I’m having access issues to The Great British Bakeoff, so I may as well roll ahead with The Night Manager, a little HiddleBum can make ANYTHING better! Rolling the penultimate episode after the break

Dickie and Jonathan are on a private jet headed to Safe Haven, it’s just like Iraq! Dickie hands over his iPad, it’s got a coded summary of the entire operation that only two people had access to, until it turned up in Angela Burr’s hands. He knows it wasn’t him, soooooo…eyes on Sandy?

I’m doing my best to not fall into THiddles gorgeous eyes, but they’re not giving me much else to work with, are they?!

Expanding upon his explanation that anyone can betray anyone in the right / wrong circumstances, Dickie has four people in his sights: Sandy, Corky, Jed and our erstwhile Mr. Pine. IS IT YOU, JONATHAN? Noooo. Well whoever it is be living on borrowed time, know THAT. Time for a nap, Dickie gets obstreperous without an afternoon snooze.

We arrive in Kasimli, Southeast Turkey (hard pass) to the The Haven refugee camp, lots of pictures of Dickie handing out boxes of aid as a cover and then they move on to their real purpose: the buying and selling of guns in a militarized camp.

The Permanent Secretary has called Rex into her office; guess who’s been offered a role as Private Secretary to the Royal Family as a combination head pat / removal from doing any more damage? NO, GUESS! Rex doesn’t look like he thinks tea with the Queen is much of a reward.

He wanders in to Angela’s war room where she’s shouting about finding “her boy”; you know, I didn’t really think of it until the Newzoids thing, but yes! She does seem overly personally involved in this operation. A resigned Rex explains his re-assignment, honestly, you’d think he’d been given a life sentence or 6 months to live.

Jonathan looks pleased as punch being shown around Dickie’s Kingdom, there’s enough armaments and trained to stage a small coup! Anyone else think of Egypt then, where we met Mr. Pine? That was a small coup! Jonathan fits right in with the mercenaries

There’s an odd moment where Jonathan, hardened criminal and ruler of the seedy drugs underbelly with an iron fist, has to be convinced that these mercenaries are just the same as him and he shouldn’t judge them. Now that makes sense for our Night Manager, who is as dewey-eyed as they come, but not for supposed cold-blooded drugs runner Jonathan as above.

Sandy tries to join the camaraderie with two bottles of Moet, but Dickie’s in a pissy mood and won’t let him be Mother. Just like Franky on Wentworth S2:E8, paranoia ALWAYS kills the buzz.

Fireworks time! Jonathan has familiarized himself with all the doodads and thingamabooms: he starts by having a car blown up and ends with shooting down an airplane and blowing up everything near them. This is an expensive commercial! Dickie asks Jonathan if he wouldn’t rather be down there, “burned cork on your face, a dagger in your teeth” and I’m not positive, but is that a reference to Rudyard Kipling?

Either way, Jonathan would much rather be up here watching, not down in the muck. Oh wait, we’re not done after all, we’ve got to blow up a BUNCH more shite and set everything else on fire with napalm. It must be exhausting being a slave to all that testosteroni all the time.

Mr. Bugatti is impressed! He’ll take it all! Jonathan makes note of the license plate numbers of all the trucks loaded with ammunition, good thing he’s not in an enemy camp surrounded by mercenaries! I’m sure nobody saw him do that! He returns to his tent to fill out his list more clearly, I’m sure that won’t be the least bit incriminating should anyone find it.

Joel wants to burn Jonathan completely, he thinks Jonathan’s been swayed to the dark side, but Angela would like to get a warrant. She’s also being followed, which Rob questions, but yeah, she’s being followed. It doesn’t matter anyway, Joel’s being sent back to Washington because Operation Limpet is being closed down.

It’s like every other show out there; just as they’re at the very precipice of success, they are blindsided, if they could just hold steady for a few more minutes and keep the faith…

You know the problem with translating that to real life? There’s never that last minute Hail Mary reprieve, because television LIES.

He wants her to go home and get some sleep and moves to brush her hair behind her ear, she looks as though he just tried to kick her dog and strides away while he looks apologetic. It was a small scene, but her overreaction was fun.

Someone remarks that it’s not like Dickie to mix business and pleasure, so we know immediately that Jed’s there. So is Corky and that means, hey, the gang’s all here! Dickie must be planning to sweat everything out.

There’s tension in Jed’s face, she must smell what’s about to happen, so when Dickie proposes a toast with the Moet ’73, he has to get shouty for anyone to raise a glass. Jonathan’s the only one who keeps his cool, but he and Jed eye-cuddle too much. Corky brings up the seaside cottage and Jed about pees herself, I mean, honestly.

Angela goes home late at night to find the nursery painted and finally we see the sainted Mr. Burr, who will have a child with our Angela, if not her heart. Well, we see half his face, that’s just the sort of cameo writers like, don’t they?

Drumgool calls just then, does she have time for a tete a tete? She doesn’t LOOK asleep, which means that he can see inside her apartment. They have a tense conversation in the doorway, he’s looking after the strategic interests of his country, ANGELA (subtext: she’s just too dumb to understand); America needs Richard Roper. They are issues and complexities she just cant comprehend, better to step aside, love. You wouldn’t want to be in the way. She shuts the door in his face.

We knew that the fix was in for Dickie Roper, that his work was at least partly sanctioned, but it must be disappointing to Angela to hear it from a higher up.

Jed’s sitting nervously in Dickie’s tent (in expensive and tiny lingerie, OF COURSE), while a fully dressed Roper (OF COURSE) struts around and questions her about who she showed the list to. Jed has no poker face, so cops a slap to the face almost immediately. She’s saved by Tabby telling him that the generator has been tampered with, so he hisses at her to stay where she is (IN HER GINCH) until he gets back. I would do the exact opposite of that.

Jonathan’s creeping around in the dark and makes it into the tent so he can spill his guts about being a British Intelligence agent. OH COME ON, Jonathan! I’m pretty sure Jed’s not straight! It may be just…The Night Manager, though. They kiss and he runs back off in to the night.

Dickie returns to the tent and Jed starts right off where they left it; she took a picture of his list because she wanted to know what he does for a living. She was going to show it to someone, but didn’t and deleted it a week later. Anyone could have seen it, why just the other day Corky was saying she should  keep better track of her phone when he gave it back to her!

He calms her down, she must never ever do that again, because he loves her and that was bad. He strokes her back and he can’t be that dumb, can he?

Jonathan’s still out creeping in the yard, he’s set aside some wire cutters to get out the fence, good thing nobody has any night-vision goggles or anything! It’s not like they’re in the most heavily armed camp since Oregon. He’s caught just outside the fence by a child soldier and his dad from the village they just bombed for kicks. They show him the body of an elderly woman who was too old to leave, Jonathan shushes them and sends them on their way.

He makes it to one of the taxis parked outside the refugee camps, handing off the note with instructions to bring it to room 314. He runs back to the fence to be caught by Corky just outside. Corky has a gun, so it leads to the fight that has been spoiling between these two since they met. It’s hilarious how they make Corky out like he has a shot against Jonathan, what with Jonathan being a full foot taller and a trained combat veteran. Jonathan eventually gains the upper hand and the guards show up all of a sudden so Jonathan has to kill Corky while they go get Dickie. 1 down, three to go, Dickie.

Jonathan showers and mourns the loss of the wee cranky Corky

The taxi driver made it to the hotel in time, the ginger ninja lady in room 314 is more than happy to give him another $200 for his trouble. That’s the Hail Mary pass!

All Angela needs now is Rex’s authority to get those trucks stopped before the border. Will he do it?

Joel’s back in Washington, DC when Angela calls, she’s faxing the letter of authority that Rex signed, awww Rex, good job! We’re down to one hour to stop the trucks, Dickie’s tracking them closely, almost as closely as American military, who are planning to stop them at the border.

Dickie’s spending the rest of time staring at the side of Jonathan’s head, until he sends Tabby to go get Jed. The gang’s all here again! Well, except for Corky, poor wee bastage.

3 minutes to the border! Frisky takes the call about the American troops checking the trucks and let’s see if there’s been any sleight of hand today.

It seems Jonathan’s been had, there is only farm equipment and grain in the trucks, so where did the guns go? Everyone in the Haven claps and cheers, even Jonathan who looks like he wants to throw up. Dickie’s mascot *herk* Jed asks after Corky, shhh, no more of that talk. Jonathan stares at the floor.

Joel is FURIOUS, they’ve just paid a hell of a lot of money to take down farm equipment, Angela won’t be able to look to him for help again, that’s a source burned. Angela glooms home to find her house trashed and her husband in a pool of blood, just a small head wound, it’ll be fine!

See! Look! They tried to scare someone by attacking a spouse and they didn’t have to use the threat of sexual assault or anything! Let’s always not do that!

Frisky’s got the weapon the child soldier held on Jonathan just last night; he had to take care of a local issue for the boss, no biggie. Jonathan can keep the gun even, it’s vintage!

Jonathan and Dickie are on the road back to Istanbul now, the weapons never left the boat and Operation Limpet is dead in the water so they’re good to go. Dickie takes a call from Mr. Hameed, hey, is that Sofia’s old boyfriend from Cairo? He might remember Jonathan’s face, that’s unfortunate. There’s a moment while Dickie is on the phone with his back to Jonathan, I think Jonathan thought about taking things into his own hands then.

We’re are indeed back where we began at the Nefertiti Hotel in Cairo, how long until Jonathan is burned as the previous night manager? Dickie’s even staying in Sophie Alekan’s former suite, that seems like a great move for the stage crew. Jonathan stares and we are out. Until next time, when we find out if Dickie Roper truly has thought of every little thing and if Jonathan still has a shot at taking down an evil empire. Cheers!