Pine hired a private detective, Martin Alvarez, who took Pine to Eje Cafetero, where this woman’s picture was clicked. After inquiring with the locals, Alvarez found out that this woman, Maria Luisa Vidal, died some 30 years ago; however, at her memorial, they came across Maria’s daughter, Clara, who recognized Teddy from the photograph and told them that he was her brother, but she hadn’t seen him for 30 years. Pine lied to her that his life might be in danger, and he really wanted to find him, which was why Clara told him about the monastery where Teddy grew up.
Okay, so the priest in the monastery told Pine that Eduardo’s father was an Englishman, which made Pine come to the conclusion that Roper was Teddy’s father. In Roper’s archive, Pine had found pictures of a young Roper in uniform, which made him believe that Richard Roper smuggled arms into Colombia in the 1990s. However, according to Basil, they never had any proof that placed Roper in Colombia, which means Pine’s theory could just be a theory. So Pine speculated that while doing business in Colombia, Roper came in contact with Teddy’s mother, the woman in the photograph, and had a son with her. But Teddy’s mother, being already married to someone else, couldn’t raise the baby on her own and therefore sent Teddy to the monastery, where he was visited only by his father once a year. However, here once again we didn’t see Roper visiting Teddy in the flashback sequence, because bringing Hugh Laurie in for this short scene might have increased the budget of the show considerably. So I think we just have to imagine that Teddy’s father, an Englishman, was none other than Richard Roper. But if Roper is not Teddy’s father, then Pine’s in for a surprise in the upcoming episodes. Though I am putting my money on Teddy being Richard’s son, which could explain why he’s following in his footsteps and trying to continue his legacy.
Well, whatever the case might be, Teddy’s orphaned childhood could explain why he is trying to help those abandoned kids in Medellin. I know I could be wrong here, because people like Teddy cannot sympathize with anyone, but I am just entertaining the possibility that Teddy might not be “pure evil” like his father. However, the way Teddy was checking the photographs of those kids gave me all the wrong signals. It’s possible that Teddy might be sexually abusing these boys, but it’s too early to chase these theories. And last but not least, you may have noticed that Teddy has a soft spot for the Englishman. He trusted Pine in the blink of an eye. I think this too has something to do with his own father hailing from the same country; so it’s likely an Englishman is going to be Teddy’s Achilles heel.
Matthew Ellis Becomes Teddy’s New Investor
According to Roxy, Teddy was in dire need of some 20 million dollars; however, the show didn’t bother explaining why Teddy actually needed this money. But whatever the reason might be, Teddy was ready to take this short-term loan from the Englishman, and in exchange, he would double his money in three months. Teddy’s only condition was that he didn’t want Matthew prying into his business or asking any questions, because he didn’t want any third party to know what he was really selling. Well, Pine already knew that, yet to make Teddy believe that it was a genuine business deal, he told Teddy that he would think about it. However, Teddy couldn’t afford to lose any more time. If you remember, there was only a week to the anniversary, which meant Teddy needed to move things as quickly as possible, which was why he got Pine drunk and drugged at his small champagne party, not only to get him on board but also to find out where Pine was getting his money from. As per Matthew’s fake background, he had lost his bank 600 million dollars, so Teddy wasn’t sure if he had the kind of funds he was looking for or if he was just bluffing. So in order to get to the bottom of the truth, Teddy asked his minions to spike Pine’s drink to make him come clean to Teddy. But Pine didn’t let the drugs make him lose control, and when Teddy questioned him about who he really was, Pine told him that he had come to Colombia to launder his 25 million dollars that he’d stolen from the Swiss bankers. Well, Teddy bought Pine’s lies and finally decided to bring him on board as his investor.
I think, in the next episode, we can expect Pine to use his closeness with Teddy to gather intel, especially the shipment list, to find out what’s exactly inside the container and to whom Teddy is really selling these weapons. Also, back in London, Basil is keeping a watch on Cavendish to collect evidence against her and catch her red-handed so he can get her thrown out of the River House, because as long as she’s acting chief of MI6, she will do everything in her power to protect Teddy. Not because of the money, but because Teddy has too much evidence against her, and if Teddy goes down, he will take her down with him. So Pine and his team need to expose both Cavendish and Teddy if they want to put a stop to Teddy’s grand scheme of turning Colombia into a war zone.
