Byte-Sized Overview
The Gentlemen is Guy Ritchie’s television return to the same slick, swaggering criminal universe as his 2019 film, but it is not a straight remake. Instead, it shifts the focus to Eddie Horniman, a decent-ish aristocrat who inherits a stately pile, a title, and a spectacularly inconvenient cannabis empire buried under the lawn. That is the setup, anyway. What follows is a collision between old money manners and very modern organised crime, with Eddie trying to keep his family afloat while the people around him are mostly trying to take the whole enterprise apart, sell it, or set fire to it.
The series works best when it treats class, greed and masculinity as overlapping absurdities. Theo James gives Eddie a dry, watchful core, while Kaya Scodelario’s Susie Glass is the sort of operator who could probably run a war room before breakfast and a burglary by lunch. Around them is a gallery of gangsters, aristocrats, hustlers and wannabe tough guys, all speaking in polished threats and crude intentions. If you enjoy crime drama with broad humour, neat visual flair and a slightly nasty grin, this is very much worth a look.
Transmission Details
- Show Title: The Gentlemen
- Years: 2024 to present
- Created By: Guy Ritchie
- Network: Netflix
- Seasons: 2 released
- Episodes: 15 released
- Starring: Theo James, Kaya Scodelario, Daniel Ings, Joely Richardson, Giancarlo Esposito, Vinnie Jones
- Supporting Cast: Ray Winstone, Chloe Coleman, Jasmine Blackborow, Michael Vu, Peter Serafinowicz, Harry Goodwins
- Genres: Crime drama, action, comedy, thriller
- Status: Returning with an officially confirmed third season
Signal Strength
The Gentlemen knows exactly what it wants to be: brisk, rude, polished and only occasionally interested in subtlety. The strongest thing about it is the chemistry between its central players, especially the push-pull between Eddie and Susie. Theo James underplays just enough to make Eddie feel like a man constantly realising he is in the wrong room with the wrong people, which is ideal for a character being bullied by a criminal infrastructure wrapped in country-house wallpaper. Scodelario, meanwhile, plays Susie with alert authority and a practical edge, so every scene involving her has the pleasant tension of wondering who is being managed and who is actually in charge.
The writing is at its best when it uses the series format to expand the film’s old-school gangster texture into something more serial and tangled. Family loyalty, inherited power, financial panic and territorial violence all jostle together nicely. There is also a sly affection for the absurd rituals of English respectability, which gives the series its bite. A drawing room can be as dangerous as a warehouse, especially when everyone in it is lying.
Where the show loses momentum is in its occasional fondness for its own cleverness. Some subplots feel like they exist because the show likes the sound of them, not because they deepen the central drama. A few supporting characters are memorable as a type more than as a person, and the series can sometimes lean too hard on set-piece attitude when it should be sharpening its stakes. Still, even when it overreaches, it usually does so with enough style to stay entertaining.
Vibe Check
This is a glossy crime series with a nasty sense of humour and a taste for escalation. It moves at a confident clip, but it is not frantic. Ritchie and his collaborators like the audience to enjoy the machinery: the property deals, the rival factions, the coded conversations, the sudden shifts from drawing-room politeness to open menace. The tone is playful on the surface and mean underneath, with bursts of violence that arrive as punctuation rather than surprise.
If you like your gangster stories to come with immaculate tailoring, fast banter and a bit of theatrical bluster, you are in the right parish. If you prefer your crime drama quiet, naturalistic and morally reflective, this will probably feel like being trapped at a very expensive pub where everyone keeps muttering threats into their napkins. The action is effective rather than balletic, and the humour helps the show go down easier than the body count suggests it should. It is a strong fit for viewers who enjoyed the film, or who like crime dramas that are more slippery than solemn.
Spoiler Mode
The first season centres on Eddie Horniman being dragged into the Glass family’s criminal operation after the death of his father, who leaves the estate with serious financial problems and a buried weed business attached. Eddie begins as a man trying to preserve his family’s dignity, but the show quickly makes it clear that dignity is not a currency anyone involved respects. Susie Glass, the sharpest mind in the operation, initially treats Eddie as an inconvenience, then as a variable, then as a partner of sorts. Their alliance is never purely romantic, never purely strategic, and that instability becomes one of the series’ best engines.
As Eddie learns how the enterprise actually works, he is forced to make choices that chip away at the idea that he can stay clean while remaining in charge. He becomes increasingly implicated in the criminal side of the inheritance, not because he wants to be a gangster, but because every alternative involves surrendering his family home, his status and his future. Meanwhile, Bobby Glass emerges as the real power behind the curtain, a figure whose calm authority makes everyone else look like they are improvising in a room he already owns. The season’s central tension comes from Eddie’s attempt to outlast the system without becoming fully absorbed by it.
The surrounding rivalries sharpen the danger. Freddy’s chaos, Ray’s pragmatism and the various external predators around the business create a steady pressure-cooker effect, while the series keeps asking whether Eddie is actually becoming competent or merely becoming more dangerous. By the end of the run, the old fantasy that this could be managed as a temporary inconvenience has been replaced by the more honest truth that Eddie is now part of the machine. The latest season then broadens the world and raises the consequences, leaving the central story in a stronger, more complicated place rather than neatly closing it off. In other words, the trouble has not been solved. It has been promoted.
Character Shout-Outs
Eddie Horniman, played by Theo James: Eddie is the series’ reluctant centre of gravity, a man whose main talent is looking like he would rather be anywhere else while still somehow surviving. James plays him with controlled irritation and a neat line in dry disbelief, which keeps Eddie from turning into a generic posh fool. He is not simply a fish out of water, but a man gradually learning that the water is full of sharks and the sharks have solicitors.
Susie Glass, played by Kaya Scodelario: Susie is the show’s best argument for competence as a form of glamour. Scodelario gives her speed, wit and just enough emotional fatigue to make her feel real rather than merely formidable. She can threaten, negotiate and improvise in the same breath, and the performance makes it easy to see why the room tends to tilt her way even when she is losing ground.
Bobby Glass, played by Ray Winstone: Bobby is all quiet menace and old-guard authority, the sort of man who can make a pause feel like a warning shot. Winstone knows exactly how to make power look effortless, and that is what gives the character such weight. He does not need to shout to dominate a scene, which is fortunate, because everyone else around him seems to be overcompensating for a living.
Freddy Horniman, played by Daniel Ings: Freddy adds comic instability without becoming merely a punchline. Ings leans into the character’s unpredictability and wounded vanity, making him both irritating and oddly touching. Freddy embodies the show’s knack for turning family dysfunction into a criminal liability.
Susie’s wider circle and the ensemble, played by Joely Richardson, Giancarlo Esposito, Vinnie Jones and others: The supporting cast gives the series its texture, from aristocratic smoothness to outright brute force. Richardson brings chilly composure, Esposito lends international poise, and Jones supplies the kind of physical credibility that makes every room feel a little more unsafe. The ensemble is broad by design, but the better performers find enough specificity to keep the world from collapsing into pure caricature.
Deep Dive Highlights
The series is a spin-off of Ritchie’s 2019 film, but it is built as a fresh story rather than a simple continuation of those characters. That matters, because the show is less interested in recycling familiar beats than in expanding the world’s social ecosystem. Aristocratic estates, London streets, industrial spaces and backroom deals all rub against one another, making the setting feel like a map of Britain’s class nerves. The contrast between country-house grandeur and criminal commerce is not just decoration. It is the point.
Ritchie directed the opening episodes and his fingerprints are all over the series’ rhythm: brisk exchanges, sudden tonal turns, a love of visual swagger and a willingness to make exposition feel like a sport. The production filmed in and around London, using studio space and real locations that help the show move from polished interiors to grimier urban edges without losing coherence. That blend of controlled stylisation and recognisable geography gives the series a practical foundation under all its peacocking.
The writing also benefits from the decision to build a serial structure around property, inheritance and criminal succession. This is not just about who gets beaten up, but who gets the keys, the land, the cash flow and the leverage. That gives the show a more durable engine than simple gang warfare. The drama becomes about stewardship, corruption and the price of belonging, which is nicely in keeping with a series that likes its violence dressed up as business.
Legacy & Impact
As a recent series, The Gentlemen’s legacy is still forming, but it has already established itself as one of the more successful examples of a film-to-series expansion that keeps the original tone without becoming trapped by it. It arrived with the advantage of a recognisable brand and a creator whose style is immediately legible, then used that familiarity to build something larger and more episodic. That alone makes it notable in the current television landscape, where many spin-offs feel like corporate paperwork wearing a wig.
The series has also proved durable enough to earn multiple renewals, which says something useful about its audience appeal. It has not become prestige television in the solemn, awards-season sense, and it does not seem to want to. Its influence is more likely to be felt in how confidently it mixes action, class satire and crime comedy without apologising for any of them. For viewers, that is the more important milestone: a show that knows its own angle and keeps hitting it hard.
Skull Face’s Take
The Gentlemen is for viewers who like their crime drama sharp, stylish and a bit ridiculous in the best possible way. It is especially rewarding if you enjoy a strong central performance, power games, class friction and dialogue that occasionally sounds like it has been sharpened on a whetstone. If you want realism, restraint or emotional tenderness to dominate, you will probably bounce off it. If you want an entertainingly cynical underworld with enough wit to keep the bloodletting from feeling like homework, this is well worth the watch.
Skull Face's Score
Skull Face's independent editorial rating
A stylish, sharply acted crime drama with plenty of swagger.
What works
- Theo James and Kaya Scodelario anchor the series היט
- Strong class satire and criminal intrigue
- Confident visual style and brisk momentum
What may not
- Some supporting plots feel overextended
- Occasional self-indulgence in the storytelling
- The tone can overwhelm nuance