This episode begins, as ever, in total disarray: missed jokes, football updates, wine anxiety, and the creeping realisation that the best material always happens before the mic is on. Then Dan drops a bombshell: The Night Manager is so tense he physically struggled to finish it.

And that’s the hook.

Based on John le Carré’s novel, The Night Manager is a six-part espionage thriller starring Tom Hiddleston as Jonathan Pine, a hotel night manager pulled into a covert operation to bring down international arms dealer Richard Roper (a towering Hugh Laurie). Set against the backdrop of the Arab Spring, it’s a story of guilt, infiltration, and moral compromise — where every smile hides a weapon and every ally might be a leak.

We talk about:

• Why this is one of the most gripping British series of the last decade
• Hiddleston’s transformation into a Bond-adjacent undercover operative
• Hugh Laurie’s chilling reinvention as “the worst man in the world”
• The mechanics of building a fake identity and earning trust from monsters
• Olivia Colman’s ferocious MI6 handler and the cost of doing “good”
• The unbearable tension of near-misses, close calls, and cliffhangers
• John le Carré’s MI6 roots and why his work still defines spy fiction

It’s sleek, paranoid, adult television — the kind where you pause episodes just to steady your nerves. With a new season finally arriving, this is the perfect moment to (re)discover it.

If you like espionage with teeth, villains who smile while they ruin lives, and stories where nobody is truly safe, this episode is your invitation to dive in.

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Until next time, we remain...

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