Your tolerance for the second season of The Gentlemen will probably depend largely on what you thought of the first season. If you liked those first eight episodes, chances are you will like the new batch as well. As for me, I didn't like Season 1 and didn't much enjoy sitting through the second season. As is the case with most Netflix shows that don't appeal to me and whose new seasons arrive 100 million years later, I have little memory of what happened earlier in the show, though I do vaguely remember noticing shades of comedy in this crime drama. Those shades, alas, are wildly inconsistent this time around, and when they do pop up, they look dull.
In The Gentlemen, Guy Ritchie and his team love doodling on the screen in yellow. It's a pity that what they doodle is just information that you hear in real time from the mouths of the characters. If someone, for instance, is negotiating or pointing out geometrical details in a painting, a yellow-colored text or line will underline the same thing for, um, convenience? Or shall I say humor?
Whatever Ritchie had in mind when he came up with this idea, what these yellow lines do is simply become another tool to hold the hand of the second-screen, impatient audience. They are not so different from the show's impulse to briefly display certain incidents that have happened in the past while a character refers to them in the present. The objective ultimately is to spoon-feed the viewer to the point of fattening them up. This again might not have been an issue in itself if Ritchie were not hellbent on feeding empty calories to the audience. The Gentlemen is the kind of show that relies heavily on dialogue, but what the characters discuss mostly ends up being a matter of moving the story from one point to another. There are no revelatory conversations—whatever impression you get of a person when you are introduced to them is pretty much how they behave for the entire length of the show. There is little to nothing left to know about them. What's left to discover is merely a series of plot twists that are cleverly designed yet devoid of suspense and awe.
It doesn't help that Ritchie and his team film these conversations conventionally. The images are style-challenged, and the various colors on the screen offer superficial gloss. Money has been spent all right on lighting and rich locations, though little of it seems to have gone toward displaying them with verve or an eye for the beauty of architecture, which only leaves the images looking impersonal. The expensive locations just end up serving as a backdrop for the action. Ritchie could have green-screened them in, and nothing would have significantly changed about the show, except probably the fact that the setting would have looked obviously artificial. Then again, it's not as if making them look real or filming them on real locations does The Gentlemen any big favors if it's not gunning for the Best Touristy Showreel of the Year award.
It's still easy to luxuriate in the pleasure of watching suave, well-dressed, gentlemanly men and women planning schemes, holding meetings, and quietly backstabbing those close to them. But after an hour or so, it all starts to feel monotonous. I would have gladly clapped at the sight of one of these cool gentlemen breaking his sober appearance by impulsively taking off his clothes and dancing naked like a joker at a circus. That would have been more fun to watch than the relentless air of "professionalism," which saps energy and humor from scenes that are meant to tickle the audience, like the one where Eddie (Theo James) negotiates the price of a house with a man who finds the aristocratic family insufferable.
Eddie, this season, suffers from guilt and PTSD after he kills an accountant. It's also the kind of psychological distress that's brushed aside after a while without a clear, definite resolution. He just gets over it and teasingly brings it up during a church confession that could have yielded an entertaining and deep debate between the priest (or people who see God in statues and believe they are puppets being manipulated by a higher power) and Eddie (or people who challenge this traditional notion with real philosophy and scientific evidence). I am Team Eddie in this case, though not Team Ritchie, as he goes into this scene with a predetermined outcome. The winner is decided in advance even before Eddie enters the confession box. People like that priest don't easily let their beliefs get shaken up in a matter of a few minutes; they do know how to counter with their own opinions. I obviously don't agree with those opinions, but they do give rise to profound, deeply engaging intellectual sparring that a talky show like The Gentlemen, where most of the conversations can be mind-numbingly plot-driven, could have used more of.
Animals like snakes, tigers, birds, and foxes are mentioned and seen throughout the season because...survival of the fittest? Or maybe to accentuate that this world is filled with prey and predators. Religious scriptures and myths are also discussed, given that Eddie has to both physically and mentally transform into a powerful king this season. One facet of The Gentlemen does deal with Ritchie's attack on the false practice of religion that promotes nothing but the suffering of humankind in this world. No wonder the main villain is revealed to be a cultish figure. To reach Ritchie's mind, however, you have to sit through long hours of tedium. The penultimate episode, I think, is the only episode here that offers respite in the form of sustained suspense and a taut atmosphere. There is also Kaya Scodelario's Susie, who owns every second of her screentime by flaunting fabulous makeup and wardrobe. She also looks just about perfect with her stoic expressions. What's more, the not-so-secret romance between Geoff (Vinnie Jones) and Sabrina (Joely Richardson) has more heart and charm than whatever occurs between Eddie and Isabella (Benedetta Porcaroli) this season. This is why the tragic event doesn't move you much. You also see it coming beforehand, given the overload of sweetness preceding the disaster.
All of this brings me to the conclusion that the second season of The Gentlemen, like the first, is a slog. It doesn't work as a comedy or as a drama. The feeling I got was of watching something that strives to straddle some sort of middle ground but ends up falling in mediocre places. I wish someone had used those yellow lines to draw moustaches on the faces of the characters. That's what I was thinking about while my senses were being numbed by Ritchie's crime thriller. Perhaps in the next season, Ritchie could take this suggestion and deface his show with comical lines and diagrams.
Final Score - [4.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times