Guy Ritchie’s ‘Breaking Bad Meets Downton Abbey’ Action Thriller Returns In 1 Month

In the first week of September 2026, one of Guy Ritchie’s biggest projects of recent years swaggers back onto our TV screens, with an array of new cast members in tow. Now more than ever, this series feels like Ritchie has somehow managed to blend elements of Vince Gilligan’s narco-thriller masterpiece Breaking Bad with the aristocratic serial drama Downton Abbey.

For one thing, its second season adds Robert Crawley actor Hugh Bonneville to a cast that already includes Giancarlo Esposito. The Gentlemen is the unlikeliest of gangster shows, yet it finds a balance between class-based comedy and crime-focused action thrills, in large part thanks to the quality of the scripts penned by Ritchie and his writing team.

Of course, it helps that the show also boasts a stellar cast, led by Theo James and Kaya Scodelario but rounded out by the likes of Esposito, Joely Richardson, Ray Winstone, and Vinnie Jones. The Gentlemen season 2 has only raised our expectations further by bringing Michele Morrone, Sergio Castellito, Maya Jama, and Benedetta Porcaroli onboard, as well as Bonneville.

Among the TV shows Guy Ritchie has been involved with this decade, this action series is arguably closest to his heart, as he created it himself, in addition to writing and directing multiple episodes. The Gentlemen was adapted from Ritchie’s 2019 movie of the same name, and became just the second TV project he’d ever worked on in 2024.

Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen Feels Like Breaking Bad Crossed With Downton Abbey

The story of an English aristocratic family that turns its estate into a gigantic cannabis farm, The Gentleman combines Breaking Bad’s drug-dealing premise with Downton Abbey’s aristocratic setting and gentle sendup of the British upper classes. Much like Walter White, Eddie Horniman is a fish out of water when he finds himself in the narcotics trade.

He soon gains a taste for working in this illicit business, though. By the end of The Gentleman’s first season, Eddie harbors ambitions of expanding his drug empire, in the same way that Walt becomes addicted to the Heisenberg alter ego he creates for himself in Breaking Bad.

Just as Gus Fring becomes a dangerous rival to Walt’s enterprise, here another Giancarlo Esposito, billionaire Stanley Johnston, character attempts to challenge Eddie’s ownership of his family estate. Esposito’s role in The Gentleman effectively replaces his Breaking Bad villain, after we saw the last of Gus in Better Call Saul earlier this decade.

Meanwhile, Guy Ritchie’s series draws on another classic noughties prestige drama for its backdrop and visual style. If Vince Gilligan informs its plot and characterizations, then it’s the long-running Julian Fellowes series Downton Abbey that inspires The Gentlemen’s visual backdrop.

The show manages to apply aristocratic garb and manor-house mannerisms to its rollicking story of contraband empire-building far more successfully than the Matthew McConaughey movie of the same name that preceded it. With James and Scodelario as its protagonists and seasoned Ritchie collaborators in supporting roles, the ostensible disconnect between feudal nobility and all-action underworld criminality is easier to bridge.

The Gentleman Season 2 Is Just Weeks Away

Two years and a half years on from its debut release, The Gentlemen season 2 is coming to Netflix on Thursday, September 3, 2026. Like the season before it, this installment will consist of eight episodes, and will see virtually all of its main cast returning.

Now is the perfect time for anyone who missed it the first time around to catch up on season 1. Fans of Guy Ritchie’s movies, in particular, will find it an immensely entertaining watch embellished by typically stylish visual flourishes.

Off the back of major streaming successes with MobLand and Young Sherlock in the past 12 months alone, there’s every chance that Ritchie will score another huge hit with the second season of The Gentlemen. As the summer draws to an end, millions of Netflix subscribers around the world are guaranteed to be hooked on this comedic action thriller’s return.