Is Black Doves worth watching? Six episodes, and Keira Knightley isn't the one everyone talks about
Black Doves is sold as Keira Knightley's spy show, and somewhere around the first shootout it turns into Ben Whishaw's.
Joe Barton, who made Giri/Haji, created the series for Netflix, and all six episodes of the first season landed on December 5, 2024. It's set in London over Christmas. Knightley plays Helen Webb, the wife of the British defense secretary, who has been quietly passing his secrets to the Black Doves, an outfit that sells information to whoever pays. When someone she cares about is killed, her handler, Sarah Lancashire's coolly terrifying Mrs. Reed, sends an old friend to keep her alive.
That friend is Sam Young, a professional killer with a bad habit of feeling things, and he's the reason people keep recommending the show.
Why everyone talks about Sam
Barton wrote Sam as a hitman, then gave him more feelings than a hitman strictly needs.
"Sam is a character who is capable of great violence, but also great softness," Barton told Netflix's Tudum.
Sam is gay, grieving a relationship he walked away from, and very good at his job, and Whishaw plays all of it at once.
Critics noticed. Empire's Olly Richards wrote that "Whishaw is equally strong as Sam, a man who can kill without hesitation," and Whishaw won the Gotham TV Award for outstanding supporting performance in a drama series.
Knightley isn't the problem
She's just in the less flashy part. Helen spends the season lying to her husband and to most of the people around her, while the man who knows the truth gets the fight scenes. Knightley got a Golden Globe nomination for it, and RogerEbert.com's review called it "the role of a lifetime."
What holds the show together is the two of them. Knightley put it plainly.
"The most important relationship Helen has is with Sam," Knightley told Tudum.
The friendship is the actual love story here, and Barton built it that way on purpose. "It was always, to me, going to be a story about friendship," he said.
So, is it worth it?
Yes, especially if you like spy shows that don't take themselves too seriously. Here's what you're signing up for:
- six episodes, so a weekend is plenty;
- spies who argue while they fight: "bickering insults are exchanged mid-shootout," as Empire put it;
- a festive London setting that makes the violence feel even more out of place;
- strong reviews across the board: 94% on Rotten Tomatoes and 78 on Metacritic.
If you want a slow-burn espionage puzzle in the John le Carré mold, this isn't it. It moves fast and doesn't mind being funny.
Season 2 is a week away
Netflix releases the second season on November 5, and both leads are back. Helen's husband is now close to becoming prime minister, which makes her side job considerably riskier. Neve Campbell, Ambika Mod and Sam Riley join the cast.
Season 2 finds Sam drinking alone in Soho bars and taking jobs that barely pay.
Previously we wrote: Who killed Jason in Black Doves? His death was a cover-up for the ambassador's