Black Doves (Netflix series-2024) We surprised ourselves by semi-binging this 6 episode espionage-action series set in London.
Had a damn good time with it, too. Top loaded with brutal action, twists upon twists and occasional bursts of sick humor.
Real gritty spy stuff? On the surface, yes. But this show dials up all the usual tropes we've come to expect.....way, way up.
All the major players, naturally, are lying, conniving psychopaths, sociopaths and uh....rather untrustworthy.....all skilled in bone crunching hand-to-hand combat and ready to whip out the guns to rack up high body counts when called upon.
And they're called upon to do this stuff frequently. By the time the final episode's over, London's littered with enough blood splattered corpses to keep a morgue busy for two years.
A labyrinth of a plotline? You bet your Glock on it. China's ambassador to Britain is found dead of a drug overdose and his wild-child, drug addict daughter has gone missing. China's not buying the overdose story and it's looking like no amount of Brit diplomacy can avert World War 3.
On top of all that, 3 random people get whacked including the lover of Helen Webb (Keira Knightley), the wife of the British Defense Minister.
But Helen's no ordinary dutiful politician's partner. She's an undercover agent for a shady intelligence outfit that swipes state secrets to auction off to the highest bidder. And that includes all the top secrets Helen overhears from her beloved husband. She duly spills them all to her boss, the mysterious, cryptic Mrs. Reed. (Sarah Lancashire)
Talk about a long term deep cover assignment......Helen's been married to the politico for 10 years, pumped out two children and shmoozed with the high and mighty as her hubby climbs up the ladder to maybe 10 Downing Street itself.
Not only does she seethe and grieve over her lover's death, unknown assassins target her for unknown reasons. That prompts Mrs. Reed to recruit triggerman Sam (Ben Wishaw) to wipe out the threats to Helen before she goes on her own vigilante murder spree.
Sam, by the way, has a whole host of his own problems. After he botched a hit job ordered up by reptilian crime lord Lenny (Kathyrn Hunter), he'd fled the country, abandoning his gay lover Michael. (Omari Douglas). Still in trouble with Lenny, Sam's forced to ally himself with a pair of wisecracking young hit-girls (Agnes 'O Casey, Ella Lily Hyland).
Believe us when we tell you we've only sketched out the bare minimum of the twisting, turning plot complications that bring freelance spies, street thugs, pro assassins, Chinese diplomats, CIA agens and London crime kingpins all colliding together.
Don't worry about losing track.....the show never bores, with each episode providing furious punch-ups, pitched automatic weapons firefights and dead bodies galore.
The more we thought about how much spycraft and carnage are packed into this show, we began to think of it as a ridiculous, overheated but whole-lotta-fun guilty pleasure.......
Acting is uniformly top-of-the-line, particularly Knightley and Wishaw. And special commendations to O' Casey and Hyland as the hit-girls, gifted with all of the show's wittiest retorts and laugh-out-loud moments.
We realize how hard it's become to pick out something to watch amid the literal oceans of streaming series and movies now available......BQ says give this one try.
4 stars (****)
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