Guy Ritchie, the British film director, made his name with blackly funny movies, like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, about the grimy criminal underworld. But, given he was raised among the aristocracy (both of his parents remarried peers of the realm), it was perhaps only a matter of time before he combined his fantasy with his personal history. That vision is The Gentlemen: a show that invites us to believe that a hereditary peer is actually hard as nails.
Somehow, that rarefied premise has resonated with viewers, and the show returns this week for a second season on Netflix. The Duke of Halstead aka Eddie (Theo James) and Susie (Kaya Scodelario) are now running the empire of her incarcerated father, Bobby Glass (Ray Winstone). But is it enough for a member of the British aristocracy to be a mere lieutenant?
For the former he needs mafia boss Marco Moretti (Sergio Castellitto) and, for the latter, he requires the support of Dickie (Hugh Bonneville). But most of all, he needs his partnership with Susie to endure, even as he starts to expand his horizons beyond the Glass family. Adapted from Ritchie’s own 2019 film, The Gentlemen has been a slow-burn hit for Netflix.
It took five months, after the show premiered in 2024, for a second series to be commissioned; now a third has been ordered before the second has even aired. The word-of-mouth success could be attributed to the show’s playful subversion of genre conventions, which might have made it hard for viewers to know what to expect but provided several standout shock moments. In its second series, the sensibility is clearer: a gangster romp, so ludicrous that it ascends into the realm of comedy.
Eddie and Susie tussle with Peruvian cartels, corrupt Emirati royals, and industrial action amongst their cannabis growers. It is a world away from The Wire or even The Sopranos. This is Goodfellas for a generation raised on comic book movies.
In that sense, the show is perfectly enjoyable. Sugary and disposable, viewers will demolish this eight-episode second series in record time. But the craftsmanship feels increasingly shonky.
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