By Jessica Grey
For those of us stateside, The Night Manager concluded with a bang! And a whimper. And also a temper tantrum to rival that of the most petulant toddler.
The episode opens in a closed-door inquiry in which Angela is testifying about the failed raid on Roper’s trucks as they were crossing the Turkish-Syrian border. This whole affair is undeniably fraught with tension as everyone in the room, save Angela, has been a part of the conspiracy to cover Roper’s tracks. That tension only escalates when they ask for the name of her inside source. Upon returning to her office, she finds that all the additional staff have been pulled off the project and that the enforcement agency will be shuttered in two weeks’ time. As she’s letting the news sink in, her phone rings: it’s Jonathan letting her know that he’s in Cairo, at the Nefertiti Hotel.
In Cairo, while Roper and the crew prepare for the upcoming deal that will be taking place there in Egypt, it becomes very apparently that his suspicions have not been assuaged at all. In fact, Sandy’s wife, Caroline, has been brought back into the fold—by way of extortion—specifically to spy on Jed for him. Meanwhile, Jonathan has his first encounter with Freddie Hamid since the death of Sophie Alekan five years prior; though Hamid seems to recognize Jonathan, he cannot place where he has seen him before. Freddie escorts Roper’s party to his family’s business estate where they meet Mr. Barghati and the partner he brought to the table, Mr. Kouyami; all the parties agree to the terms of the agreement, after Roper makes assurances about the discretion of the transaction, and the initial payment is made.
The next morning, Jonathan heads toward the lobby and along the way, in passing, Joel—who has joined Angela in Cairo—tells Jonathan he has a “message from London.” They nonchalantly board the same elevator and then Jonathan follows Joel to a room where Angela is waiting. Angela tells Jonathan that the enforcement agency’s been shut down and she can’t pull him out if something goes wrong, unless they do it right then. Jonathan insists on sticking it out and tells Angela that he has a plan, but will need their help.
The show cuts away to Jonathan searching in the kitchen for his old friend, Yousef, now head chef, making an excuse to pull him to the side to discuss a particular recipe. Once away from prying eyes, they excitedly greet one another before Jonathan tells Yousef that he needs to see his brother, Ahmer, who participated in some of the political violence during Egypt’s Arab Spring protests.
Elsewhere, Jed and Roper are getting ready for the trip to the casino. As they are talking, she asks if he can put the new silver earrings she bought in the safe for her, sneaking a peak at the combination as he closes it. At the casino, fter dodging the questions of an increasingly intoxicated Freddie Hamid, Jonathan makes his way to the roulette table, joined by Roper, Jed, and Freddie. Jed places her bets to communicate the safe’s combination to Jonathan who, rather congenially offers to buy Freddie another drink; while he’s at the bar, he texts the combination to Angela and doses Freddie’s whiskey.
While Angela, thanks to Yousef’s sneaking her a key, slips into Roper’s room and steals the certificates from the safe—narrowly avoiding getting caught by one of Roper’s body guards thanks to a timely phone call from the “front desk” about a package for Mr. Roper—, the group at the casino is dealing with a sloppy-drunk Freddy. After a scolding from Roper, Freddie acquiesces to Jonathan’s taking him home. Once back at the family estate, and after confirming they are the only people there, Jonathan makes Freddie another dosed drink and confronts him about Sophie Alekan. Freddie, drunk and drugged out of his gourd, recognizes Jonathan as the former Nefertiti Hotel night manager, just before Jonathan takes justice into his own hands.
In his magically insta-drying trousers, Jonathan walks back into the hotel not looking even a little bit like he was just waist-deep in a pool, drowning a man. He strolls to the front desk and asks for the envelope Angela dropped off for him; he arranges for a car so that he can pick up Yousef, Ahmer, and one of their compatriots. They drive to the Egyptian military base where the merchandise is being held. Having the certificates in hand and being the legal owner of Trade Pass, Jonathan is let through the guarded gate and his old pals go to work. Meanwhile, back at the hotel, Jed and Roper have just gotten back from the casino; after the body guard tells Roper about that phone call from the “front desk,” Roper tells him to check out everyone on the hotel registry.
The next morning, room service turns up at Roper’s door with breakfast, courtesy of Jonathan, who has slipped the envelope of certificates into the newspaper for Jed to find. When she goes to place the certificate back in the safe, she finds the code has been changed. Roper calls in Frisky, who proceeds to torture her to find out with whom she’s working; Roper starts to piece together that she was working with Jonathan, having taken notice of how close the two have been. Meanwhile, unaware of the violence going on in Roper’s room, Jonathan makes a single transaction with the Trade Pass account for the full amount of the initial payment made by Mr. Kouyami, emptying the account completely.
Back in London, Angela’s colleague, having received copies of the certificates from her the night before, has a nice chat with Dromgoole. He explains the new reality of the situation and tells Dromgoole that his role as Roper’s consultant, Halo, is over and that, if he receives a phone call from Roper, he is to decline it. Rob is quite clear about the fact that cutting ties with Roper is the only way Dromgoole will survive the fallout.
In Cairo, though no one can get through to Freddie, Roper, Sandy, and Jonathan go on head out for the military base to complete the deal with Mr. Barghati and Mr. Kouyami. Sandy reports to Roper that there were two hotel guests who did not check out, both staying in the same room; Roper gives the order to have Frisky deliver “room service” to those guests. Then he pulls Jonathan into an abandoned building and, after a sucker punch, confronts him. He promises he will kill him—brutally—but he needs “Andrew Birch” to finish this transaction, so he uses Jed as leverage: Jonathan completes the deal, Jed doesn’t get hurt anymore.
Joel, having followed Roper’s cavalcade to the base, sees Jonathan escorted out of that abandoned building and to the meeting at gun point. Joel tells Angela that Jonathan’s cover is blown and she has to get out of that hotel room immediately. The warning comes just a little too late for her to get out, but in just enough time to be prepared. Frisky, with Jed as his hostage, storms into the room. Jed sees Angela before Frisky does; Angela mouths “move” to Jed and, when Jed jumps to the side, takes a shot at Frisky and disables him.
At the base, Mr. Barghati and Mr. Kouyami are shown the loaded trucks and everyone appears to be quite pleased with the deal, so they proceed with making the second payment for the transaction as the trucks start to depart. Once the money has been sent, “Andrew Birch” has to access the Trade Pass account to confirm receipt; as Roper hands Jonathan the phone for the iris scan to confirm “Andrew Birch’s” identity, the trucks stop in the distance and the drivers hop out of their cabs, running across the field. Jonathan exits out of the bank app and dials the code Ahmer gave him to “start the party.”
As trucks full of military-grade weapons go up in flames, Mr. Kouyami immediately starts demanding his money back. When Sandy goes to transfer the initial payment back to Mr. Kouyami, they find that there is not a single dime in that account. When Mr. Kouyami starts getting more and more insistent, Roper screams some pretty hateful, racist stuff at him. After Mr. Kouyami and Mr. Barghati leave, Roper pulls a gun on Jonathan, who immediately says that he’ll give the money back if they let Jed go.
When they get back to the hotel, opening the door to his suite, Roper doesn’t find Frisky and Jed; he finds Angela waiting for him. Roper maintains his smug attitude as Angela confronts him and insists that he might get a slap on the wrist, if anything; he tries to call Dromgoole, who, much to Roper’s chagrin, declines to talk to him. Then Joel joins the party, in the company of Egyptian police officers to place him under arrest.
As the police load Roper into the van, Mr. Kouyami and Mr. Barghati—with some body guards of their own—dismiss the police officers and take custody of Roper and his buddies. Joel starts to try to intervene, but Angela stops him, “he deserves it.” Once Roper figures out whose captive he is, he loses his metaphorical shit and throws a temper tantrum the meanest three-year-old would be proud of, complete with kicking wildly.
After a night together, Jed has to catch a flight back to the States to see her family and her son. And Jonathan promises to visit. And that was it. After all the action and all of the out-maneuvering of the preceding twenty-five minutes or so, it felt a little anti-climatic. *sigh* I will say this though, despite the whimper before the credits rolled, I already miss this show. I will miss Jonathan, definitely; but I am all about Angela, y’all. She is awesome! I think I’m jumping on board with the corner of the internet that would like to see Olivia Coleman as the next Bond. She was just incredible!
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