‘Black Doves’ Season 2 Review: Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw Return for More Crackling Chemistry and Bittersweet Thrills in Netflix Spy Thriller

En route to a murderous mission, trunk loaded with what must be a small platoon’s worth of machine guns and hand grenades, four deadly operatives suddenly find themselves mired in a heated battle … over who gets to control the playlist.

Zoomer assassins Williams (Ella Lily Hyland) and Eleanor (Gabrielle Creevy) like to hype themselves up to raucous party music (“Picture this, I’m a bag of dicks”). Triggerman Sam (Ben Whishaw) prefers the more downbeat vibe of a low voice over a slow piano. Undercover agent Helen (Keira Knightley), not much of a music nerd, suggests mainstream stuff — Olly Murs, maybe, or early Beatles.

The pleasure of Black Doves is that somehow, all these picks seem entirely apropos for the mood concocted by creator Joe Barton, equal parts irreverent and melancholic and broadly crowd-pleasing. In combination with a top-notch cast, witty dialogue and solid action, that tone is the show’s not-so-secret weapon — the thing that allows it to glide over any narrative pitfalls it might hit along the way, if not always to avert them completely.

Like so many critically acclaimed streaming shows, the spy thriller is returning for its six-hour second season after enough time away (nearly two years) that you’d be forgiven for forgetting Sam and Helen had any outstanding business at all. Unlike a lot of its brethren — but helpfully for fans like yours truly who remember enjoying the series, but not necessary what transpired within it — it’s not a show that requires much recall of anything but the bare basics of the plot.

Which, in case your memory is really spotty, are these: The title refers to a private intelligence operation, based in London but loyal to no particular country. Clever Helen is one of its prize jewels, having honeypotted her way into a marriage and two kids with a politician (Andrew Buchan’s Wallace) who, as of season two, has just ascended to the office of prime minister. Lonely Sam is her best friend and literal partner in crime, and although the unpredictable nature of their professional field means they regularly go long stretches without contact, each is always there for the other when they call.

As one of his first initiatives in office, Wallace is mounting a multinational peace summit, which is exactly the kind of high-stakes event Helen was installed to keep an eye on. But whatever meddling the Black Doves had planned is waylaid when Helen’s handler, the icy Reed (Sarah Lancashire), goes missing. At the same time, Sam’s been strong-armed by a mysterious operative (Sam Riley) into carrying out a string of hits, no questions asked.

So far, so standard espionage drama stuff — albeit executed with above-average style, from Sam and Helen’s enviable collection of fall outerwear to cool action sequences that have fun with the layout of a posh gallery or a Downton-esque manor. What really sets Black Doves apart, though, are its lovable characters and its beguiling mix of laughs and tears, which flirt with existential despair without ever fully tipping into it.

Knightley remains a stone-cold badass, so convincing as both a loving family woman and a ruthless operative that it’s not clear even Helen knows where one ends and the other begins. Whishaw continues to get tremendous mileage out of his big sad puppy-dog eyes, which prompt even Sam’s most jaded marks to advise him to get out of this business before it eats him alive. The platonic chemistry between Helen and Sam feels fierce and lived-in; whatever low-level bickering or existential stakes might arise between them, you never doubt for a second that they’re soulmates.

They share a similarly believable big-sibling-little-sibling connection with the show’s secondary duo, Eleanor and Williams, who this season graduate from mischievous comic relief to something a little deeper. (Albeit not too deep to punctuate their emotional breakthroughs with casually tossed bombs.) And new to the ensemble this year, but fitting in so seamlessly you might believe she’s always been there, is Whishaw’s This Is Going to Hurt costar Ambika Mod as Laila, a hilariously abrasive Black Dove who becomes a welcome breath of no-fucks-given fresh air amid a crew otherwise plagued by inconvenient emotions.

So delightful is it to just get to hang out with this gang, whether they’re slow-motion shooting their way through a cadre of henchmen or winding down afterward at a swanky jazz bar, that it’s easy to forgive missteps that might sink less charming shows. Like the premise of the series itself, which posits that the wife of the British prime minister might be able to carry out her often explosively violent missions in the middle of London in broad daylight without anyone noticing — not even the MI5 agent (Adam Best) who’s begun to suspect Helen is not quite who she says she is. (The best poor Wallace is able to deduce is that Helen isn’t always being totally honest with him.)

Or the season’s big reveal coming in the form of flashbacks that not only feel lifted from another, far less entertaining espionage drama, but lean on emotions the show, to the end, never actually earns. For that matter, I could also complain about the waste of several intriguing guest stars, including Neve Campbell as a “Silicon Valley blue-chip clone idiot” from the States and Sylvia Hoeks as the shrewd wife of a Russian oligarch, who are left to wander aimlessly around the margins until they can be unconvincingly incorporated into the big, bloody finale.

But grumbles have a way of turning into laughs whenever Black Doves lobs in another unexpectedly funny exchange (“Oh, where pasta’s from,” Williams quips when Sam reflects moodily on a bittersweet spell in Italy) or into sympathetic sighs whenever it’s moved to reveal its surprisingly big, irresistibly bruised heart. Trapped between pasts they can’t undo and futures they dare not dream of, Black Doves’ killer characters have as much reason as any of us to feel the walls closing in. What a blessing, in those moments of despair, to get to have a friend to hold hands with as you shoot your way into another hard-won day in the present.