Diksha Sundriyal
Prime Video’s ‘The Night Manager’ once again pits Jonathan Pine against Richard Roper, as the latter tries to make a comeback about a decade after Pine brought him down. The duo comes face-to-face in the fifth episode as all the facades are brought down, and no secrets about their identities linger. The question now is who has the upper hand and what part that will play in deciding who wins. As things get more tense, a much darker side of Roper comes to the surface, especially in the way he treats his beloved dogs. SPOILERS AHEAD.
A Shocking Discovery Makes Roper Question the Loyalty of His Dogs
When Angela Burr described Richard Roper as the worst man in the world, she meant it in a way that suggested there is no redeeming quality in him. To her credit, Roper has proven her right, time and time again. While he may do despicable things, there are certain aspects of his character that may make him appear as a likable person. His love for dogs is one of them. The events of the second season confirm that Roper is loyal to no one, and he only looks out for his own interests. He uses the people around him, and doesn’t think twice before disposing of them when he is done with them.
Teddy discovers that the same is going to happen to him, but if there was any doubt about how Roper will treat his own son, albeit illegitimate, it is confirmed that there will be no mercy after the shockingly tragic fate of his dogs. When Roper discovers that Jonathan Pine has returned to ruin everything for him, he decides to find out what exactly Pine has on him and how much damage, if at all, can be inflicted with that information. Not surprisingly, Pine reaches out to him and asks him to surrender himself and the people in the British government he has been collaborating with.
At this point, Roper is inclined to believe that Pine has nothing, and his offer is just a bluff, which shows just how desperate he is, especially considering that he doesn’t have a support system anymore. Still, he has been struck down by Pine before and he doesn’t want to repeat the mistakes he made the first time around. So, he asks Juan to revisit Pine’s steps in the hopes of finding out what he was up to so far, which may shed some light on what he stumbled upon. In between this, his dogs come to him, and he pets them lovingly. This is when he discovers a listening device on the collar of one of his dogs.
Roper’s Despicable Actions Prove He is the Worst Man in the World
Roper immediately realises what has happened, and he alerts his men of it without letting the listener on the other end know that they’ve been found out. He knows this is Pine’s work, and he is being helped by someone. He tries to catch that person, but Martin is too quick, and he slips out of Roper’s grasp. Because Roper has no way of knowing how long the listening device has been on his dog’s collar, he doesn’t know what Pine has. He rethinks his adversary’s confidence in a new light and can’t help but imagine that Pine must have recorded all sorts of conversations, which would have given the secret agent damning evidence against him and his collaborators.
Once again, it seems Pine will destroy his plans, and in his anger, Roper can blame no one but his dogs. His anger and rage blind him so much that he doesn’t stop to think that the dogs didn’t knowingly betray him. And yet, it was them that Pine used to extract information that would become his downfall. It makes him feel like his dogs are loyal to Pine and have conspired against him, which makes him so angry that he shoots all three of them, even though the device was found in only one of their collar.
This shows that even his love for the dogs is conditional, and his ruthlessness, when it comes to sustaining his criminal empire and his interests, knows no bounds. He would have killed a human if they made such a mistake, and he doesn’t blink twice about inflicting the same fate on his dogs, whom he claims to love more than most humans around him. It only goes to show that Roper is, indeed, the worst man in the world, and there is not a shred of goodness and humanity inside him that would make him appear redeemable.
Read More: Is Alejandro Gualteros Dead? Did Alberto Ammann Leave The Night Manager?
