The Night Manager, Season 2 (episode 4)



Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Diego Calva, Camila Morrone, Hugh Laurie, Olivia Coleman, Indira Varma, Paul Chahidi, Haley Squires, Diego Santos, Alistair Petrie, Kerr Logan, Alberto Ammann, Unax Ugalde.

Previously, Angela officially declared Roper dead and Jonathan told his son six years later. Everyone played Capture the McGuffin with a shipping list and Jonathan figured out that Teddy isn't just continuing his father's business, supplying weapons for his army of rescued orphans, he's actively working for his father who is not dead after all. We end the previouslies on Jonathan hiding in the bushes for that reveal, stunned.

And we come back to Angela leading the girl she was pregnant with in season one and a dog to a cottage in the middle of nowhere, France. The girl asks if she can stay outside and play and Angela says sure, but when dad gets back they're going to eat. She goes in and starts a tea kettle before checking her phone to find a message from an unknown number saying she has a secure message from "Cairo Asset Management." She gasps and gulps and rushes to retrieve the message on her laptop. It's a picture Jonathan took from the bushes from "agent 840251" with an all caps "WHY DID YOU LIE TO ME?" She covers her mouth and closes her eyes and we snap to credits, where Hugh Laurie's name is back beside Tom Hiddleston's.
Chrissy: Have you noted the imagery here? Because it does seem from the school of James Bond credits.
Diandra: I don't know that that's specific to Bond because all the exploding shit makes me think of the credits to "The Good Fight".
Emilio: That flower definitely looks like lady parts though.
Diandra: Thanks for that.

Colombia. Teddy comes down some stairs early in the morning or later that night and peaks around the corner to the room Roper is sleeping in. The camera focuses on some nasty scars on his bare back as Teddy turns off the light. Roper sits up and snaps at him to turn it back on. Teddy does and goes back upstairs. Roper starts to go to sleep, but apparently senses a disturbance in the force or something. He puts on a robe and goes to look out the window. On a cliff somewhere nearby, Jonathan is watching the villa through binoculars.
Chrissy: Ah, yes. The old mortal enemies being able to sense each other's presence.
Emilio: Or...wasn't there a bit of homoeroticism between them too?
Diandra: According to at least one person, yes, but I saw it as more familial. Roper saw him as a son he could mold in his image maybe more than either of his actual sons (only one of which we knew about at the time).

Back at River House, Mayra has found paperwork from Rex for "Operation Limpet", which includes a sheet on the operative "Andrew Birch" with Jonathan's picture. She calls somebody to say there are no problems with the little operation in Colombia.

Meanwhile, Basil is looking at a notification that there has been "unusual" activity on the CCTV feed that he needs to review. He pulls up the footage from the camera across from that house. Five people approach, but everything is really pixelated so it isn't clear who any of them are. Mayra drops in on him and he notes that she looks tired.
Emilio: Words that took down a Prime Minister twenty years ago.
Diandra: Oh, fuck, that was 20 years ago? Has that show really been on that long?
Chrissy: What are we referring to now?
Diandra: "Doctor Who". Specifically the episode where David Tennant took over and he lost the hand that Jack Harkness kept in his office.
Chrissy: [sigh] I suppose it was too much to hope that you could get through a British series without mentioning "Doctor Who".
Diandra: Hey, I think we've done well so far. Especially considering Indira Varma's continuing connection to that universe.
Chrissy: Right. Wasn't she the one they killed twice on "Torchwood"?
Emilio: Yep. They brought her back recently on "Who" as a monster of the week and killed her again.
Chrissy: Of course.
Mayra says yes, well...her child kept her from sleeping well last night. Basil jokes that he doesn't have that problem, which I have been assured is the best way to not make friends with people. Mayra is like 'yeah, whatever, remember that guy you were talking about? Andrew Birch?' Basil says HE didn't mention that name. She did. "Oh, yeah, so I did," she says and just...walks away. He watches her walk away suspiciously and works on cleaning up the footage, which now shows Mayra, that Adam guy from a few episodes back and what I think is supposed to be Sandy, the guy Roper was working with last season.

Colombia. The guard outside tells Teddy that Alejandro is working from home today. Teddy says they got the green light and they have a replacement ready, so he'll be there in the afternoon. Because I guess he wants to take care of it himself. Teddy is making breakfast in the kitchen. Roper comes in (past some dogs being taken for a walk because we need to establish their presence now obviously) glowering and notes that they have a woman whose job this is. Teddy says he sent her away, pours Roper coffee and plates him some food before sitting down. He says he wants to talk about what happens "after all this." Roper glances at the door and says they shouldn't talk here. He offers to go for a ride instead. Unless, of course, Teddy has forgotten how to ride a horse.
Chrissy: Well, I know of a way I could get some "riding" practice in if I really need to, but...
Diandra: [groan]
Emilio: Save a horse, ride a spy?
Diandra: [glare]
Emilio: Sorry.

They ride some horses out to a field, where Teddy lights up a cigarette. Roper mutters "I wish you wouldn't do that. Filthy habit." He walks over to a cliff overlooking a valley and muses about the first Spaniards to set eyes on this area. "The sense of freedom he must have felt."
Emilio: Now imagine how the natives must have felt.
Diandra: Yeah.
Roper grumbles about this place being effectively a prison for him. He can only get out once a day for meetings in the "same bloody steakhouse." Teddy thinks they're going to change that and tells him about his investor who fixed their money problem because he just happened to have money that needed cleaning. Roper asks what they told him. Teddy says nothing. And they will kill the prosecutor and unfreeze the shipments after he puts the guy on a plane to Paris. "You'll get the money for your Syrian creditors. And in three days you will be free."
Chrissy: Guess we weren't quite done with awkward exposition after all.
Diandra: Apparently.

Teddy asks what happens after that though. He can't just go on being Gilberto Hanson forever, can he? Roper shrugs and asks what he thinks should happen. Teddy rambles about how Roper showed up in Colombia 6 years ago and he came to him like Roper came to him every year in that monastery. "When everyone had abandoned me." Roper says "you're my boy." Teddy is like 'oh, am I? Really? Is that why you only visited once a year and didn't tell people you had a son?' He says to answer his question: he wants the world to know who he is when this is all over. "Together we can run this continent." Roper tries out the titles "New Conquistadors" and "Kings of America" and I'm not sure we could be clearer about how evil he is if he was holding an actual pitchfork. Roper says he needs to make sure Cabrera gets the shipment first. Teddy gives him a little salute.

The next couple shots are kind of confusing the timeline by trying to clarify it. We go back to Jonathan looking through binoculars on the cliff, but then suddenly Teddy is taking off in the helicopter, waving at Roper back at the villa. Roper calls a "Mr. Whistler" to tell him there's a car outside the airport ready to bring him over. "We have much to discuss."

I guess this is supposed to be happening at the same time even though that doesn't really make sense. Jonathan tells Martin to stay here and keep watch. "I need to know what the man in that house is up to."

Back in London, Basil drops in on Adam Holywell at a club to talk about that meeting he had with Mayra and Sandy Langbourne last night. He had his phone on while he was in the house, so he can be traced which is something they generally try to avoid at MI6. Adam splutters that he did NOT. Basil apologetically says Mayra is very twitchy about these things and "The Colombian chief does not approve of laxness, as Jaco Brower discovered." Lucky for Adam, he hasn't told Mayra anything yet. Adam grinds his teeth and offers to get Basil a drink.

Back in Colombia, Sally wanders over to the car across from Alejandro's apartment with a guidebook in hand and asks Teddy's guy if he knows where the cable car is like a confused tourist. He snaps at her to go away. She mutters that she has half a mind to write to the person who put out this guidebook saying Colombians are friendly. She glances back at the departing car across the street that she was blocking his view of pointedly as she walks away.

Jonathan is in a taxi when he gets a call from Teddy, who brightly greets him as his "airport transfer."
Chrissy: Because just saying "this is your ride" would give the wrong impression, although honestly...
Diandra: Okay, that's enough now.
Chrissy: No, I really don't think it is, but go ahead with the recap.
Jonathan says he's at the hotel, packed and ready to go. Teddy is like 'great, I'll be right there then.' Jonathan is like 'aw, fuck' and asks the driver to go faster.

He gets to the hotel, sprays the walls of the shower, splashes some water in his hair, strips and rolls around in the bed to make it look like it was used. By the time Teddy arrives, he's just getting different clothes on, but probably not shoes which is what I'm assuming is supposed to be the reason Teddy immediately looks down when he opens the door.
Emilio: Eyes are up here, buddy.
Chrissy: I mean, he could also not have zipped up those pants yet.
Diandra: Oh, you read that fic too?
Chrissy: .......wait, what?
Emilio: [laughs] I mean...that WOULD be the fanfiction answer to what he's looking at, but it would also make sense as a power move.
Diandra: Meh. I don't know how necessary that would be though. The way they were rubbing up against each other last night, he probably doesn't really need visual confirmation of size.
Chrissy: [squeaking noise] Okay, um..............what?!

"You said you were ready," Teddy says accusingly. Jonathan says he is, he just had to take a shower. Y'know, cause it's so fucking hot in this country.
Chrissy: Hang on, I had a response to this, but I forgot what it was...
Diandra: [sarcastically] Oh, what a pity.
Emilio: Oh, I see what you did there.
Diandra: [shushes Emilio]
Teddy asks if everything is okay and he stayed in the hotel room all night. Jonathan throws in a random detail of ordering a terrible room service cheeseburger to make it believable. Teddy is like 'yeah, whatever. Don't care' and starts rummaging through his open suitcase. Jonathan is like 'um...excuse me?'
Chrissy: Just seeing if you have any lube.
Diandra: Crap, she's back.
Chrissy: What?
Diandra: Nothing.

Teddy tells him to finish packing so they can leave. Jonathan goes to do that, looking sideways at Teddy like he isn't sure what that was about or why Teddy is acting all weird now.
Chrissy: Overcompensating for the desire to tear those clothes off him with his teeth?
Diandra: Stop.

Sandy arrives at the villa and makes some small talk with Roper. Roper says the staff think he's buying wine from him. "So no hugs for now." Sandy asks who knows he's here. Roper says just a select few and he'd like to keep it that way.

Meanwhile, Adam and Basil are already talking and Adam asks how he "got involved in this sort of thing." Basil says he was recruited by a "handsome tutor" in university. Adam laughs and asks if he had any second thoughts about it. Basil says never. "My therapist would say if I hadn't told her I was a dentist that I am the product of an immigrant family cursed with the compulsion to impress the natives." So they don't all work in a "bank" then. Adam says Mayra recruited him to work on "something in Colombia." Basil jokes that it must be expensive. Adam scoffs that the investors are paying a few hundred million and getting a whole country in return and all the copper, oil and lithium that comes with it. He admits though that his history of paying off officials and "poisoning wells" is child's play compared to funding a regime change. Basil smirks like 'gotcha, dumbass.' He says he has to leave, but he should really make sure Adam's phone is clean, as he originally came here to do. He'll leave it with reception when he's done and he promises he won't tell Mayra anything.

Teddy pulls into the parking garage at the airport. Jonathan unbuckles his seatbelt, but Teddy locks all the doors before he can get out, placing his gun on the console between them.
Chrissy: Okay, you're going to note the hesitation before he pulled the gun, right? So it won't be weird when I suggest he had second thoughts about just letting Jonathan walk away without his handprints and maybe teeth marks somewhere on his body?
Diandra: ..........[heavy sigh]
He murmurs that he told Matthew too much yesterday in Cartagena. Jonathan says okay, but he isn't a threat. He's a friend, right? Teddy stares at him for a few seconds, then says he'll walk him to the gates and unlocks the doors. Jonathan watches him get out warily.

Teddy walks him all the way to the ticket counter and back, where he tells Matthew to go see his daughter and "forget you ever met me." Jonathan smiles and says that won't be so easy. He shakes his hand and pulls him closer, whispering "I'll pray for your soul, Eduardo," in his ear. He kisses his cheek and then lingers long enough for them to lock eyes before turning away, glancing back one more time as he heads for the gate.
Chrissy: Ah, yes. The classic 'you could have had this if you hadn't blown it so eat your heart out' move.
Emilio: I mean...that's why he's wearing that shirt you can almost see through, right?
Diandra: How are YOU the first one to point that out?
Emilio: I thought you saw it.
Chrissy: She doesn't notice when he's nearly naked. And I didn't notice either with that brief glimpse in the hotel room, but now that you mention it...this is the slutty shirt that guy on Bluesky was talking about, isn't it? The one you can totally see his nipples through?
Emilio: Obviously. He saw Teddy and Roxy trying to out-slut each other and decided to try to match them, but this is the closest he could get being an Englishman or whatever.
Diandra: Are you two finished?
Emilio: Probably not.

And now I can't unsee them

After a second, Teddy starts to walk away, calling "Beni" to take care of the prosecutor now because he's on his way.

Jonathan glances back again, realizes Teddy has left, and turns around, going back through security and to a different part of the airport. Angela appears, coming out of a landing gate.
Chrissy: Let's make this quick. I need to get back to employing CJ Cregg to help me humiliate a giant flaming pussy.
Diandra: Oh, for GOD'S SAKE, will you let that one go?!
Chrissy: Never.
From "Desolation of Smaug", referencing the name I used through all 10 hours of "Lord of the Rings"

Back with Roper and Sandy headed out to a little dock patio thing. Sandy moans about how he'd love to go for a swim and Roper says the crocodiles would probably like that too. "I'm sorry, what," Sandy says.
Chrissy: Oh, nothing. Go for it.
Roper offers him a drink, describing the liquor the locals drink as an "aniseed mouthwash" if he goes for that sort of thing. He calls the housekeeper to bring "Senor Whistler" a brandy and himself a tea. The Exposition Fairy does a flyby to establish that Sandy is out on parole. Roper is disappointed that he didn't just escape in the night with the help of a toothbrush and a knotted bedsheet. He asks how Caroline is. Sandy says they haven't spoken and she took the house. "Good for her," Roper smirks.
Diandra: I mean...it's probably alarming that I'm agreeing with everything he's saying here, right?
Emilio: Probably, but it isn't surprising.
Sandy mutters that he had to rent a place in Battersea and Roper sarcastically says "if I had a heart, it would surely bleed." Sandy asks how he managed to "pull it off."
Emilio: Carefully.
Diandra: Ugh.
Chrissy: It really is a good thing you recapped the first season, isn't it? Because they are really testing everyone's memory here.
Diandra: Yeah, that's what I keep telling myself when I question why I'm letting the two of you use this one to try to goose my muse.

Sandy says he really thought Roper was a goner. Roper asks if he grieved for him. Sandy possibly unsettles the light, teasing tone by saying yes, actually.
Emilio: Are we sure about the hoyay from last season? Because I don't remember this.
Diandra: I tend to be hesitant to ascribe too much to fans' overenthusiastic assumptions about characters' sex lives. Especially considering a lot of them are American where any whiff of affection is automatically assumed to be sexual, doubly so if the subjects are male because men are apparently not allowed to show non-sexual affection.
Chrissy: So all this talk about Teddy and Jonathan eyefucking is...what? An exception?
Diandra: I don't think anyone is denying sexual tension there. In fact, they are openly admitting that that's exactly what it is, but it is going to warp into a different sort of affection over the next few episodes, so. I'm just saying. Not every expression of love has to be sexual by default.
Chrissy: And I'M just saying that fixing this story's reluctance to go full honeypot from the beginning is a job for a fanfiction writer.
Diandra: I'm not doing it, Chris. Let it go.

And speaking of character relationships built on non-sexual love, we go back to Jonathan and his former mother figure Angela at the airport. He's pissed that she looked him right in the eye and lied that Roper was dead six years ago. She says Roper came to her the night before they were supposed to identify the body and explained that he had made a deal with his captors to pay them off and if she didn't play along and help declare him dead and then retire from River House he would kill her and Jonathan right then and then hunt down her daughter for good measure. We flash back to the room where she identified him and see from a different angle that she was whispering "fuck you" while she "checked his pulse".

In the present, she says she told Rex everything when she got back to London. Jonathan closes his eyes and mutters that Rex knew. Angela hisses that they still had a chance then to nail Roper and his entire operation, but Roper disappeared and it wasn't until Mayra took over that they even had a clue where he might be. "And then the Colombian link. That girl from Miami. And I could smell Roper coming back to the surface." Jonathan just calmly asks why she didn't tell him any of this because he could have helped. Angela says because he was "obsessed with" Jonathan, so Jonathan had to believe he was dead. For his protection. Which was her job, originally, remember. He tries to argue, but she insists he would have just gone in guns blazing and gotten himself killed. He snarls that he killed two men and put Jed - who he now says he loved - in danger. She snaps that she never asked him to do that and can we go back to the daughter Roper threatened? "You found me in that Swiss hotel," Jonathan snaps. "You made me who I am. And you lied to me." She repeats that she HAD to to protect them both.

He just sulks for a while before asking "do you have any idea how hard this has been without you?" Which I guess is a sort of loophole to explain why the plot seems messier this season. She isn't in charge, so Jonathan is fumbling around trying to manage the whole operation himself and not doing it efficiently. He says Roper is planning a coup which, if successful, will pay back his Syrian captors and officially free him. So basically, what Teddy said a few scenes ago, but Jonathan adds that it will render everything they did a decade ago in Egypt meaningless. He tries to leave on that note, but she catches his arm and pleads for him to understand that this goes beyond just Roper being a bad guy. There's a civil war in their intelligence office. "I need you to give me more time." He says he can't and pulls away.

Martin drives to a better lookout point to watch the meeting between Roper and Sandy. He lures the guard dogs we spotted briefly a couple scenes ago with some meat and attaches a bug to one's collar.

Some distance away, Roper is looking at the brochure for an estate Mayra is apparently buying for him via complicated money chain outside of Oxford as a "thank you gift." Roper chortles that he LIKES her. She isn't hampered by inconveniences like ideals or...morals. He asks if she is why Sandy is here to check up on him. Sandy insists he is here of his own free will and not "reporting back to mother." He pulls a passport out of his bag for Roper, which Roper calls a "bonus gift." It's in his real name.

Teddy arrives on Alejandro's street. His guard - Beni apparently - is outside of his car, having just figured out that Alejandro escaped without him noticing. Teddy yells at him, calls him and idiot and demands he FIND Alejandro RIGHT NOW.

Jonathan arrives at a hotel somewhere to meet Alejandro and Sally, identifying himself as Max. Sally quietly asks if he's okay as she opens the door. He says he's fine.
Chrissy: I mean, this shirt is obviously almost too tight to be comfortable, which I assume was the intent when you packed it in my suitcase.
Diandra: Obviously a wasted effort.
Chrissy: Oh, I wouldn't say it was a total waste.
Emilio: She means it was wasted on Teddy. Obviously it isn't wasted on audience members who are here at least partly to drool over Tom.
Chrissy: I just noticed those pants are pretty form fitting too, aren't they?
Diandra: I think we lost her.
Emilio: Yep.
They know what they're doing with this

He introduces himself to Alejandro officially (as Max Robinson) and asks if he knows Cabrera. Alejandro sneers "that bastard wants to destroy everything we've created in this country." "Max" says the British are helping him by funding his regime change and it's up to them to try to stop it. Sally reiterates that Alejandro just needed the shipment list to do his part now, right? He says yes and pulls his phone to call the head of the Colombian supreme court because it's on her authority that he can open the container. Jonathan asks if Alejandro trusts her. "More than anyone," he says. Unfortunately, her secretary answers and says she can't come to the phone. Alejandro tells the secretary that it's really important because there is a shipment of British arms meant for Cabrera sitting in port right now and dude. You could have just stopped at "it's really important" and not told a guy you aren't sure you can trust the WHOLE CONSPIRACY. He says he has proof, but he needs to meet her today. Secretary says he'll call back. Jonathan, who has done nothing to prevent Alejandro from just blabbing everything over the phone like that asks WHEN that guy is going to call back. Yeah, you really do need Angela, don't you?
Chrissy: And it wasn't completely lost on Teddy because he was DEFINITELY looking.
Diandra: ..........Jesus Christ, have you heard a word anybody has said in the past minute?
Chrissy: Why? Was it important?

The dogs run to Roper and Sandy. Roper identifies them by name. I think Martin put the tracker on the girl, Chloe. Sandy asks what happened to the dogs he had in Majorca. I mean...considering the expected lifespan, they could just be gone by now naturally, but Roper says the Spanish gassed them to prove some sort of point. "You can always trust a hound," he says. Sandy asks when Roper decided to rebuild his empire. Roper is like 'pretty much immediately upon being taken prisoner. Duh.' He describes the horrible conditions of his prison and says he dissociated from it by imagining the revenge he could get on everyone responsible for putting him there, starting with Angela and Jonathan. Then he realized he was just wasting his energy on that and focused on his captors and how he might be able to charm his way out.
Chrissy: I may not be as pretty as Jonathan, but beggars can't be choosers.
Diandra: Ugh.
Chrissy: Although my grandmother thought he was pretty hot. I believe her exact words were "he can park his slippers under my bed any day."
Diandra: [snort] Oh, I miss her.
Chrissy: We all do.

Roper says along with the obvious bribery, he made it clear all the way up the chain that he could get back all of the 300 million "that blue eyed boy took from them."
Chrissy: Casually admitting you got lost in them too, huh?
Roper then goes on a little ramble romanticizing the colonialism that allowed England to rule half the goddamn world (the other half being split between the French and the Spanish for the most part). "But now it's all self-determination and panpipes...but what if you could own a country in a different way?"
Emilio: Say...buy someone sympathetic to your aspirations for world domination a presidency in an equally powerful country?
Diandra: Aaaaand there it is.
Chrissy: You went right to Putin after Trump just kidnapped the President of Venezuela and announced that he was their president now like a goddamn Somali pirate taking over Tom Hanks' boat?
Diandra: Well, at least we're not half-assing this reversal of our resolve to not talk about current politics.
Chrissy: We all knew that wouldn't last forever, honey.

We've already figured all this out basically, but Roper lays it out anyway: he plans to buy a local militia, arm them with enough weaponry to fight God and start a revolution, paid for by "whoever stands to gain." Plus they'll get all the mineral, oil, whatever rights, so they'll really be rolling in it. And Colombia was an obvious choice for him because he has "old friends" and investments here. He says there's a "political movement" threatening Cabrera that could "end up in some courtroom facing the justice of their victims. And no one wants that." We get a quick shot of Martin listening to all of this accompanied by the sound of a dog panting before Roper makes it absolutely clear for the record: he is providing weapons for Cabrera's revolution with funding from Mayra and whatever shady characters she's working with. "And if I can do it here, I can do it anywhere." They just need that last shipment and he can go home and really get down to business with Sandy and why did I have to phrase it like that?
Chrissy: Okay, so is there hoyay between them or not? MAKE UP YOUR MIND, WOMAN.

Teddy goes back to his villa and rants at Viktor that the prosecutor got away and he can't trust ANYONE to do their damn jobs right. Viktor says Juan is waiting for him. Roxanna wanders past during this whole conversation and goes back to her room to call her mother. We hear a woman's voice on the other end asking if she has left yet. Roxy says she'll be in Miami tonight and apologizes for this all taking longer than she expected.

Jonathan, Sally and Alejandro are now on the roof of...somewhere for some reason. Sally pulls "Max" inside to show him the emails Basil dug up from Adam about that last shipment. Jonathan pulls up the tracker on the shipment that identifies it as an EMP device that can take out all power within a 25 mile range. Sally says that can disable an entire city and start a war.

Roxy is just ending the call with her mom when Beni comes into the room and says Teddy wants to see her and she needs to hand over her phone. She tries to hold it away from him and he just rips it from her hand and shoves her ahead of him out the door. Teddy and Juan are arguing about what "Gilberto" needs to know and when she blusters in demanding to know what this is about. Teddy is like 'I don't know. What IS this about?' How did the prosecutor get the shipment list? She plays dumb and says that isn't possible. Teddy says he's asking to speak to the head of the supreme court, so obviously not. Because of course that secretary immediately called Juan. And Juan told Teddy he left Roxanna alone in the office for a few minutes back in Cartagena, so... Teddy asks her nicely to tell him if she stole the documents and not to lie this time. She goes on offense and asks if he's lost his mind because SHE is the one who handed him Rex and all the other people who were set to bring his operation down on a platter. He shoves her into the nearest chair, yelling about her lying and is interrupted by his phone ringing. It's daddy asking if the "animal" has been put down. Teddy lies that it's done and they're totally on schedule. Roper senses something is off apparently as he asks if Teddy really has everything under control. Teddy says yes, but he was kind of in the middle of something, so he has to hang up now.
Chrissy: I'm just going to put a pin in that for later.
Diandra: No. You're not going to try to reimagine this as 'he stopped Matthew from getting on the plane and was busy fucking him when dad called' or whatever.
Chrissy: Pffft. No. Obviously not. That's just what *Roper* is going to assume was happening once he finds out who "Matthew" really is.
Emilio: Because he knows how easy it is to get lost in Jonathan's "glow".
Chrissy: ........who said anything about a glow?
Diandra: He got his wires crossed. He's thinking of Chris Evans from an "Avengers" panel.
Emilio: Oh, right. My bad.

Alejandro finally gets that call back and says the justice is meeting him at 3pm in the parliament building. Jonathan tells him to be sure to tell her that British arms dealer Richard Roper is behind all of this. "Get him and the rest will follow."

Teddy's guys go pick up one of his child army employees - the kid from the charity event because of course he was important if we were going to learn his name - for a special job that involves driving. Octavio isn't sure about it until the guy flashes two million pesos.
Chrissy: So...what? Like, two hundred bucks?
Diandra: Oh, it's not THAT bad.

Back at the villa, Teddy leaves Roxy with the two guards. Viktor just looks at her and shakes his head, walking away. Roxy asks Beni what "he" is planning. He tells her to shut up.

Roper calls Juan, who greets him as Gilberto. Roper asks why Teddy was lying to him just now. Juan sighs and says the prosecutor is still alive AND has the shipment list somehow, but it's fine. Roper snaps at him that it damn well fucking isn't and how did THIS clusterfuck even happen? Juan isn't sure if it's Roxanna or someone got to Roxanna.
Chrissy: Someone. Yeah. Nice to see we're keeping the theme of suspecting everyone BUT the shady new guy.
Diandra: So it isn't just me who thinks it should be obvious?
Emilio: No, but the thing about fictional characters is that they can't necessarily see what seems obvious to us.
Diandra: Right. I seem to remember something on Tumblr about characters not knowing what genre they are in. If they don't know it's a spy story, why would they suspect someone is a spy? Unless they work at CTU where someone turns out to be a mole EVERY FUCKING YEAR and how are you people still surprised by this?!
Chrissy: Well, there's a reference I didn't expect.

Roper asks WHO this "someone" is who would have known shit. Juan non-answers that they're handling it. Eduardo has a plan. Roper growls at Juan to not try to reassure him that everything is okay before it really is or he will "feed you to my dogs piece by screaming piece."

Sally hands Jonathan a gun "for emergencies only" as they leave the hotel. He tucks it in the back of his pants and untucks his shirt over it, which, as Chrissy has noted, means it isn't really concealed at ALL.

Roper goes back out to Sandy, obviously pissed. He grumbles that he's having some "issues" with the current operation. Sandy bemoans having to work with "local contractors" and asks who he's "using". Roper says Eduardo Dos Santos, which is a name Sandy obviously doesn't recognize. Sandy asks where he found him and Roper says he just "picked him up along the way." He had a bit of a "wild past", but he's as loyal as the dogs laying artfully around the chairs right now. Sandy asks how much he knows (only as much as he needs to) and what Roper plans to do with him when the job is done. Bring him back to England with him? Roper snorts no. "He's a cowboy...not fit for civilized company."
Emilio: Okay, we already get that he's evil. You don't have to make him racist to prove it.
Diandra: It's part of the whole colonizer package that drives his character.
Sandy says they can probably just get rid of him then. Roper makes a face and says they'll "jump that fence" when they come to it.

Alejandro and Jonathan arrive at the justice building. Alejandro goes in while Jonathan watches warily from a distance.

Roxy asks Beni if she can have her phone back because she needs to call her mom and tell her she's delayed again. Beni says no and she laughs that he knows her mother. If she doesn't know where her daughter is, she'll call "the police, the Florida State Governor and possibly the White House." Pretty sure none of them would give two shits about a Latina right now, but let's assume that's an actual threat. Because he is obviously Teddy's weakest link, he hands her the phone and tells her to be quick.

Jonathan's phone rings just as Alejandro is disappearing into the building. "Hi, mom," Roxy says when he picks up. She apologizes that she's going to miss her flight again as if she's leaving a voicemail. "Everything is really screwed up here. More so than I think you realize, so you should probably cancel your plans."
Chrissy: Yes, they did fix the damsel in distress problem, didn't they?
Diandra: Yep. She may not be a reliable asset, but she's smart enough to hold her own.
Jonathan runs to try to catch Alejandro, but someone approaches Alejandro about his appointment with Consuelo Arbenz before he can pick up the call from "Max". Jonathan starts noticing shady looking characters milling around and approaches a couple military guards, saying he needs to talk to a prosecutor inside the building. Guard #1 says he needs a pass. Jonathan pleads that he just needs to get him an urgent message. The guard says nope, can't do it. Jonathan begs them to just tell him he needs to get out of the building.
Emilio: Why? What's going to happen in there? Is there something we should be worried about?
Diandra: Yeah, this seems like a bad idea.
Guard #2 tells him to get lost and stop wasting their time.

Inside, Alejandro is escorted by some military thugs into a room where General Sanchez is waiting. He demands to know where Consuelo is. Sanchez tells him to sit. Alejandro is like 'you're intimidating me right in the justice building?' "What decade do you think we're in?" Sanchez says just shut up and show me what's in the briefcase.

Jonathan calls Sally and tells her he has to get to Alejandro because something is going wrong here, but he's got people watching him now. That could be because you're a tall white guy with a VISIBLE GUN in your waistband running around looking furtive. But sure. She tries to interrupt him, but he just tells her to track Roxanna's phone and hangs up on her.

General Sanchez is looking at the copy of the shipping manifest on the table. He asks who Alejandro's source is. Alejandro says he doesn't remember any names. Sanchez asks where the original papers are. "Up your ass," Alejandro snots.
Chrissy: Good boy.

Jonathan manages to find the back entrance just as Alejandro is being manhandled into the car Octavio is driving. He runs to a nearby idylling motorcycle, throws the driver off and steals the bike.
Chrissy: That's the other element we were missing to make this really Bond like: a chase scene.

Villa. Roper says goodbye to Sandy, saying god willing they will be in England when they see each other again. But he says he needs Sandy to make sure Danny is back at the Oxfordshire house when he gets there. Sandy asks what he should do about the kid's mother. Roper says just make her an offer or whatever. "Make sure she understands the situation."
Chrissy: Make sure she knows you're alive and will kill her if she tries to stop you, you mean.
Diandra: Whatever, just don't do anything that requires Elizabeth to make a cameo.
Sandy says the kid is away at boarding school. Roper snaps at him to take him out then because he's already lost ten years of the kid's life and he doesn't want to waste any more. "Danny is my family," he says while the dogs whine nearby so we know the mic is picking this up. "He's my only son and heir. He's mine." And yes, the camera focuses on Chloe sniffing the ground at his feet to make sure we get it.

Sandy leans out of the car to get one last word in. He gushes that Roper really had everyone fooled. "Jonathan Pine was a...noble adversary, but he made one mistake," Roper gloats. "When you've slain the dragon, always check its breath."
Chrissy: See, I know you said you had a feeling Jonathan was going to have to die by the end of this, Dee, but I think this line right here points to why he can't.
Diandra: No, it just tells me he has to live just long enough to make SURE Roper's dead this time before succumbing to his own wounds.
Emilio: Can you tell she's a writer?
Chrissy: Yeah, she can imagine a tragic death scene, but not Teddy being so overwhelmed by Jonathan's "fuck me" ensemble that he has no choice but to ravish him on sight and make him late for that flight.
Diandra: [somewhat absently] No, Teddy is confined by the toxic masculinity of his culture, his profession and his religion. He'd probably just run away and cut himself while cursing his brain for supplying images of Matthew's neck arching under him the way it did by the pool while he....oh shit.
Chrissy: HA! Not exactly the plot bunny I had in mind, but I'll take it. [high fives Emilio]
Diandra: I hate you both.
Emilio: No you don't.

Octavio pulls up to an abandoned building where these people do all their killings if the burned out cars littered around are any indication. Teddy is waiting, leaning against his car smoking and trying to look badass. Octavio confronts the thug who pushes Alejandro out of the car to ask what the hell this is all about and the guy just grabs him and holds him like a hostage. Alejandro approaches Teddy, who asks why he didn't just take the easy way out and accept his offer. Alejandro says he believes in justice. "You're just a kid. And you have a long way to reach manhood."
Chrissy: So Columbians infantilize Millenials too, huh? HE'S IN HIS 30s.
Diandra: I think older generations have some sort of mental block when it comes to accepting the aging of younger generations. My mother recently said I was "too young" to have the sort of body falling apart problems of someone middle-aged. I have a friend the exact same age as me who is well into perimenopause. But yeah. I'm just a "kid".
Emilio: We always are to our parents because they are twice our age.
Teddy pulls his gun and Alejandro spits that he will burn in hell. Teddy shoots him in the head unceremoniously.

Octavio starts yelping in protest and the thug tells Teddy he should kill him too because they no longer have anything for him to do and he's seen too much. Octavio yelps that they brought him here to kill him while Teddy slowly turns the gun on him. Bullets start coming from somewhere in the distance and the thug falls over, blood spraying from his head. Teddy dives for cover and shoots back...at Jonathan shooting from behind a cement wall. Jonathan yells at Octavio in Spanish to take cover and Teddy just stares at him, dazed for a moment. Then Jonathan takes a shot at him and he ducks back down. Octavio snakes his way to Jonathan and they both take off on the bike as Teddy runs out of bullets but keeps firing a few times in blind rage.
Chrissy: Proving that love and hate are not opposites.
Diandra: Yeah, it's a clich to say that the opposite of love is indifference, but it is true. It's very easy for love to turn to hate or vice versa because those are strong emotions. And whatever he was or wasn't feeling toward "Matthew" before, this isn't simple anger. It's betrayal, which seems to be the theme of this episode.
Emilio: Is this also going to be part of that fic your muse is writing?
Diandra: Ugh. No. I'm not writing anything. Stop it.

Probably at some earlier point while this was happening, Viktor orders Beni to take Roxy to The Chief.

Teddy, meanwhile, calls Roper, yelping that everything is going sideways and that investor he told him about just killed "Chico" and got away. Roper orders Teddy to send him a picture of the guy and the fact that he's doing this at this particular moment is obviously purely for dramatic reasons.

Roxanna spots a motorcycle in the rearview mirror a second before Beni is shot in the head and the car spins out. Jonathan runs up, gun still drawn and asks if she's okay.
Chrissy: I mean...if you were concerned about her safety, shooting the driver of a moving vehicle SHE IS IN was probably not a good idea.
Diandra: This might have been what Tom meant when he said Angela's betrayal so unsettles Jonathan that he becomes reckless.
Chrissy: Oh, sure. Blame a woman for your bad decision making.
He drags Beni out of the car, yells at Octavio to get in and jumps behind the wheel, taking off past the discarded bike. This all happens so fast that the first time I saw it I didn't really register what happened.

A mournful choir wails while Roper glowers at the picture of "Matthew" spitting out of his fax machine. He looks at the sky like 'of course it fucking is', crumples the paper and scowls into the credits.
Emilio: You want to take a break and write that fic your muse is working on?
Diandra: [glares] No.
Chrissy: You know it's going to keep nagging at you until you do it. Hey, I just remembered what I was going to say earlier in response to Teddy asking if Jonathan was "ready"...
Diandra: [long suffering groan]
Chrissy: And I think I also just realized you were applying the strategy of throwing a cow on the bonfire so I would be too distracted to say it then.
Emilio: [shrugs] Basically.
Chrissy: Mmkay. Just so you know, you will pay for that later.
Diandra: Aren't I suffering enough already?
Chrissy: No.

So, I did end up having to take a break, although not for the reason Chrissy and Emilio hoped. Hopefully, the real life drama will be offset by the fact that I recently finished watching "Heated Rivalry". I'm sure that will have no affect on the next recaps of this series.