The long-awaited return of Guy Ritchie’s stylish crime saga arrives with the same confident swagger it left us with. The season wastes no time reminding us why the series struck the right notes the first time around, while upping the ante in a big way. What begins as a familiar blend of aristocratic polish and underworld grit quickly reveals itself as the opening move in a darker, more ambitious outing.
The episode opens in an unexpected way that sets a different tone from the relatively safe first season: Eddie Horniman, the Duke of Halstead, is not the composed, slightly amused figure we left behind. He is battered, desperate, crawling through mud. The moment is brief but effective, a flash-forward that promises consequences before the story skips back three months to start the tale of how we got here. It is a classic storytelling tool, start with the aftermath, then fill in the chaos that produced it, and it works because Theo James sells the physical and emotional toll without a word of dialogue. When the narrative settles into the earlier timeline, which itself appears to be quite a large time jump from where we left off in Season One, Eddie has already settled into his dual role as landed gentleman and aspiring crime boss. The cannabis empire under Halstead is humming, Freddy is off on an eternal bender, and Eddie’s ambitions have expanded outward. He wants the surrounding land restored to the estate. He wants influence in the House of Lords. He wants to control the legality of cannabis. And, inevitably, he wants more.
The bulk of the episode is set around a shooting party that brings together an Italian gangster, a royal sheikh, and a cash-hungry lord. The gathering is a classic Ritchie set up with beautiful grounds, impeccable manners, and the constant undercurrent of threat. Hugh Bonneville arrives as Lord Hawthorne and immediately makes himself indispensable, playing the kind of smiling, self-serving aristocrat who treats political favors as currency. Bonneville slots into this world perfectly. The Italian contingent, led by Sergio Castellitto’s Marco Moretti and the more volatile presence of Michele Morrone’s Cico Maldini, injects a new international flavour that ups the shows ambition. The sheikh adds another layer of high-stakes negotiation, turning the day’s sport into a multi-layered business meeting conducted with shotguns and polite conversation.
Kaya Scodelario’s Susie Glass remains the counterbalance to Eddie’s growing confidence, always ready to put him in his place Their partnership slides easily back into the charged professionalism that defined Season 1, but the dynamic has evolved. Susie sees the strategic value in Eddie’s vision while remaining more tightly bound to her father Bobby’s authority. Ray Winstone, still confined to the most open of prisons yet somehow dominating every scene he occupies, continues to play Bobby with a mixture of menace and peculiar spiritual restlessness. The older man’s decisions feel increasingly erratic, following the visions of an mythical fortune teller who comes to him in the sauna. Seeds of tension between the Susie and Eddie, with the latter clearly uncomfortable with Bobby’s behaviour. Vinnie Jones’s Geoff continues to provided the grounding, salt of the earth presence of the estate itself, loyal, pragmatic, and always ready with a dry observation that cuts through the pretension of the guests.
The episode continues the series ability to balance spectacle and character. The shooting party scenes are stylishly staged, full of style and humour that Ritchie fans expect. Conversations about peerage, parliamentary bills, and overseas expansion are delivered as naturally as the threats. The dialogue retains the series’ trademark blend of posh restraint and blunt Cockney directness, and the humour, while slightly more restrained than in the first season (no chicken suits here), still lands.
James continues to refine Eddie into something more complex than the fish-out-of-water soldier of Season 1. The military discipline is still there, but it is now fused with a growing comfort in the darker arts of leverage and intimidation. He is learning that kindness can be read as weakness, and the episode shows him beginning to recalibrate. Scodelario’s Susie shows an intelligence and caution that feels more necessary than ever as the stakes rise beyond the borders of Halstead. Their scenes together remain the heart of the show, two people who understand each other better than they sometimes care to admit, navigating a world that rewards neither pure loyalty nor pure ambition.
The episode occasionally feels like it is focusing on setting up the rest season rather than telling its own story. Certain subplots and new relationships are introduced with clear intention but limited immediate payoff, and the flash-forward structure, while effective, risks making the present-day action feel slightly redundant. Fortunately, Netflix’s release model negates this by giving you all the episodes at the same time.
Overall, The Road To Kingdom succeeds in re-establishing the world of Halstead while expanding its borders, both geographically and thematically. It reminds us that Eddie’s transformation was never going to stop at reluctant participation. The Duke is becoming something more formidable, and the people around him, Susie, Bobby, Geoff, the new players from Italy and the Lords, will have to decide how to respond. The shooting party itself functions as both literal entertainment and metaphor: everyone is armed, everyone is smiling, and everyone is calculating the best angle for the next shot.
By the end of the episode, ambition has been stated, alliances tested, a tiger has been fed, and the first cracks in existing power structures have appeared. The Road To Kingdom does exactly what a strong return should do: it welcomes you with familiar pleasures while making clear that comfort is temporary. The estate still looks magnificent. The clothes still fit perfectly. The conversations remain sharp. But the bruised and batter Eddie from the opening shots tells us thing are about to get messy. The series has always thrived on the collision between old money and new crime, between manners and mayhem. This episode sharpens that collision, deepens the characters at its centre, and leaves you wanting to know how it all goes wrong for Eddie. The not very gentle men are back, the stakes are higher, and the Mafia is coming.
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Where to watch The Gentlemen – Season 2, Episode 1: The Road To Kingdom: