The Gentlemen Season 2 on Netflix: Aristocracy Has Never Been This Dangerous

If you’ve seen Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen, starring Matthew McConaughey, along with the first season of the series of the same name inspired by the film, you already know exactly what we’re talking about today. For everyone else: let’s just say the use of the word “gentlemen” here flirts dangerously with irony. There’s a wide, wide gap between the refinement of the term and the morality of those who wear it. That gap is precisely where the series finds its charm. Today we’re talking about its return to Netflix, streaming now as of September 3, 2026.

The premise of The Gentlemen

A war of succession between well-bred drug traffickers, where an impeccably elegant British aristocrat has to learn to navigate the underworld of organized crime to save the family estate. That’s not quite the premise of the original film, which showed instead how traffickers had climbed into high society by exploiting the financial woes of great English families. But the series and the film meet on one point: both, quite literally, dig beneath aristocratic grounds to plant their cannabis crops. That’s where the comparison ends.

Looking back at Season 1

In Season 1, Theo James (breakout star of The White Lotus) plays Eddie Horniman, Duke of Halstead, an estranged son who gets pulled into the industrial cannabis empire of Bobby Glass (Ray Winstone), a career criminal based in London’s East End. Alongside him, Kaya Scodelario (seen in Crawl) plays Susie Glass, Bobby’s daughter: naturally elegant, utterly ruthless, and firmly in control of the day-to-day drug operation. Guy Ritchie is behind the wheel as creator, co-writer, executive producer, and director of the season’s first two episodes, out of eight total.

We meet Eddie just as he inherits his father’s fortune, only to discover it’s built largely on a cannabis empire. “One can imagine His Grace would like to extricate himself from this particular business,” Ritchie told Netflix. But the British underworld doesn’t quite see it that way: a host of unsavoury characters want their cut. Eddie decides to beat the gangsters at their own game, striking deals that will likely come back to haunt him.

And the deeper he gets pulled into this world, the more he starts to like it. It’s precisely in that tension, between the aristocratic world and the underworld, that the series finds its appeal. As Ritchie puts it: “It really is the crux of the show, the evolution of the zoo to the jungle, and how you hunt in the jungle.” Will Eddie survive his own ambition? You can probably guess the answer.

What truly sets The Gentlemen apart, beyond the plot, is its sartorial language, orchestrated by costume designer Loulou Bontemps, a longtime Guy Ritchie collaborator. Eddie Horniman starts out dressed like an English country gentleman, a style you might call neutral, almost invisible. But as he sinks deeper into organized crime, his wardrobe evolves right along with him: he trades his military uniform and checked shirts for Barbour jackets, car coats, and impeccably cut evening suits. The transformation is gradual, almost organic: Bontemps describes a man who, surrounded by a new circle, gradually gains style, from crewnecks all the way up to three-piece suits. A progression that echoes the character’s own rise, from the zoo to the jungle, to borrow Ritchie’s words.

The wardrobe: where aristocracy meets the underworld

The show’s wardrobe draws heavily on classic British sartorial heritage, blending tweed, country attire, and an understated but assertive refinement. Some have even dubbed the style “manor-core,” a crossover between preppy, British cottage-core, and the “stealth wealth” trend. Tweed three-piece suits, cashmere shawl collars, waxed jackets: Eddie Horniman’s wardrobe proves you can be a gangster without ever sacrificing elegance. Bobby Glass, played by Ray Winstone, takes the opposite approach, drawing straight from Savile Row, with perfectly tailored jackets, silk scarves, and noble textiles like cashmere, a reminder that in this world, power is always worn with panache. Season 2, which shifts part of the action to the Italian lakes, should, in all likelihood, put that British heritage vocabulary in contact with a more relaxed Mediterranean elegance. That contrast promises to be just as satisfying visually as it is narratively.

What to expect in The Gentlemen Season 2

Eddie Horniman is no longer the reluctant duke finding his footing in a criminal underworld. He’s scaling up his empire, and everyone around him is about to feel the repercussions.

As the series returns on September 3, a year has passed since Eddie became the reluctant heir to his aristocratic family’s rambling estate. Now, after joining forces with Susie Glass and her luxuriously incarcerated father, Bobby, Eddie is discovering that being a power player in the criminal underworld fits him like an immaculately tailored suit.

“Season 2 was always going to be about Eddie expanding the reach of his criminal empire and testing the relationship Eddie has with Bobby Glass as the person he’s working under,” says Matthew Read, lead writer and executive producer.

For Theo James, Eddie’s ambition has been building internally and is ready to explode outward. “By Season 2, he is a man very much at the helm of it, and he’s bought into the possibilities of what both worlds can bring him, both as an aristocrat and a criminal,” James tells Tudum. As seen in the trailer, Eddie is thinking about his destiny to lead, his birthright as the Duke of Halstead. “That ignites a fiery ambition in him, and it also starts to move the ego,” James continues. “It gives him the ability to make decisions based on this idea of wanting more.”

Heading to Italy

A year after joining forces within Bobby’s empire, Eddie and Susie watch the enterprise grow, even as the patriarch’s decisions become increasingly reckless. The duo must now decide whether to take action or risk losing it all, and unfettered ambition never ends well.

“I think Eddie is extremely aspirational,” says Read. “He wants more.” To Eddie, “more” is a lot. That ambition takes Eddie and Susie’s operation from a cannabis farm buried underneath Halstead all the way to the lakeside villas of Italy, where the power duo tries, with mixed success, to keep a low profile. “They’re operating in Italy under the radar,” Read explains. But it’s hard to stay unnoticed while climbing the criminal food chain. Their rise brings Eddie into the orbit of Marco Moretti (Sergio Castellitto), a powerful Italian crime boss whom Read describes as “extremely ruthless and elegant,” and the mercurial fixer Cico Maldini (Michele Morrone). “[Cico] is the man they’re entrusting to help them navigate their criminal enterprise in Italy, but he’s not a man to be trusted,” Read adds.

Eddie is also raising his profile within the world of legitimate business, and every one of his alliances gets tested. Read sums up the whole stakes of the season in one question: is Eddie asking for too much? Will he lose his soul in his quest to ascend?

A third season has already been confirmed.

The cast

Returning for The Gentlemen Season 2: Theo James (The Monkey, The White Lotus), Kaya Scodelario (Senna, Crawl), Ray Winstone (Sexy Beast, Nil By Mouth), Daniel Ings (I Hate Suzie, The Crown), Joely Richardson (Renegade Nell, One Day), Vinnie Jones (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch), Jasmine Blackborow (Legends, Marie Antoinette), Michael Vu (Sumotherhood, In the Grey), Harry Goodwins (One Spoon of Chocolate, Sunset Drive), Ruby Sear (Clayface), Pearce Quigley (Detectorists, Showtrial), and Giancarlo Esposito (The Residence, Captain America: Brave New World).

Joining the cast: Hugh Bonneville (I Came By, The Agency), Benjamin Clementine (Dune, Blitz), Benedetta Porcaroli (The Leopard, Amanda), Amra Mallassi (Dune: Part Two, Hijack), Tyler Conti (Tell Me Everything, Safe), British professional boxer Chris Eubank Jr., and broadcaster and entrepreneur Maya Jama.

Watch The Gentlemen Season 2 now

Watch on Netflix