The Night Manager season two: First images show Tom Hiddleston and Olivia Colman’s return after nine years

Tom Hiddleston and Olivia Colman are returning to the espionage world as the BBC shares first-look images of the long-awaited second season of The Night Manager.

The spy thriller, an adaptation of the 1993 novel The Night Manager by John Le Carré, was a huge hit when it first aired in 2016, attracting more than 10 million viewers in the season one finale and winning multiple Baftas and Emmys.

Le Carré, who died in 2020, never wrote a sequel to the novel, raising questions about whether the series would continue. Almost a decade later, the show is returning, going beyond the story of the original book and picking up eight years after the events of the first season.

The first look images show Hiddleston’s return as Jonathan Pine, a night manager at a hotel who was recruited to be a spy in the first season. Per the BBC’s synopsis for season two, Pine has changed his name to Alex Goodwin and is trying to live a quiet life as a low-level MI6 agent in London. One image of Pine in a high-speed motorbike ride indicates that his peaceful life doesn’t last.

Another image appears to show Pine in an intimate position with two new characters, Roxana Bolaños and Teddy Dos Santos.

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Bolaños, played by Daisy Jones and the Six star Camilla Morrone, is a reluctant ally of Pine’s. Dos Santos, played by Narcos: Mexico actor Diego Calva, is an arms dealer whom Pine is attempting to shut down in the upcoming season.

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Colman will also reprise her role as MI6 intelligence officer Angela Burr, the woman who recruited Pine in the first season. Colman told Vanity Fair this month that Burr tried to retire after the intense events of season one.

“She hid away somewhere in the mountains for a nice, quiet life to keep her family safe,” Colman said, “but she can’t help but get drawn back in.” Douglas Hodge will reprise his role as Burr’s boss, Rex Mayhew.

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Hugh Laurie, who played the season one villain, arms dealer Richard Roper, is not expected to return, but Roper’s allies, Frisky (Michael Nardone) and Sandy Langbourne (Alistair Petrie), as well as his son, Daniel Roper (Noah Jupe), will make an appearance. Laurie is, however, one of the show’s executive producers, along with Hiddleston.

Elizabeth Debicki, who portrayed Roper’s girlfriend, is also not expected to return for season two. Tom Hollander’s Corky (Roper’s right-hand man) will certainly not be back, after meeting a sorry end in the first season.

Indira Varma (Obsession), Paul Chahidi (Wicked Little Letters) and Hayley Squires (Adult Material) will also star.

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Simon Cornwell and Stephen Cornwell, le Carré’s sons, told Vanity Fair that David Farr, the showrunner of The Night Manager, came up with the idea for the second season in a dream, the night before Le Carré’s death. The brothers also said they believe the continuation is what their father would want.

“When a lot of writers pass, their estates contain all kinds of strict rules. Thou shalt not change this, or that,” Simon Cornwell said. “And my dad’s letter said, ‘You know what I stand for, respect what I stand for, but only you can figure out where to go next.’ And that is sort of the invitation.”

In a recent interview with The Independent, Sandy star Petrie said: “I’m gonna hazard a guess, I think [le Carré] would be very proud of the new one. But obviously there was no novel to base it on, so it’s a really hard thing to pull off.”

He added that there was a lot of umming and ahhing over whether to bring the show back, and “various writers came and went trying to crack that very, very difficult nut”, but in the end, “David Farr has delivered scripts that have an amazing, Shakespearean, almost Greek tragedy at the heart of it. It’s really good.”

The BBC has not yet announced the release date for season two, but it is expected to arrive early next year.