While preparing to watch the finale of Netflix’s The Gentlemen’s terrific second season, I thought I had all my suspects accounted for. Who had the money, the resources, and the motivation to kill Duke Eddie’s wife Bella, kidnap his nephew Tarquin, and possibly put him and the whole rest of his family in the ground? Bobby Glass, his unforgiving partner, felt like a red herring. There was always the possibility it was a rogue agent, like Marco Moretti’s scheming consigliere Angelica. My prime suspect was Moretti himself. Wasn’t Bobby warned not to trust him by the Bannik, a message he missed all the way back in episode one?
But there’s one man I wasn’t thinking of. There’s one many I don’t think anybody was thinking of. And that’s exactly how Freddy Horniman, Eddie’s older brother, almost pulled off his palace coup.
Unfortunately for Freddy, he winds up forced to pull off something else entirely.
Only Susie Glass puts a stop to Eddie making a run for Bobby, based on bad intel he and Geoff torture out of their captured mercenary (Peter Ferdinando) by attaching a car battery to his bollocks. (Torture gives you bad intel is one of those facts that only rarely works its way into fiction; honestly, good on The Gentlemen for questioning the practical justification for torture as well as the moral one.) Things are so bad that he actually has his one-legged ex-army sniper mate Andy (Cassidy Little) draw a bead on her as they talk in the fields outside Halstead Manor.
“The Duke will always have time for you, Su-Su, trust,” her weed botanist Jimmy had said before she left for the meeting, though, and he was right. Eddie reluctantly gives her enough time to make her case, her voice choking up as she insists Bobby — she — did not do this to him. The I could never do that to you is heavily implied.
Ultimately, it’s money that makes Eddie see reason, as it so often is. He learns that on the day of his wedding, Bobby invested big time in the future of Eddie Horniman, purchasing his hundred million pound debt from Mr. Johnston. He may be crazy, but he’s not nuts enough to land himself a hundred mil in the hole by putting Eddie into a hole.
Johnston confirms this, as only Johnston can. He once again gives Eddie one of his little lessons in cultural iconography, talking about the three temptations Christ endured during his time in the desert with Satan. It’s a bit labored and tendentious, to be honest, but his point is that this is the final obstacle Eddie must overcome to become the King of Kings.
First, however, he has to find the person who killed Bella and tried to kidnap baby Tarquin, and he’s consumed by ultraviolent fantasies of gun battles in the streets of London. Susie goes so far as to warn Bobby to stay out of business with him, warning that he’s too volatile, but Bobby says they need him and he needs them. Nanny, meanwhile, tries to take his family out of Halstead Manor, only to be told by his old army buddy Eddie that he’s going nowhere in no uncertain terms. No one walks out of this ancestral home! (He does eventually relent.)
It’s Sabrina who unlocks the mystery for Eddie, though she winds up wishing she hadn’t. She mentions a strange phone call she received that day from Freddy, who rang from the rehab center, claiming to have had a disturbing dream and calling to confirm that everyone was alright. Just after that phone call, the still-living (though not for long) captive mercenary’s attempt to contact his employer gets rejected with an obscene text message. This means he knew the mission had gone wrong, despite the merc’s lie that he’d gotten all his targets.
So Eddie pays Freddy a little visit, but not before first teaming up with Susie to take down the men who made Freddy’s scheme possible: the ultra-religious Liverpool druglord John the Gospel, who blames Eddie for the death of his brother, the event that kicked off the whole show. As was hinted at several times throughout the season but only really emphasized once or twice, John and Freddy have teamed up to take out Eddie, give Tarquin up for adoption, and make Freddy the uncontested Duke of Halstead. (At no point is it mentioned that Freddy actually pulled the trigger on John’s brother, which might be nice for someone to point out!)
John is lured into a meeting with the Vargas, the Peruvian kingpin, in a beautifully lit airport warehouse. (On this show, there’s no other kind of airport warehouse.) Vargas, of course, owes Eddie and Susie one for exposing the rat in his own organization, and he’s returning that favor. Eddie and company kill John’s entire crew, but spare the bearded preacher himself.
When Eddie arrives at the rehab center, he’s not alone. Susie’s men pull up in a black van, with a bound and gagged Gospel John inside…along with a chainsaw. Eddie beats Freddy badly, but he obeys his mother’s wishes and does not kill his own brother. Instead, he forces him to kill Gospel John by chopping him up with the chainsaw, a murder we hear rather than see, which somehow makes it even more disturbing. When the van door opens, Freddy steps out with John’s severed head. He also appears to have quite lost his own.
With this final power play — sparing his older brother, but breaking him by forcing him to become the killer he was never meant to be, and in such an awful way — Eddie proves Johnston is right about him. He is the bearer of both the scepter of judgement and the orb of forgiveness, the king Johnston has been searching for. He’s even made it clear to Bobby that not even that hundred million pound debt gives Glass the right to give him orders anymore. The new king of England has just crowned himself.
For the second season in a row, The Gentlemen ends on Eddie at his most ruthless and remorseless — a far cry from the man who kept himself up thinking of that poor accountant. Guy Ritchie and Matthew Read’s script, once again ably directed by Eran Creevy, could have concluded the season on any number of notes, from triumph to tragedy; they chose “this guy is a cold-blooded bastard,” and for that they should be commended.
You can extend that commendation up and down the season, a darker, richer, more spectacular outing than the already strong Season 1. It’s still a fun British gangster romp, but it’s got way more in its head than some bloke’s bullets. The Gentlemen was always a good show. Now, it’s A Good Show.
