The Gentlemen Season 2
The Gentlemen is an action-comedy television series created by Guy Ritchie for Netflix. The series, a spin-off from Ritchie’s 2019 film of the same name, premiered on 7 March 2024. In August 2024, the series was renewed for a second season, which premiered on the 3rd September 2026.
Season 2 picks up roughly a year after Eddie Horniman and Susie Glass joined forces to expand Bobby Glass’s criminal empire. Eddie has grown ambitious, and with great ambition comes great risk…
The Good
Its a Guy Ritchie production….
You know exactly what you signed up for, stylised criminality presented in rural English manors and sun-drenched seaside villas. with scenic landscapes as the weed empire expands into Italy.
One of the biggest strengths of Season 2 is Eddie himself. Theo James’s character Eddie has evolved from someone trying to extricate himself from a mess he inherited, to someone who wants to expand his empire. No longer the charming reluctant criminal, he enjoys being a gangster and the perks that come with it.
Susie Glass remains the coolest person in the room, she is strategic, ruthless and often considerably more emotionally intelligent than the men around her. Susie’s character isn’t a token female accomplice but an independent power player capable of holding things down and navigating treacherous alliances and an eccentric gangster father.
The partnership between Eddie and Susie gives the show its beating heart. Their relationship is particularly interesting because neither completely trusts the other, yet each understands that they are stronger together. While they keep things strictly professional… there is an underlying will-they-won’t-they dynamic between them.
Giancarlo Esposito as Mr Stanley Johnston with a T also makes limited guest appearances but he absolutely dominates his scenes with epic monologues that highlight the ambition and potential that drive Eddie’s evolution.
Jimmy Chang pops by occasionally to deliver his stoner humour and arguably this season’s funniest moment through his “product development”
The Bad
While season two is bigger and more ambitious, it sometimes gets in its own way, spinning more plates than it can handle safely, meanwhile. everyone is gunning to deliver the smartest wisecrack that the dialogue is less like people talking and more like trailer fodder.
Bobby Glass is increasingly unpredictable but the show doesn’t want to commit to an explanation on whether he has actually lost it and randomly making decisions or he is genuinely locked in on a bigger picture. Though intriguing the ambiguity is frustrating.
Susie Glass and Eddie understand each other in ways that no one else does and it seems obvious they should be more than business partners but instead are forced into awkward relationships with other love interests that we are never really invested in…
The Ugly
Season 2 is decidedly darker, Eddie has shed off his innocence and embraced the criminal underworld, not content to survive, he wants to thrive in a world where kindness is taken as weakness.
The Gentlemen romanticises criminal enterprises and their corruption of kind and decent people. There is no redemption arc, they are not trying to go legit, not even as they lobby for a bill to legalise weed…
Final Thoughts
The Gentlemen Season 2 is an ambitious expansion of a hit action comedy series, it has more of everything but sometimes more is not necessarily best… Netflix has already officially renewed The Gentlemen for a third season.
Have you watched The Gentlemen? Does it sound like something you would watch?
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