Review: Is the second season of Black Doves worth watching?

THE PREMISE BEHIND the Netflix series Black Doves is a nifty one: the wife of a high-ranking British politician is actually a gun-toting spy.

After a critically acclaimed first season in 2024, the show is back for a second run. Keira Knightley returns as Helen Webb, the aforementioned loving mother and member of Black Doves, a covert spy operation. She’s also married to politician Wallace (Andrew Buchan), who has risen from secretary of state for defence to acting Prime Minister.

As the series opens, the family are moving into their new abode at No 10 Downing St and Helen is preparing to spill some more state secrets. 

Her fellow Black Dove and best friend Sam Young (Ben Whishaw) is still somewhat reluctantly working as a spy.

Last time around, this series was rapturously received thanks to its humorous dialogue, well-choreographed fight scenes and extremely stylish look. It was a spy thriller with panache, but that wasn’t afraid to make fun of itself. 

So can we expect some more high-quality action and witty dialogue in season two?

Walking a difficult line

Sarah Lancashire as Mrs Reed and Keira Knightley as Helen Netflix

As in season one, Helen is still walking a difficult line. She’s clinging on to a crumbling marriage and finds a reason for existing through her work. While Helen loves her children, she’s not so attached to them that she second-guesses her choice of career.  

Across the first few episodes, we see just how miserable Helen and her pal Sam are. Sam indulges in drugs to try and escape his vicious ennui, and is unable to reveal to a lover who he really is. He is incredibly damaged because of his work with Black Doves, but he keeps getting sucked back in. Then one night Sam has an unexpected encounter which ends with him getting a new job offer.

Meanwhile, things start getting even more complicated for Helen when her handler Mrs Reed (an excellent Sarah Lancashire) becomes ensnared in a plot and can’t be contacted. Helen’s new bosses are shifty, and she doesn’t feel like they’re trustworthy (if anyone in her line of work can be deemed worthy of trust). Both Helen and Sam’s situations soon collide, leading them into some deadly dead-ends.

Flashbacks

Ella Lily Hyland as Williams Netflix

In a series jammed with cliffhangers and moments of suspense, this second season of Black Doves fills in some backstory gaps to help construct a complex but compelling plot.

In particular, the fourth episode is mostly flashbacks that give us insight into Mrs Reed’s motivations. Part One reveals the spy boss’s origin story in Berlin, while Part Two draws links between her time in the German city and work she asks Helen to do decades later. It also shows us what happened after Sam left the Black Doves years earlier, before he was reunited with Helen in season one.

Some lovely comic relief is found yet again in the characters Williams (Ella Lily Hyland, sporting an incredible Carlow accent) and Eleanor (Gabrielle Creevy), who work with Sam. They’re a hilariously deadpan duo, doling out whip-smart (and sometimes downright silly) one-liners and shooting people dead like it’s no big deal.

Emotional hidden depths to their repartee are revealed this season, adding a lovely frisson to the show. They might not be the smartest spies in town, but they’re extremely entertaining.

Like the first season, Black Doves also draws some dark humour from its more unlikely moments. For a Prime Minister, Helen’s husband Wallace (Andrew Buchan) is far too trusting, and far too clueless about how much subterfuge his wife is involved with under his nose.

Yes, he has long known something isn’t quite right, and he doubts his wife’s emotional truth-telling abilities… but how does he miss the hidden devices and the gun hidden under a bath? Other moments, like conversations using hidden earpieces, also strain credulity. Yet they’re all part of Black Doves’ world building, stoking the sense that among us lurk smart spies who easily get away with murder. 

Action-packed

Andrew Buchan as Wallace and Keira Knightley as Helen Netflix

Over just six episodes, Black Doves packs in a lot of action. To its credit, it avoids the second-screen temptation that other streaming series lean into. Glances, silent conversations and dialogue-free montages ensure that we have to keep our eyes on the screen lest we miss something crucial.

This is a stylish series. The score has more than a few things in common with Slow Horses, while the soundtrack is full of contemporary zingers and old-school jazz standards. An extended conversation in episode five about the Black Doves’ music taste, and whether they should put on Williams’ ‘murder mix’, gets a nice pay-off as an upbeat pop song blares out during a car chase afterwards. 

One of the less successful points of season two, however, is an American government employee played by Neve Campbell (Scream), who tonally is out of whack with the rest of the show. As she’s in a small number of scenes, it doesn’t impact the enjoyment levels too much.

In the final episode, the threads all come together, culminating in a show-stopping setpiece that leads to some unexpected revelations about Mrs Reed, a key Russian politician Alexi Chernov, and several other characters. Helen’s been under a lot of pressure across the series, but in the finale her situation is about to combust. It’s a deliciously tense and bloody 55 minutes that wraps up some lingering questions while leaving the door open for a third season (as you’d expect).

Life lessons

Ben Whishaw as Sam Netflix

There’s more to Black Doves than just countless killings. Most of the characters are questioning how to live their lives well, and how to cope with what they’ve done wrong.

Life – we are shown and told – is very short. You might have to make some decisions you don’t want to make, and you might not get a chance to make amends. In Black Doves, death is quick and often imminent. But while they are living, the characters are on edge, anxious and searching for answers.

Black Doves doesn’t get too bogged down in these existential dramas. But the questions it raises add some depth to a series that also gives us all the shoot-outs, espionage thrills and dark humour we could ask for.

Black Doves is streaming on Netflix now.