After just one episode, the plot is already layers thick on the AMC spy thriller miniseries The Night Manager with Tom Hiddleston. he and Hugh Laurie star in the six-part television event as hotelier Jonathan Pine and filthy-rich businessman Richard Roper, respectively. When former soldier Pine finds himself in possession of proof of Roper's illegal arms dealing, Pine becomes involved in an international spy game. The first episode of The Night Manager skips forward four years in time, where Pine encounters Roper at a hotel in the Swiss Alps. With him comes his modish and daring girlfriend, played by The Man From U.N.C.L.E. actress Elizabeth Debicki. Who is Roper's girlfriend Jed, and how will she fit into this cat-and-mouse affair?
Pine was fairly shocked to be faced with Roper, Jed, and the rest of Roper's entourage at his new post. Pine left the Hotel Nefrititi in Egypt after Sophie Alekan — the mistress of one of Roper's customers and Pine's new lover — was murdered for opening her mouth about Roper's dealings. Pine had turned the invoices from Roper's company Ironlast over to his friend at the British Embassy; he had no further recourse to seeing justice done. So, it's something like fate when Roper's crew found him in the middle of nowhere. Pine observed the party, which seemed to be a jolly one, and paid particular attention to Jed. You can almost hear his inner monologue, "What is she doing with him?"
Elizabeth Debicki has made a career out of playing fashionable, cool-as-a-cucumber ladies like the sporty Jordan Baker in The Great Gatsby and the villainous Victoria in U.N.C.L.E. Jed has a few qualities in common with those other women. Whatever she knows of Roper's dealings, it doesn't seem to have ruffled her quite yet. She's too busy living a jet-setting life in a killer wardrobe. (That multi-colored fur! That matching chartreuse bra and panty set!) All Pine (and therefore, the audience) knows of Jed is that she's American. "Pretty, isn't she? I went to New York to buy a painting and came back with her," Roper said. What's her background? Is she politically aware? Does she know that she's sleeping with a war criminal?
Jed wouldn't have received such an auspicious introduction if she wasn't more than a piece of arm candy for Laurie's Roper. Debicki praised the quality of the part to The Telegraph, saying, "The breadth of roles out there for women aren’t as complex as the roles for men. But if you look hard enough you will find them.” Will Jed defect to the side of Pine and his contact in British Intelligence, Angela Burr? Or is this glittering existence still preferable to going good? “She’s a very interesting character," Debicki said, hinting at Jed's internal struggle. "And it was really great working on all the various layers."
The miniseries has already aired in the U.K., so spoilers about Jed's eventual alignment are for sure out there. But where's the fun in that? Instead you can watch her grow closer to Pine and reveal more of her own character over the next five Tuesdays on AMC.
Image: Mitch Jenkins/AMC
