Guy Ritchie's crime series about Eddie Horniman, an aristocrat who inherits an estate containing an underground cannabis empire and discovers an unexpected talent for the criminal business.
The Meghan Markle rumor has changed context in a matter of weeks. When reports first connected her to The Gentlemen, Netflix had not even renewed the show for a third season. That part is now official. Guy Ritchie's series is coming back. Markle's involvement, however, remains exactly where it started: in the negotiation column.
Netflix is no longer waiting to see whether Eddie Horniman can get out of the business. The Gentlemen has officially been renewed for an eight-episode third season, with Guy Ritchie returning behind the camera. The decision was made before Season 2 even reached subscribers.
Netflix has answered the renewal question before viewers have even seen the season that would normally decide it. The Gentlemen is officially returning for Season 3, with eight more episodes ordered ahead of Season 2's September 3 premiere.
The Gentlemen works because it understands exactly what pleasure it is selling: impeccably dressed aristocrats discovering that they are not morally very far removed from the gangsters operating beneath their land. Two seasons in, the joke still works thanks to Susie, Freddy, Geoff and a procession of criminals capable of turning every business transaction into theatre. Season 2 even gives Eddie a clearer trajectory, transforming him from a man trapped by criminality into one increasingly attracted to the power it provides. The problem is that Guy Ritchie rarely knows when to leave the table. Detours accumulate, dialogue sometimes performs its own cleverness too aggressively, and sumptuous presentation disguises a familiar narrative machine. This is not quite the great crime drama its tailoring suggests. It is something lighter, sillier and often more entertaining: a very good gangster romp that would benefit from letting its characters talk a little less and change a little more.
