Sometimes a TV show comes out of left field and takes you completely by surprise. That’s happened a couple times this year, most recently with Apple TV’s delightfully spooky Widow’s Bay .

In 2024, Netflix’s Guy Ritchie series The Gentlemen was one of TV’s pleasant surprises . Funny, stylish, just sexy enough (though not as sexy as that other 2024 British dramedy, Rivals , which just released its own second season), The Gentlemen was the crime drama equivalent of easy listening, with a cast that was easy on the eyes, led by White Lotus alum Theo James, and plenty of action and suspense.

Rather than the dark and gritty crime dramas we’re accustomed to, The Gentlemen always played its hand with a wink and a nod. This is a crime comedy, though it has its serious moments.

The story follows Eddie Horniman (James) a British Army officer who unexpectedly inherits his father’s title and vast country estate instead of his reckless older brother Freddy (Daniel Ings). Eddie soon discovers that the family fortune has been quietly propped up by a massive underground cannabis operation hidden beneath the estate and run by crime boss Bobby Glass (Ray Winstone) and his daughter Susie (Kaya Scodelario).

What follows is a series of wild shenanigans as Eddie tries to extract his family from the drug business, all while trying to keep a tight leash on his unpredictable brother. (You might recognize Ings from A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms , in which he played Lyonel Baratheon).

Season 2 picks up a year later, with Eddie now taking a very different approach to the family business. Expect more criminal enterprises, wild shenanigans and hilarity as this dysfunctional family navigates England’s unsavory underbelly.

The Gentlemen remains one of my favorite crime shows on Netflix , so I was surprised to see the Rotten Tomatoes score for Season 1 was just 75%, fairly low for TV of this caliber. Audiences liked it more with 84% on the Popcornmeter.

I normally go for darker stuff, and I might have placed The Chestnut Man at the top of my Netflix crime thrillers list if Season 2 hadn’t gone so horribly wrong. I’m probably forgetting some other contenders for best crime show, but The Gentlemen is up there at the top of my list.

Interestingly, Season 2 is doing better with critics at 82% but worse with audiences at just 79% . That’s still roughly the same as Season 1, and numbers could shift since the show only just dropped on Thursday.

On the one hand, I remain surprised that these numbers aren’t higher. On the other hand, I’m happy to see that reactions are roughly the same as Season 1, suggesting I’ll probably like it just as much. If nothing else, I’m happy to see consistency. Far too often, the second season of a show I really loved just nosedives. And I wouldn’t even trust the critic reviews exclusively here, but audience scores and critics scores staying around the same level is good news.

I have The Gentlemen on my watch-list for this weekend. I’m also catching up on MobLand before Season 2 drops later this month on Paramount+, and I really need to finish the excellent second season of Sugar on Apple TV. I need about four or five more hours a day, if you have any to spare!

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