What to watch this weekend: ‘The Gentlemen’ season two is a Guy Ritchie masterpiece

There are a few creators whose work just has to be watched. Well, not only watched, but consumed and digested and enjoyed like the layers of a stacked pizza.

For lack of a better metaphor right now, of course. Martin Scorsese, Tim Burton, and, of course, Guy Ritchie count amongst those whose imaginations and creative ability prove why reality television may draw audiences but loses its flavour like cheap gum.

The Gentlemen, now in its second season on Netflix, is a Ritchie-penned masterpiece. Like its debut, there’s not a moment where the tension eases or where the cleverness of its plot and writing doesn’t have its audience nailed to the couch. Because it’s that good.

Season two picks up a year after Eddie Horniman (Theo James) inherited the family title, estate, and the rather inconvenient cannabis empire operating beneath it. However, the reluctant Duke of Halstead we met in season one has changed. He no longer wants out of the criminal business. He wants more of it.

Lust for criminal life

Together with Susie Glass (Kaya Scodelario), Eddie sets about growing the operation beyond England, and Italy and the mafioso enter the picture. It becomes a mix of mobsters, aristocrats and enough questionable characters to taste the grit in the narrative.

Eddie has also discovered that being a duke comes with advantages beyond a very large house and good suits. His title opens doors, and he begins using his access to the establishment to further the business, including a political play to decriminalise marijuana through the House of Lords.

At the opposite end of the criminal food chain there’s Susie’s dad, Bobby Glass, mincingly played by Ray Winstone, who has made a fortune from weed being illegal and has no appetite for Eddie potentially destroying the market that built his empire.

Eddie pushes ahead anyway and the disagreement becomes less boardroom squabble and more attempted murder.

Meanwhile Susie begins making moves of her own and Eddie becomes involved with a Countess Bella, aka Benedetta Porcaroli. Their relationship eventually leads to marriage and, for a brief moment, it looks as though Eddie may have found something resembling happiness among all the drugs, bodies, and double-crossing.

Watch the trailer

But that’s only part of the story. There’s just so many layers that a verbatim narration can smudge any notion of enjoyment. You’ve got to binge this to get the munchy feeling of moreishness, again for lack of a better metaphor right now, of The Gentlemen‘s second edition.

It’s so damn good that thankfully a third season’s just started filming, which means there’s something more to look forward to as the eighth episode bows out.

But there’s more to the show than just a bunch of aristocrats turning gangster and cockney gangsters that enjoy saunas and fine dining.

There’s the humour, the sardonic parallels and sucker punches taken at the British Empire that was, and the notion that anyone can become a fallen angel. Well, there’s depth behind the stabbing and the gunshots.

It’s quite deep, too

And there’s the many faces of love. Eddie’s relationship with the Countess, and their eventual union, is a mishmash of question marks.

She said that she married for love, so did he. Or was it a union in the ye-olde tradition of marriage into power and convenience? The bonus, of course, is that both parties happen to be immensely attractive and kind of like one another.

Or was it passion? Was it love at first sight?

It’s these kinds of questions that toy with the audience in-between the tension and the action.

The pace of the edit is sensationally good, the colourisation spectacularly well done to create the mood and visual emotion amplification. The score, the soundtrack, hand-picked and laced with the same kind of humour and situational appropriateness that should be a ‘must expected’ nuance from Ritchie.

The Gentlemen is a five-star watch, across both seasons. Miss it, and miss out.