HOLLYWOOD—Such an eventful episode of “The Night Manager” that I am not sure how I am going to fit it in just one recap! In episode two, we see Jonathon Pine start his descent into the belly of the beast by acquiring some new identities.

Jed Marshall, Richard Roper’s main squeeze, begins by trying on different kinds of lingerie. A little background is told about Jed when her mom calls over the phone to call her a whore. Jed downs some mysterious pills and meets Roper’s son, Danny, outside her room.

Roper and his party arrive in Mallorca, Spain to dine and socialize. Nothing interesting going on, just mediocre chatting, until some people walk up and pull out guns on everyone. Roper tries to meet the robbers’ demands, but they still kidnap his son to get more money.

As the robbers drag a sobbing Danny down to the docks, a noise is heard and we see Pine looking through a crack before we are transported back into the past in Switzerland. This back and forth along the chronological timeline of the episode just ups the amount of suspense.

Angela Burr joins Pine at his house and makes a convincing speech about why Pine should work for her and go undercover into Roper’s group. If he agrees he will nail Roper for Sophie Alekan, nail him for his country, and nail him for his deceased army father.

Pine begins his work by robbing the hotel in Switzerland and meeting with Burr to sign a consent form. Burr tells him he is too perfect and that he needs to become the second worst man in the world to get on Roper’s level. I was getting tense with thoughts of the bad things Pine will have to do!

Another flash forward is of a pretty brunette telling someone off screen about what she found at her cottage. There is blood on the countertops, on the floor and she is wondering if “he” killed “him.”

Turns out the brunette is his new landlord, who Pine introduces himself as “Jack Linden.” This identity does not last long, as being in the town of Devon, England is just a ploy to get another identity. Pine threatens local drug dealers both physically and verbally to increase his criminal resume before stealing the identity of the landlord’s ex-husband after having sex with her.

He then kills the man who gives him his new identity of “Tom Quince,” hence the blood all throughout the landlord’s cottage. When the police interview the brunette they ask her if she knows his actual name is Jonathon Pine. Why do the police in England seem to know Pine’s actual identity?

A new character joins the group to get Roper. Joel Steadman says there are two ways to deal with arms dealers: exploitation or enforcement. Exploitation is the kind of thing Burr is doing with Pine, whereas enforcement is just taking the bad guy down without getting involved.

Steadman says with exploitation the lines start to get blurred on who is an enemy and who is a friend. When he meets with Burr later in a bar she subtlety makes the point that he is not getting close to Roper through enforcement by giving him information she got from Pine.

The timeline is finally all caught up and we are back to viewing the robbery of Roper’s party. Pine drags the guy holding Danny captive into the kitchen and beats him up. Once Danny runs off, the other robber lets out that Pine has ruined the setup and beats him into a pulp. Now that Pine has saved Roper’s son’s life he has earned his way into Roper’s “family.”

Burr and Steadman are not happy that Pine went “off-script,” possibly killing an agent, and has now gone off the chart. I am wondering if Pine is doing this as a job or purely to avenge Sophie, because he seemed to get into the violent character rather quickly.

Burr is happy, though, when they hear a phone call from Roper’s man, Corky, looking into Pine’s background. The happiness is short-lived when she and Steadman are rejected for some financial help from M16’s Geoffrey Dromgoole on the grounds that she has no plan to get Roper. Dromgoole does not know about Pine and that is how Burr wants it.

Pine recovers at Roper’s estate over a couple of weeks. Corky is suspicious of Pine’s old and new identities and threatens him if he is found untrustworthy. When Roper arrives Pine pretends to be asleep.

So, until next week’s suspenseful episode I will leave you with Roper’s last words to Pine: “You sleep now and tomorrow we will find out who you really are.”