The Night Manager review: The globe-trotting thriller's long-awaited second series is 'irresistible'

Ten years on, the spy drama has returned – and the show is "as enticing" as Tom Hiddleston's hero, who combines "good intentions" with "bad-boy allure".

Who is Jonathan Pine? On one level, of course, the lead of The Night Manager is Tom Hiddleston, who again brings massive charisma and intelligence to the role he created a decade ago. But who is the true Jonathan beneath the character's shape-shifting espionage guises? That potent question echoes through the long-awaited second season of this globe-trotting thriller, a smart, compelling follow-up to the original series.

That first season was quite rightly a major phenomenon as it followed Jonathan on his journey from being the night manager of a hotel, to proving himself such a natural spy that he brought down an arms dealer. David Farr, who adapted it from John le Carré's 1993 novel, had to invent this new story whole, as the first series covered the entire book, and its author died in 2020. Here, Farr channels what made le Carré so great: alongside the enthralling suspense plot that goes behind the curtain of the spy world, there are the shadowy ethics that grip even his most noble protagonists. Jonathan has the good intentions of a hero plus the dangerous, bad-boy allure more often seen in a villain. Despite a few clumsy missteps, The Night Manager season 2 is as enticing as he is.

Right away, the series lets us know the fate of the arms dealer from last season, Richard Roper (chillingly played by Hugh Laurie), described by one character as "the worst man in the world". Sadly, Laurie appears only in brief flashbacks. But the series is not just tying up loose ends. This new plot is cleverly linked to the first in ways than shouldn't be spoiled.

Today's Jonathan is entrenched in MI6 in London, with a new identity, Alex Goodwin, and a new job as the head of a small team called the Night Owls, who sit at computer screens all night doing counterterrorism surveillance on hotels. He looks leaner and more tightly wound that ever. He still has a smooth smile, but beneath that Hiddleston displays Jonathan's passionate commitment to making the world more just, his recklessness as he tries to do that, and the deeply buried emotional damage that has made him a loner. Don't forget that he killed two people in cold blood in the first season to protect his mission. He has plenty of reasons to feel guilty and haunted.

When the Night Owls' cameras spot a mercenary who worked for Roper setting up a new arms deal, Jonathan leaps into action, following a trail that leads him to Spain and then Colombia, through suspicious deaths and exploding bombs, and to the show's inspired new villain. Diego Calva is magnetic as Teddy Dos Santos, the gunrunner whose ties to Roper are so strong he calls himself "Richard Roper's true disciple" and who follows his mentor's playbook. A sophisticated philanthropist on the surface, he has a lavish lifestyle (the better for the show to bring us into extravagant locations and houses), and he is surrounded by armed bodyguards. Wily and elusive, he has ties to Colombia's military and the British government. It is dynamic to watch as he and Jonathan engage in cat-and-mouse mind games and ruses.

Jonathan enters Teddy's world by taking on yet another persona, the dashing millionaire Matthew Ellis, a hard-partying risk-taker. Learning the true nature of these men – if such a thing as their "real" identities even exists under all the subterfuge – is as much a part of the story as any arms deal. "Who are you, Matthew? Why are you really here?" Teddy asks at one point, while in the trailer he says of himself, "You have no idea who I really am." These rivals are really well-matched.

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Hayley Squires brings a spark of energy to all her scenes as the down-to-earth Sally, part of Jonathan's Night Owl unit, who joins him on the ground in Colombia. And Olivia Colman appears again as Angela Burr, the MI6 intelligence officer who recruited Jonathan in the first place. Only two of the six episodes were made available in advance of the series' release, so it's impossible to know how much Colman will appear over the next stretch, but she's barely in those early instalments.

It is also impossible to say whether another important new character will become more than the cliché she is at the start. Camila Morrone plays Roxana Bolaños, a shipping broker who seems to be Teddy's girlfriend. She is the formulaic glamorous, sexy woman who is sleeping with the villain, and who may be willing to help the hero, but also might be playing him. Where Teddy is a deliberately enigmatic character, so far the stereotypical Roxana is just a dud. And at times the dialogue includes some very clunky foreshadowing. Certain lines – you'll know them when you hear them – are signposts that someone in that conversation will not survive another day.

The trailer also includes a scene with Jonathan, Teddy and Roxana all embracing in what looks like a steamy threesome. Whatever that turns out to be, there is a homoerotic charge in some scenes between Jonathan and Teddy. Whether that is just another ruse on the part of one or both is exactly what we're meant to wonder. It's one of many questions that makes the series, with all its shadows and ambiguity, irresistible.

The Night Manager begins on BBC1 in the UK on 1 January and on Prime Video internationally on 11 January.

★★★★☆ 

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