Sticking with a series that doesn’t get off to a commanding start can be a tall order in the present day. There are so many options of shows to watch, and trusting one that doesn’t grab you entirely out of the gate to bring it home isn’t an easy ask of the viewer. Such is the case with Black Doves. The first episode introduces a lot of plot and numerous characters in a spy thriller set around the Yuletide season in London. When the second episode flashes back to how the main characters, Helen (Keira Knightley) and Sam (Ben Whishaw), first got to know each other, it feels like a bit of whiplash.
However, knowing that the creator of Giri/Haji (a show in contention for worst cancellations ever after just one season), Joe Barton was the creator of Black Doves, gave me a reason to trust. I am happy to say that trust paid off in spades.
Knightley’s “Helen” leads a seemingly idyllic life of domesticity, married to a high-level bureaucrat in the British government. Her husband (Andrew Buchan) is a kind, if dull, man who is probably just a bit too decent to be this high up the UK ladder, but some things you aren’t supposed to think about too much when watching drama, and this is one of them.
As we soon learn, the mystery of their relationship isn’t how such an effervescent woman ends up with such a dry, semi-charmed man. The truth of their relationship is that it’s a long-game ruse. Helen works for a pro-capitalist shadow organization known as “the Black Doves,” that places her in the role of a fetching woman whose job it is to fetch a powerful man, marry him, have two children with him, and sneak government secrets to her handler, a woman named Reed (perfectly played by Sarah Lancashire). In short, Helen is a Trojan horse with a spy inside it.
The trouble for Helen is that while she may not feel heat for her husband, she does feel warmth and affection, and guilt is beginning to overcome her. She’s been considering ways to get out (with children in tow). When a man she is having an affair with is suddenly murdered, her life becomes complicated far beyond the labyrinthine set of lies she was already navigating.
As Helen’s troubles worsen, her former trainer, Sam (Ben Whishaw), enters the scene. Ben is now a former Black Dove turned assassin who reconciles his deadly deeds by declaring, “I’ve never pulled a trigger that didn’t make the world a better place.”
That being said, Sam isn’t just a sociopath (although he is that); he is something of a lonely, bruised soul who also yearns for a normal life. The trouble is Helen and Sam’s shared desire for normalcy has long since reached the point of no return. Too many years have passed, and like it or not, they’ve become lifers.
While the spy game intrigue brings about many pleasurable (if familiar) thrills, the core of Black Doves is the lonely friendship between Helen and Sam. Each is the only person in the world who truly knows the other.
The last few years since Knightley received her second Oscar nomination for The Imitation Game in 2015 have not been kind to her. She took time off to start a family, and while she has managed to keep busy, her best work in films like Official Secrets, Collette, and Boston Strangler has been underseen and underlauded. Over the course of Black Doves’ six episodes, we are reminded of why Knightley became a star in the first place: that distinctive face, easy charm, clever wit, and her fierce dramatic chops are all on display here. Knightley has always been a slight-of-build woman, but those training days from Domino (Tony Scott’s completely misunderstood gonzo bounty hunter thriller from 2005) appear to have come back to her in a flash. Knightley sells with ease that Helen is a dangerous woman.
As terrific as Knightley is in the series, Ben Whishaw’s “Sam” often threatens to walk away with the whole show. It takes some time to sink in (maybe too long for some), but while the blood of a killer course through Sam’s veins, so does a sizable dose of the romantic. His affection for a man named Michael (Omari Douglas) is deeply felt. In a flashback sequence showing Sam’s doomed romance with Michael, creator Joe Barton accomplishes a great deal in a short period of time. From their “meet-cute,” to Sam’s inability to close his eyes and not see Michael’s, and then to the crashing halt of their relationship played out in a remarkably moving action sequence that makes the heart pump and break simultaneously.
While all the morally complex actions and the action-oriented “derring-do” is decidedly well done and enjoyable, the spy elements are just what Hitchcock used to refer to as “The Macguffin,” which loosely translates to the thing you think the movie is about (in the case of Black Doves a recording of the murder of a diplomat) is not really what the movie is about. It’s just the engine that drives the story.
In the case of Black Doves, the story is that of two “magnets” played winningly by Knightley and Whishaw, who will constantly be orbiting each other and, on the occasions when one needs the other the most, be there.
That’s not exactly what one might expect from a freshly dropped Netflix spy series, but that is what Barton and crew give us. Black Doves doesn’t need to go that deep into character to be entertaining, but it’s willing to ask of you that extra bit of patience that will be rewarding well beyond your expectations if you can give yourself the time.
Not to mention, any show that begins and ends with The Pogues and Kirsty McColl’s “Fairytale of New York” can’t be all bad. As it turns out, after a little bit of a bumpy start, Black Doves proves to be a sensational late-year contender for many a top-ten list, including my own.
Black Doves is streaming now on Netflix
Giri/Haji you say?
Instant sold (Still can't forget the hauntingly unforgettable dance scene from end of that gem).