The Night Manager Season 2 Episode 1: Who is Teddy Dos Santos and why did he kill Jaco? Details revealed

The Night Manager Season 2 Episode 1 throws us back into the world of arms deals and spies. It aired in the UK on January 1, 2026. In the US, it will be available on Prime Video starting January 11, 2026.

By the end of Episode 1, there’s betrayal, a blast, and bodies. Teddy Dos Santos, the new arms dealer on the block, takes out his partner Jaco with barely a second thought. Meanwhile, Jonathan Pine is left hanging, caught in the crossfire and not sure who to trust. That burst of violence sets the stage for a season that explores Richard Roper’s lingering shadow, while also making room for a new villain who is just as cold-blooded.

Teddy Dos Santos: The new face of international arms dealing

Eduardo "Teddy" Dos Santos turns into the main villain of The Night Manager Season 2, a Colombian businessman whose public image could not possibly be closer to his actual operations. Based in Colombia, Teddy runs a large weapons operation as well as trains a guerrilla army, all under the guise of charity and goodwill. Dos Santos has perfected the art of concealing criminal enterprise under humanitarian activities, as had been done by his predecessor, Roper, earlier on.

Dos Santos is the CEO of Barquero and the owner of a humanitarian charity known as Aurora, where Richard Roper himself is featured on several of the promotional videos. This relationship between the two men is not accidental. As we learn during the course of The Night Manager Season 2 Episode 1, Teddy had been sending photos of himself to Roper for several years, implying a type of relationship that was far more than just a mere business acquaintance. The actuality of this relation is more evident in later episodes, but in the premiere, essential seeds are sown concerning their intertwined pasts.

Dos Santos is a symbol of evolution in the arms-dealing business. Where Roper was melodramatic and arrogant, Teddy acts with cold precision and a disturbing calmness. He has grown his power through control and secrecy, where he operates on the assumption that institutions will defend him. His business scheme resembles that of Roper: he uses legitimate firms as cover-ups to illegal weapons trafficking. Here, he uses machine tools and oil pipes as a disguise in importing guns from the UK to Colombia, which will be shipped to Cartagena.

The fact that Dos Santos has been in the inner circle of London intelligence is what makes him particularly dangerous. Some of the things that Pine and his team discover help them realize that there is corruption in River House, which is the head office of MI6, and senior officials, such as Mayra, are directly involved in aiding the activities of Teddy.

This institutional trade-off implies that Pine will not be able to utilize the conventional channels of authority, and he and his team of Night Owls will be forced to act outside of the official procedures.

Jaco Brouwer: From Roper’s henchman to liability

Jaco Brouwer is a living reminder of the Roper organization, which Pine ruined many years ago. Jaco is one of the old henchmen of Roper who has a known violent background. His continued operations in London, where he is still in the arms trade, indicate that the Roper network did not completely disintegrate with the capture and subsequent death of its leader. Rather, aspects of that organization were able to change and seek new leadership with Dos Santos.

In The Night Manager Season 2 Episode 1, the Night Owl team of Pine commences surveillance on Jaco. They hear him talking of a shipment arriving in Cartagena in 3 days, coming from someone who learned from “the best” and considers himself “Richard Roper's true disciple.”

This surveillance drives them further into the conspiracy, as they trace Jaco’s meeting with intermediaries and discover the link to Dos Santos. The team attaches a tracking device to a diplomatic briefcase that Jaco is given, which holds what seems to be forged MOD end-user certificates, documents that would allow weapons deliveries to clear customs without being intercepted.

As Pine follows Jaco, it becomes more evident that he is not playing clean anymore, talking openly about forthcoming deliveries and meeting with middlemen who are connected to intelligence groups. This inability to be discreet in his actions, either by carelessness or because he is already suspected in other quarters, makes him a problem. With secrecy being the most important virtue in the international arms dealing business, any such operative who attracts attention is a liability.

Why did Teddy kill Jaco in The Night Manager Season 2 Episode 1?

The explosive finale of The Night Manager Season 2 Episode 1 occurs when Jaco and Dos Santos are at a meeting in a hotel that has been visited by a team of Pine who are there to spy. Although the Night Owls are an observational unit, not a field job, they have installed trackers and are surveying the events. But Teddy Dos Santos is several steps ahead of them.

Teddy realizes the setup when he finds the tracking device on the briefcase of Jaco. This scene sums up his choice. In the cold calculation of Teddy, Jaco has turned out to be a liability that is threatening his whole operation. Jaco is no longer an asset. He cannot be trusted to be able to defend the operation anymore, and killing him takes out a weak spot and sends a signal to whoever may be lurking in the shadows.

The execution technique in The Night Manager Season 2 Episode 1, shows how pragmatic Teddy can be. Instead of a mere assassination, Teddy opts to strap a bomb to Jaco. This turns the act into a warning, evidence erasing, killing of several of the agents, and turning a single intelligence mission into anarchy.

With a single calculated move, Dos Santos kills Jaco, two Pines team members (Waleed and Graham), and leaves a clear message about the price of surveillance by destroying all possible evidence.

The move shows that Teddy is aware of power politics in the criminal underworld. Loyalty is not as important as operational security. Being in business with someone for a long time does not count when it comes to the survival of the business.

When Pine gets to the hotel room, Jaco is lying there with a bomb strapped to his body, and has a few seconds to flee the explosion. The explosion leaves the future of Pine unclear and his disguise possibly exposed. Teddy walks out of the mess without any panic, definitively making himself the main threat of the season.

Killing Jaco does a lot for Dos Santos. First, it gets rid of someone sloppy enough to get tailed. It cuts a clear link to the Roper organization, something the authorities could have used against him. It also sends a loud message to everyone else: mess up, and you are out.

The bombing itself throws everything into chaos, giving Teddy space to move while the intelligence agencies rush around, trying to figure out what just happened.

For Pine, this attack hits hard both personally and professionally. Two people from his team are dead. His cover is blown, his whole investigation is out in the open, and he is not sure who knows his real identity anymore. The support he counted on is gone.

Rex Mayhew, his boss, dies under sketchy circumstances earlier in The Night Manager Season 2 Episode 1, so that safety net just disappears. Now Pine is alone. Angela Burr is gone. Rex is dead. Even River House, the place he thought was solid, feels shaky and exposed.

The Night Manager Season 2 Episode 1 is now streaming on BBC iPlayer.

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Also Read: The Night Manager Season 2 Episode 1: Is Richard Roper dead? Details revealed

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