Keira Knightley gets her own Slow Horses with Black Doves, a six-part espionage series which proves that the Brits remain the undisputed masters of spy fiction.
Far glossier than its ragamuffin Apple TV+ compatriot, Joe Barton’s Netflix offering, premiering Dec. 5, is an engaging and often thrilling game of cat-and-mouse between a spook, an assassin, a handler, and a variety of underworld and government figures, all of whom find themselves ensnared in a mystery of personal and global consequence. Buoyed by excellent performances from its lead and her co-star Ben Whishaw, with whom she shares charming chemistry, it’s an efficient and effective potboiler that should mark the beginning of a long-running saga.
In London at Christmastime, Helen (Knightley) is the cheery wife to defense secretary Wallace Webb (Andrew Buchan) and mother to two adorable children. She’s also a spy who’s a member of a covert organization known as the Black Doves who are affiliated with no nation and collect valuable information for their well-paying clients.
At her annual Christmas party, Helen is informed by her boss Mrs. Reed (Sarah Lancashire)—a cool, self-possessed woman with silver hair that neatly frames her face—that a civil servant named Jason Davies (Andrew Koji) was shot the prior evening on a bench along the Thames. As Mrs. Reed knows, this is earth-shattering news for Helen, because she was having an affair with Jason. What Reed didn’t know, but learns, is that Helen wasn’t sleeping with him to procure intel or develop a source; rather, it was “love,” and Helen was in fact considering running away with him—and, thus, her job as a well-placed mole.
Two people working with Jason—one a jewelry store clerk, the other a tabloid journalist—were executed on the same night, suggesting that they stuck their noses in the wrong place. All Helen cares about is vengeance, and to make sure she doesn’t get herself into monumental trouble, Mrs. Reed enlists the services of Sam Young (Whishaw), a hitman who originally trained Helen (and befriended her in the process), and who’s been on the run for years following his failure to complete a hit on behalf of ruthless employer Lenny Lines (Kathryn Hunter).
Sam’s departure coincided with a grave incident that ruined his meaningful romantic relationship with Michael (Omari Douglas), and his return forces him to confront his messy past, even as he endeavors to help Helen get what she wants without causing an international incident.
Black Doves succinctly establishes its characters and story, which also involves the recent overdose death of a Chinese ambassador. Beijing doesn’t believe that their representative’s demise was an accident, and it’s little surprise to discover that they’re correct—and that his passing is related to Jason’s murder. The ambassador’s daughter Kai-Ming (Isabella Wei) is missing, and she was in contact with Jason, whose killers are now hunting her.
As if this situation wasn’t tangled enough, Kai-Ming is being held captive by the very individual Sam failed to kill many years earlier, and Jason and his cohorts were in touch with a man referred to as “SY” who had vital information about the ambassador’s passing—and who might be related to those in English power. Additionally, Lenny’s assassin Williams (Ella Lily Hyland) is now hellbent on taking out Sam because, to save Helen, he blew away her partner with a shotgun.
Barton’s series sets this scene in its first two episodes while additionally detailing the origins of Helen and Sam’s friendship via flashbacks to her initial recruitment into, and training for, the Black Doves. It is, quite frankly, a lot of plot, but Black Doves handles it all quite smoothly. Better yet, it never dawdles; the material is always taut and tough, punctuated by regular action sequences (knife fights, shootouts, car chases, daring missions) that prevent the pace from flagging.
Sleekly shot by directors Alex Gabassi and Lisa Gunning, it moves at an urgent pace, save for a few interludes involving Sam and Michael, whose relationship is designed to deepen the former—underlining that despite his lethal profession, he’s really a quite nice and sensitive guy—but is, in the end, an addendum to the narrative proper, and thus sometimes an unnecessary distraction.
Knightley’s jokey, heartfelt rapport with Whishaw is frequently the most entertaining aspect of Black Doves, providing it with a welcome dose of levity. Helen and Sam feel like old friends, and their dynamic grounds the show as it tangles itself up in knots with conspiracies, double-crosses, and subterfuges, some of them perpetrated by Mrs. Reed, whose interests aren’t necessarily aligned with those of her favorite spy.
There’s nothing particularly novel about any of this, and that’s ultimately a far bigger hindrance than a few semi-implausible (or at least exceedingly convenient) twists. Still, Barton knows how to spin a convoluted yarn, and he skillfully imbues his myriad players—whether they’re in the foreground (like Buchan’s Wallace) or on the periphery (such as Gabrielle Creevy’s hitwoman Eleanor)—with entertaining personality.
At times, Black Doves is a bit too conventional for its own good, such as the revelation that Sam has daddy issues, but it makes up for it with amusing touches, as when Helen responds to Sam’s hang-up about his assassin father with a cheeky Proust reference. Moreover, it tells a contained story in satisfying fashion while simultaneously laying the groundwork for future installments, the promise of which becomes increasingly enticing as it wraps up its maiden run.
Thanks to Knightley and Whishaw’s excellent turns, it’s easy to root for Helen and Sam, and that’s central to the show’s success. Well, that and a fundamental understanding that genre fare should pop, which this one does whenever Knightley is asked to handle a gun (even while pregnant!) or spar with a blade-wielding adversary.
Black Doves isn’t a radical reimagining so much as a first-rate replication, and that’s to its benefit. A potboiler that keeps one guessing (more or less) until its end and boasts a handful of excellent set pieces and confrontations that culminate in unexpected ways, it’s a holiday-themed streaming affair that should make for ideal Yuletide viewing—and a promising start to what will hopefully be a long-running spy series.
