If the premiere reintroduced us to Jonathan Pine, "The Network" shows us what he's become. The man who took down Richard Roper has spent years in shadows, and those shadows have changed him. Episode 2 is darker, more morally complex, and raises uncomfortable questions about whether destroying monsters requires becoming one.
Tom Hiddleston is doing career-best work here. The Pine of Season 1 was a man of principle forced into deception. The Pine of Season 2 slips into his cover identity like a second skin—and that should terrify us.
Angela Burr's Return
The episode's biggest surprise comes early: Angela Burr is back. Olivia Colman returns to the role that earned her such acclaim, and she's changed too. No longer pregnant, no longer officially with intelligence, Burr has been running her own off-the-books operation tracking arms networks.
Her reunion with Pine crackles with complicated history. She made him. She used him. She's the reason he survived—and the reason he can never have a normal life.
"I didn't ask you to become this," Burr says.
"You didn't have to ask," Pine responds. "You just pointed me at the dark and I walked in."
Their dynamic this season is less handler-and-asset, more two people bound by what they've done. Burr knows Pine better than anyone—which makes her the only person who can see how far he's fallen.
The Enemy Revealed
"The Network" expands the scope of what Pine is fighting. Roper was one man running one operation. What's replaced him is something far more insidious—a decentralized network of arms dealers, money launderers, and corrupt officials spanning multiple continents.
The show visualizes this brilliantly with a sequence where Pine reviews intelligence files. Name after name, connection after connection, the web growing until it fills the screen. Cutting off one head means nothing when the hydra has hundreds.
At the center of it all: Kasari. We get our first real look at the new antagonist, and he's nothing like Roper. Where Roper was charming and theatrical, Kasari is quiet, controlled, terrifying in his stillness. He runs his empire like a corporation—efficient, impersonal, ruthlessly optimized.
Pine's mission isn't just infiltration anymore. It's architecture. He needs to become valuable enough to see the whole network—and that means doing things that can't be undone.
The First Compromise
The episode ends with Pine making a choice that Season 1 Pine never would have made. To prove his value to Kasari's organization, he has to facilitate a deal. Not a big deal—a test. Weapons moving from point A to point B.
He could sabotage it. Alert authorities. Stop the weapons from reaching their destination. But doing so would blow his cover before he's seen anything of value.
So he doesn't. He lets it happen. People will die because of weapons he helped move.
The final shot is Pine alone in his hotel room, staring at his reflection. Who is he looking at? The man he was? The man he's pretending to be? Or have they become the same person?
Hiddleston plays the scene without dialogue, just micro-expressions of self-loathing and resolve. It's devastating.
"The Network" establishes the moral stakes of Season 2: How much of yourself can you sacrifice to do good? Is there a point where the cost becomes too high?
Pine is about to find out.
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