Guy Ritchie’s ‘The Gentlemen’ Transforms Into a Completely Different Show in Season 2 | Review
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Guy Ritchie's Netflix crime series The Gentlemen returns for a second season that marks a significant tonal departure from its debut, trading much of the earlier comedy for a darker, higher-stakes crime drama. The show follows Edward Horniman (Theo James), the Duke of Halstead turned reluctant gangster, as he moves from merely adapting to the criminal underworld to actively becoming a kingpin, expanding operations internationally and drawing new, more dangerous adversaries into his orbit.
Season 2 sees Eddie attempting to secure a House of Lords seat to block a marijuana decriminalisation bill, while expanding Bobby Glass's (Ray Winstone) empire into Italy, bringing him and Susie (Kaya Scodelario) into conflict with the mafia's Marco Moretti (Sergio Castellitto), alongside new threats from Peruvian cartels. The review praises the organic evolution of the story despite its broader scope, highlighting the enduring chemistry between James and Scodelario, new love interests played by Benedetta Porcaroli and Tyler Conti, and strong supporting turns from Winstone and Vinnie Jones, whose romance with Joely Richardson's character remains a highlight.
- The Gentlemen Season 2 shifts from comedy to darker crime drama tone
- Eddie expands into Italian mafia and Peruvian cartel territory
- Eddie-Susie chemistry remains the show's emotional core throughout
Full account
Guy Ritchie's Netflix drama The Gentlemen has returned for a second run, roughly two years after its debut season. Adapted from Ritchie's 2019 feature of the same name, the series follows Edward "Eddie" Horniman (Theo James), a former Army captain who becomes the 13th Duke of Halstead and is drawn into running a criminal empire from the family's ancestral estate after inheriting it. Where the first outing largely retraced the plot and comic tone of Ritchie's film, critics note that the new season pushes the story, and its characters, into considerably more ambitious and darker territory.
In series two, Eddie is shown attempting to secure a seat in the House of Lords, partly to influence a bill on the decriminalisation of cannabis, while simultaneously expanding the drugs operation he inherited alongside crime boss Bobby Glass (Ray Winstone) into new markets in Italy. That expansion brings him and his partner-in-crime Susie Glass (Kaya Scodelario) into contact with the Italian mafia's "boss of bosses", Marco Moretti (Sergio Castellitto), as well as Peruvian cartel connections, widening the scope of the story well beyond the English home counties of season one.
Reviewers differ markedly in how favourably they view this broader canvas. One review frames the expansion as a natural and successful evolution, arguing that the show retains its core interest in class, crime and power while scaling up the action, betrayals and international intrigue, and likens the shift in tone to Ritchie's more po-faced crime drama MobLand. A more sceptical review, however, treats the new season as essentially more of the same Ritchie formula — brawling, cockney-inflected bravado and a satirical dig at aristocratic entitlement and imperial nostalgia — suggesting the pacing drags and the plot's grander ambitions do not disguise a certain repetitiveness across his body of work.
The two accounts also diverge on the performances. The more positive review highlights the chemistry between James's Eddie and Scodelario's Susie as the emotional core of the season, even as both characters are given new love interests — Eddie with an Italian countess named Bella (Benedetta Porcaroli), and Susie rekindling a romance with a character called Joe (Tyler Conti). The more critical take, by contrast, singles out Daniel Ings's turn as Eddie's feckless brother Freddy as the stand-out, describing James's lead performance as strikingly bland, while conceding that the series remains, despite its flaws, watchable, well shot and intermittently funny.
Where outlets differ
One outlet is broadly enthusiastic, framing season two's expansion into Italy, mysticism and international crime as an organic and successful transformation of the show; the other is far more sardonic, viewing it as a bloated rehash of Ritchie's familiar tropes about class and empire.
The positive review praises the Eddie–Susie partnership and chemistry as the show's beating heart; the critical review instead singles out Daniel Ings's Freddy as the best element and calls Theo James's lead performance bland.
The first source emphasises new plot elements (Peruvian cartels, mysticism/myth, House of Lords intrigue) as evidence of ambitious world-building; the second focuses more on tone and style, criticising the pacing as overlong and 'clock-watching' despite finding it fitfully funny and beautifully shot.
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