Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Night Manager’ Part II on Hulu, A Thrilling End To The Limited Series

John Le Carré’s The Night Manager was already turned into a successful mini-series starring Tom Hiddleston in 2016, but this year, Hulu is airing a Hindi version produced by Indian production company Hotstar that re-tells the tale of a veteran-turned-hotel night manager who becomes embedded with a dangerous arms dealer in order to bring him down. Now that the second half of the series is available to binge on Hulu, is the remake worth it?

THE NIGHT MANAGER: PART II: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Shelly (Anil Kapoor) hands his business associate, Shaan (Aditya Roy Kapur) a business card with a new name on it, and tells him “Congratulations! You’re an entrepreneur now.”

The Gist: In the first half of the Hindi version of The Night Manager which aired back in February, we met Shaan Sengupta, the night manager at the White Flower Resort, a luxury hotel where Shelly Rungta was a guest. Shelly is revered as a successful businessman, but in truth, he makes his money as an illegal arms dealer. With Shaan’s past as a military operative, he has been employed by a government task force to infiltrate Shelly’s inner circle to bring him down, but at the end of the fourth episode, he joins forces with Shelly, who promises him a life of luxury. And now the question is, who is out to get whom?

Part II, which is out now, opens with Shelly giving Shaan a business card with a new identity, Abhimanyu Mathur. He will be the face of their new business venture. Kaveri (Sobhita Dhulipala), or K for short, Shelly’s young, beautiful wife, has already started to suspect that her husband is involved in criminal dealings, but when she hears that he has renamed Shaan, she’s even more suspicious of their business. She calls him out on it, and he throws it back at her, claiming she too has not been forthcoming about her past, and she has a son she never told Shelly about. Immediately the tension in the marriage threatens the relationship, but it’s going to get worse if Shelly ever learns that K also has feelings for Shaan, a man she sees as more trustworthy and forthcoming than her husband.

While Shaan and Shelly get closer and more deeply tied to their business scheme, Lipika (Tillotama Shone), the woman leading the task force to bring Shelly down, inches closer to her goal, as well. She’s been surveilling Shelly, learning he plans to conduct “the deal of all deals,” a global arms trade, having been fed information by someone else on Shelly’s team, his confidante GV.

While much of the tension that exists in the series is based on whether or not Shelly and Shaan can trust one another, the fact is, Shelly is a powerful man with allies and enemies everywhere, so when he learns that GV has turned on him, he does what is necessary: he stabs him in the neck with a pen dozens of times. Shelly might look dapper on the outside, but as he explains to GV before he kills him, his hands only look like they’ve gone soft.

After Shaan and Shelly pull off a massive arms purchase, Shaan gets a call from Lipika – she and her security team have been tracking him and they know he’s sleeping with K. She tells him he’s put himself at risk and she’s extracting him from the mission. Shaan refuses to leave though, and he informs Shelly that they’re being followed. As he, Shelly, K, and the rest of their associates flee from the government agents, Lipika’s colleague calls her and tells her, “He’s gone rogue, ma’am.”

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? While the series is a remake of the BBC’s version of The Night Manager, it’s reminiscent of another John Le Carré miniseries, The Little Drummer Girl, which starred Florence Pugh as a young woman who is hired by the Israeli army to infiltrate a Palestinian terrorist group. With both shows, you’re never quite sure where the protagonist’s loyalties lie until the end.

Our Take: While it feels like it’s almost too soon for there to be a remake of a series that just aired six years ago, there’s something to be said for re-casting it and setting it in a different part of the world to revamp the story and the perspective.

While reboots and remakes run the risk of feeling second-rate, this new version was co-produced by the London production company The Ink Factory, who also produced the 2016 version, and which is run by Simon and Stephen Cornwell, who are John Le Carré’s sons. To that end, this Hindu version is not an afterthought or a shoddy attempt at a remake for a new audience, it’s just as glossy and captivating as the original, perhaps just with fewer big-name English-speaking actors.

Sex and Skin: Kaveri and Shaan consummate their affair with some passionate hotel room sex.

Parting Shot: As Shaan and Shelly flee from the government agents, one of the agents tells Lipika. “I think he’s switched sides,” and we watch Shaan drive off with Shelly. Has he flipped, or is this an elaborate con? We have to wait to find out.

Sleeper Star: Any time Sobhita Dhulipala is on the screen, she lights it up. She’s gorgeous, but she also adds the necessary personal tension between the two men which makes their relationship even more complex and dangerous.

Most Pilot-y Line: “It’s ‘trust Shelly time,'” Shelly tells Shaan, who appears apprehensive about assuming a new identity to dupe investors. But Shelly, a criminal arms dealer, has never been trustworthy before so his word is questionable, at best.

Our Call: STREAM IT! With solid performances, shocking twists and turns, and some fresh updates, this version of The Night Manager is a great one. If you’ve already seen the first, you may be fine skipping this one, but if you haven’t, this new one is as good as the first and worth it.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.