After a two-year wait, Netflix's Christmas crime caper Black Doves is finally back for its second outing . It's a messy delight that tests the loyalties of the central characters in ways the first season never dared and, both annoyingly and excitingly, ends on just as agonising a cliffhanger.
In the first season , Elizabeth Reed (Sarah Lancashire) was something of a mystery: an ominous, witty controller of sorts who kept Helen Webb (Keira Knightley) and Sam Young (Ben Whishaw) on their toes. But this time around, Black Doves spends some time unravelling her past, as well as that of the titular intelligence agency: a backstory that informs and explains the major threat of the season, the German anarchist organisation Kestrel.
Though the secrets reveal themselves slowly, a bombshell-filled (pun very much intended) finale crashes through a series of twists that – if you didn't see them coming (which I can't say I did, for some of them) – will really feel like a stab in the face. No, not the back, because unfortunately the answers were always lying right in front of us.
There's a lot to break down from that last episode, so read on for our recap of Black Doves season 2 and an explanati...