Crime TV Heroes: Where could ‘The Night Manager’ season 2 (if it’s renewed) take Jonathan Pine?
The first season of “The Night Manager” has been over in Great Britain for more than two weeks now, but luckily, viewers in America are going to have a chance to check it out sooner rather than later. (The show premieres on AMC April 19.) With that, what better way to get into a discussion in our CarterMatt Crime TV Heroes series about the male lead in Jonathan Pine? Tom Hiddleston expertly took on a role made iconic through fiction, and turned him into a hero.
Do we know that there are plenty of people out there who want Tom Hiddleton to be the next James Bond? Sure, but we’d be rather pleased if he was simply to remain a part of this show instead. He gets plenty of opportunities to be a spy, and he fights crime in a rather unique way.
Why he’s a hero – Because he’s uncompromising in his mission to try to do the right thing, which is in the first season taking on the massive arms-trade operation spearheaded by Richard Roper. He’s willing to put his life on the line for the greater good, and also put himself in incredibly difficult spots. He’s far from your stereotypical crimefighter, though, when you consider some of his methods. He does at times ignore orders, and makes it look like he is straddling the line between black and white. If he was fighting for the wrong team, he certainly wouldn’t be a hero … but luckily, his (controversial) actions are a means to the right end.
What he has to learn – More than anything else, patience. He has to figure out when to stop and take a deep breath, and when to also listen to some other people. The longer he goes about things the current way, the more liable he is to eventually get himself killed. In many ways, he’s lucky that this has not happened to him already.
What we’d like to see – We’ve already seen him go deep undercover with a criminal like Roper, so in the event that the show is renewed for a second season, we’d like to see him maybe working more in tandem with other people. Sure, there is something exciting about seeing him as a lone wolf, but how could he collaborate more with others, or face adversity when he is clearly working more in capacity of Burr? We want to see the element of surprise.