The Night Manager followers hail BBC finale ‘the cliffhanger of all cliffhangers’ as TWO enormous characters killed off in devastating scenes

The Night Manager fans were blown away by the finale of the long-awaited second season of the BBC drama. 

The show, which returned to screens in January, saw Hollywood legend Tom Hiddleston, 44, step back into the shoes of former British intelligence officer, Jonathan Pine. 

The BBC said in its synopsis: ‘Based on the characters created by John le Carré, The Night Manager follows MI6 officer Pine as he races to expose a conspiracy designed to destabilise a nation. 

‘And with betrayal at every turn, he must decide whose trust he needs to earn and how far he’s willing to go before it’s too late.’ 

Set mostly in Colombia, by the time viewers reached the finale, Pine’s nemesis Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie) discovers his efforts to take down his illegal arms business and murders his own son for turning against him.

One fan praised on X: ‘The Night Manager had one of drama’s great finishes. It really was one you’ll never forget. The cliffhanger of hangers.’

Roper’s son was not the only character killed off in the brutal finale; so too was British intelligence officer Angela Burr (Olivia Coleman), who met her fate in the very final scenes of the show.  

Other fans were full of similar praise for The Night Manager and went on to praise Tom’s acting skills and share their hopes for the third and final season.

They wrote on X: ‘More needs to be talked about The Night Manager… it’s the best drama that’s been on the telly for a long long time! Absolutely brilliant!!!! I’m hoping the new series will be set in Oxfordshire!’;

‘Now we can talk about how extraordinary an actor Tom Hiddleston is; this season was breathtaking, he always gives Pine a different nuance, this ending was devastating, he’s brilliant.’ ;

‘What a terrific season finale. Very few series in their second season are able to match the quality of the first. The game has just started anew. Hugh Laurie has outdone himself as Richard Roper. Absolute cliffhanger of a finale.’;

‘We all knew a cliffhanger was coming but THIS, THIS IS TORTURE….’;

‘How sad and how realistic the ending of #TheNightManager. As a human being I hated it but as a person living in this world I hope more people realise that the world has been showed in fiction just as real as it is. As in many other shows but in this one… was brutal.’

The finale comes after Tom Hiddleston confirmed the future of hit BBC series. – and explained why it had a decade-long hiatus.  

The Hollywood star took to the sofa on ITV‘s This Morning to open up on the finale of the second series, which hit screens last month after ten years off air.

Tom, 44, joined Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard to tease what fans could expect from the final instalment ahead of it airing over the weekend.  

And he was quick to confirm that, for fans who are already looking for more, that another season is in the works – to air much sooner than in another decade.

Tom explained: ‘I can reveal that there will be, there’s going to be more, but we always constructed this one as a beginning of a 12-episode story.

‘It gave us greater scope in terms of imagining where this story might go knowing that we had another season to come – and we like trilogies, there’s something satisfying about it.

He added: ‘It will be sooner [than ten years]. It’s booked in, and if we had to wait another ten years I’d be 55, and I don’t know how much running I will be doing [then].’ 

Earlier this year, it was teased that a third series of the show was in the works – and a launch date has yet to be confirmed.

Actor Tom also explained why it took so long for the show to return to screens – after it took a decade between the first and second series.

The Loki actor admitted that while there was always high hopes for a follow-up, it took time for the writers behind-the-scenes to develop a story.

While series one was developed from the popular novel of the same name by John Le Carre, there was no second book for the writers to base further plot lines on.

Tom said: ‘We had to just come up with the right story, and I’m sure people have heard this before but the first series was based on the book by John Le Carre.

‘The first idea came from him, he said to us when we first screened it that maybe we should make some more so, there were lots of conversations with him and with his sons who produced The Night Manager.

‘We wanted it to feel earned, and as resonant and contemporary as the first one did, and I hope that we’ve done that.’

The Night Manager is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.