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The Gentlemen: A Deliciously Absurd Ride

 

The Gentlemen (series)

I quickly knew The Gentlemen was going to be fun when Eddie's brother threw a tantrum like a 2-year-old over the inheritance. And honestly, that scene sets the tone rather well.

Eddie (Theo James) thinks he has inherited a country estate. What he has actually inherited is a whole world he knows very little about.

Welcome to the Family Business

Eddie soon discovers his father had a rather unusual source of income, and the family estate suddenly comes with drug operations, criminals, rival businesses, and people very interested in the new heir.

One thing I enjoyed was seeing the backstage of the drug business. The show doesn't just give us criminals and drugs; it builds a whole little ecosystem around them, with its own rules, businesses, and personalities.

And, of course, Eddie has to learn how to navigate it. (While we laugh.)

Freddy Steals the Show

Freddy (Daniel Ings) is a character.

I absolutely love him. He can make me furious and laugh hard at the same time, which is quite an achievement. He is impulsive, entitled, ridiculous, and somehow impossible not to watch.

Actually, after meeting Freddy, we also understand why Eddie's father might have had second thoughts about who should inherit everything.

Jimmy (Michael Vu) is another favorite for completely different reasons. He is sweet and almost naïve for someone working in this world, and his love of weed is genuinely hilarious. There is something wonderfully funny about his enthusiasm for marijuana existing alongside everything else going on around him.

Nobody Gets an Easy Way Out

One of the show's best tricks is that solutions rarely last for long.

Eddie might solve one problem, only to discover he's created another. Betrayals, negotiations, and deals constantly shift the balance between the characters, so you never quite know who will be working with whom next.

Mr Glass (Ray Winstone) is particularly interesting in this respect. He is clearly smart and seems to understand the game better than most of the people around him. Trying to get one over on him doesn't seem like a particularly sensible career choice.

And yet, people keep trying.

A Lot of Fun

The Gentlemen doesn't take itself too seriously, and that's probably what makes it work so well for me.

It can put its characters in genuinely dangerous situations and then find something completely ridiculous about them. The result is a show that is violent and criminal without becoming relentlessly dark.

It is also full of little surprises, and I never felt like I could completely predict where things were going.

The whole thing has a delicious quality. It's funny, occasionally outrageous, populated by characters who are much more entertaining than they have any right to be, and it knows exactly what kind of show it wants to be.

The Gentlemen is a lot of fun to watch.

And after spending a season watching Eddie discover exactly what his inheritance involves, I'm curious to see who else might come knocking on his door.

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