‘The Gentlemen’ – Season Two – All Hail The Duke of Carnage – Review

Crime and aristocracy go hand in hand in Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen. His long-form television expansion of the 2019 gangster film was a smash hit when it arrived on Netflix in 2024, taking the original concept and narrative and sending it in a wild, outrageous direction, with absolutely zero filter and a whole heap of intensity thrown in for good measure.

Now, Ritchie returns for the sophomore season, and Eddie Horniman, the 13th Duke of Halstead, is moving up in the world — both criminally and within the ranks of the British aristocracy. But playing gangster comes with a price, and if Eddie wants to claim his kingdom, things are about to get very bloody indeed.

Duke Eddie Horniman (Theo James) fully embraces his role as a ruthless crime boss, expanding his cannabis empire internationally alongside Susie Glass (Kaya Scodelario).

The Rise of the Duke

Season One of The Gentlemen was a fresh melding of international crime and the old-money world of the British establishment, taking the collision of those two worlds to wonderfully outrageous new heights.

Former soldier Edward “Eddie” Horniman found himself unexpectedly elevated to the position of the 13th Duke of Halstead, only to discover that his ancestral estate was deeply entrenched in the criminal empire of the Glass family. Finding himself thrown into the jungle, Eddie adapted like every good predator.

As we enter Season Two, however, we discover a man whose growing ambition is pushing him into newer, and considerably more extreme, territory.

The result is a gripping, dynamic melodrama that completely captures you and pulls you deep into Ritchie’s twisting narrative of double-dealing, backstabbing and the relentless pursuit of ultimate power.

For Theo James’ Eddie, that pursuit means vying for absolute control of his ancestral homeland — and potentially reaching even higher into the echelons of British power. Beginning with an in-media-res sequence before rewinding to reveal how Eddie reached this precarious position, the season introduces a thoroughly transformed Duke.

Eddie has embraced his gangster life with glee. And James is clearly having an absolute ball.

There’s a deliciously cocky, self-assured energy to his performance as Eddie uses his newfound criminal aura to get exactly what he wants. But the further he pushes, the more his ambitions begin to spiral beyond his control.

It’s a gleeful bit of television, and James is clearly enjoying every deliciously ruthless moment of it.

Susie Glass Makes Her Move

Eddie isn’t the only player hunting for ultimate power. Kaya Scodelario’s Susie Glass is back and once again proves why she remains one of the most formidable figures in Ritchie’s criminal universe. With the Glass family empire expanding, Susie is cutting deals, forging alliances and searching for new avenues of growth.

Scodelario gives Susie that same intoxicating combination of elegance, intelligence and danger that made her such a standout in the first season. She’s always calculating three moves ahead, and watching Susie operate within this increasingly volatile criminal ecosystem remains one of the series’ greatest pleasures.

The power struggle between Eddie and Susie gives the season much of its delicious tension. They’re allies when it suits them, rivals when necessary, and two people who understand precisely what the other is capable of.

Enter the Guv’nor

And then there’s Bobby Glass.

Ray Winstone’s criminal patriarch was largely a looming presence in Season One, but Season Two brings him firmly into the spotlight — and once Bobby gets going, watch out.

He’s the utter Guv’nor, that’s for sure.

Winstone is a force of nature. He’s the kind of performer you simply can’t look away from, and his expanded role as Bobby Glass gives him plenty of opportunity to remind audiences exactly why.

Every scene carries weight when Winstone enters the room. Bobby doesn’t need to shout to command attention, but when the gloves come off, Winstone unleashes the full force of the character. The boss is back.

A Very British Bloodbath

The momentum of The Gentlemen Season Two doesn’t let up for a moment.

This second chapter moves with tremendous force, constantly throwing new complications, betrayals and bursts of violence into the mix. And naturally, everything is polished and impossibly posh in that uniquely Ritchie fashion. The tailoring is immaculate. The estates are enormous. The criminals are increasingly unhinged. And the violence is absolutely brutal.

One of the season’s undeniable highlights arrives in Episode Seven, ‘This Mad Circus’, where Vinnie Jones’ gamekeeper Geoffrey Seacombe gets the opportunity to unleash absolute mayhem. The all-guns-ablaze siege sequence is pure Ritchie — chaotic, kinetic and gloriously excessive.

It is compelling television precisely because the series knows exactly what it is. An eight-course meal of old-money gangster extravagance. And audiences will be thoroughly satiated.

Brothers, Blood and Betrayal

At the thematic core of Season Two is an impending reckoning between Eddie and his loose-cannon, morally questionable brother Freddie (Daniel Ings).

Their relationship becomes one of the season’s driving forces, running parallel to Eddie’s increasingly ambitious ascent through the criminal hierarchy. There are moments when their dynamic carries the faintest echoes of The Godfather Part II, particularly in the way family, power and betrayal become increasingly inseparable.

But this is Guy Ritchie we’re talking about. And just when you think you know where he’s taking you, he yanks the wheel.

The eighth and final episode, ‘Bring Me The Head’, delivers maximum carnage. The chemistry between James and Ings is superb, with their fractured brotherhood providing the emotional engine for a finale that ultimately pushes Eddie beyond any remaining moral boundary.

By the closing moments, Eddie has gone all the way. There are no more lines to cross. And it’s utterly MENTAL.

Final Verdict: Long Live the Duke

Season Two of The Gentlemen is a gleefully excessive return to Guy Ritchie’s criminal playground, delivering one of 2026’s most entertaining streaming television experiences.

Aggressive but refined, elegant yet ferocious, The Gentlemen wraps audiences inside its world of aristocratic criminal ambition and refuses to let go.

It’s violent. It’s funny. It’s ridiculously stylish. And beneath all that swagger is a fascinating examination of what happens when privilege, power and criminal ambition become impossible to separate.

The Duke has risen. And God help anyone standing in his way.

Season Two of The Gentlemen is now streaming on Netflix.