What if the most satisfying kind of TV is actually the kind that never lets you lean back? Guy Ritchie’s second season of The Gentlemen on Netflix has the kind of momentum that makes even a Sunday body sit a little straighter on the sofa. Eddie is no longer just a man trying to keep up appearances; he wants to expand the empire, and he does it with a mix of ambition and hard judgment that only the most elegant disasters can carry.
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Disclaimer: Apropos Magazine received access or a review copy. As always, we share our own impressions — unfiltered.
Six stars
The first thing that strikes me is how little the series bothers to waste my time. There aren’t many detours, not many scenes that wallow in their own importance and pad out the running time with drawn-out dialogue. Ritchie, who is behind both the series and the original 2019 film, still has that particular grip on pace: dialogue that crackles, looks that mean more than a page and a half of script, and a rhythm as if someone had poured scalding Italian espresso straight into the editing room.
Theo James plays Eddie with a tautness that makes the character more than just a handsome façade and aristocratic panic. Here is a man trying to behave like someone who has a handle on his territory, while everything around him smells faintly of risk and expensive cologne. James makes him both confident and vulnerable, and that tension is exactly what keeps the series moving. He isn’t just “good in the role” in the neat, review-friendly sense. He’s convincing in the more annoying way, where you have to admit it works.
The rest of the ensemble is just as much a driving force. These are not people standing around waiting for their turn to explain the plot. They enter scenes with energy, quirks, and a little glint of danger in their eyes. It’s a pleasure, because the dialogue always feels like something that could tip over. Not necessarily into violence, but into humiliation, and in this kind of universe that’s almost the same thing. The series finds a rare balance between being funny, tight, and actually exciting. That’s no small feat.
We live in a time when many series think they’re interesting simply because they speak in hushed tones in dark rooms. The Gentlemen knows that timing is an aesthetic too. That doesn’t mean everything is perfect. The final stretch of the season loses a little of the speed that makes the early episodes so addictive. You can feel the series wanting to hold on to its swagger even as it starts laying more pieces on the board. Fair enough. Even the most polished gangster fantasy needs a breather before it can pretend again that it isn’t entertainment with cufflinks. But that doesn’t change the fact that the first six episodes are breathless and very hard not to devour whole.
What I especially keep coming back to is the series’ ability to be light without being irrelevant. It has no ambition to convert anyone, and thank God for that. It would rather be sharp, fast, and well acted, and that is, in fact, a pretty major virtue. When a series knows what it is, and doesn’t stand there ashamed of its own pleasure, something rare happens: pure, uncomplicated TV joy. Not as a moral project. More like a well-poured drink that tastes of expensive decisions.
So yes, The Gentlemen season 2 is not just a safe bet. It’s one of those cases where you can feel the craft is in order, and that someone has understood that style and momentum do not need to apologise for themselves. I devoured it whole, and that may be the most honest way to put it. When a series can make you forget both time and guilt for, at least, the first six episodes, it’s hard to complain too much. That would almost be bad form. And after all, this is not where you come to be educated.
The Gentlemen Season 2 is available to watch on Netflix now.
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