Although The Gentlemen, one of the Netflix new releases, shares its name with the 2019 movie starring Matthew McConaughey (CinemaBlend’s The Gentlemen review rated it 4 out of 5 stars), was also developed by Guy Ritchie and explores a marijuana-growing empire, that’s where the similarities end. This series instead focuses on Eddie Horniman, who discovers after his father’s death that his family’s massive estate has been home to part of said weed operation, which is run by Bobby Glass and supervised by his daughter Susie while her he’s stuck in prison. Eddie decides to keep this business arrangement going, but the newly-installed Duke of Halstead must contend with the colorful and incredibly dangerous criminal types now in his world.
Debuting to Netflix subscribers on March 7, The Gentlemen quickly became one of the best shows on Netflix, as evidenced by it ranking at #1 on the platform’s Top 10 TV shows chart for multiple days. So naturally there are enough people wondering about the conclusion to this eight-episode saga, and that’s what we’re here to go over. It’s time to break down The Gentlemen Season 1’s ending and speculate on where a potential Season 2 could go.
What Happened At The End Of The Gentlemen Season 1
The eighth episode of The Gentlemen, titled “The Gospel According to Bobby Glass,” starts off with the Horniman family preparing to defend themselves from Gospel John Dixon and his men. With Susie having thought that Eddie betrayed her upon learning about his meeting with Stanley Johnston, she informed Gospel John that Eddie’s brother Freddy killed John’s brother Tommy, and he and Eddie covered it up. What Susie didn’t know was that Eddie had already informed Bobby about his meeting with Stanley the day before.
Fortunately, after Susie learned about this development from her father, she prepared to send the “cavalry” for reinforcements, but they weren’t needed. Gosepl John and the gang left, with Bobby promising to “make it up” to the religious nut if he abandoned his quest for revenge. So viewers didn’t get to witness a drawn-out gun battle.
Instead, “The Gospel According to Bobby Glass” focuses on Bobby telling Eddie and Susie that he’s decided to sell his weed empire and has put it up for bid for in excess of over £150,000. He tasks Eddie and Susie with letting the interested parties know about the sale, i.e. Stanley Johnston, Peter Spencer-Forbes and Mercy Moreno. We also learn during this portion of the episode that the list Eddie offered to give to Stanley of the other lords who have farms are part of Bobby’s weed empire was, in fact, an elaborate deception, hence why Bobby wasn’t mad at Eddie since he hadn’t actually sold him out.
By the end of the week, these individuals all send in their bids back to Bobby Glass via carrier pigeons, but it amount to, as the drug kingpin would say, “fuck all.” Eddie and Susie end up the winners, and not just because they manage to raise £235,000 with the help of some of their allies… and Henry Collins, the man who had Jack Glass badly injured. They also arrange for Stanley to be arrested for tax evasion, manipulate Mercy into killing Peter, then have Peter kill Mercy.
But as it turns out, Bobby never intended to actually sell his weed empire; he really just wanted to “wake up” Eddie and Susie, and maneuver them into investing in the operation so they can expand. With that fun out of the way, the episode initially ends with Eddie showing Susie a tied-up Henry, offering her the gun to shoot the man who hurt her brother, but she gives permission for him to pull the trigger instead.
How The Final Scene With Bobby Glass And Stanley Johnston Potentially Sets Up Season 2
As of this writing, it hasn’t been announced yet if The Gentlemen will return for a second season, but there’s an additional bit of groundwork laid for this hypothetical next batch of episodes. Three months later, Stanley Johnston ends up being incarcerated at the same prison where Bobby Glass is being kept. As such, while he’s not truly free, there are a number of perks that a man of his caliber can enjoy at the facility. Bobby specifically touts plenty of sleep, regular exercise, not too many interruptions and fine cuisine to Stanley, to which Giancarlo Esposito’s character says, “One could to a lot worse.” Ray Winstone’s character responds, “Spoken like a true gentleman.”
Even though it was revealed that Stanley was behind many of the problems Eddie and Susie faced this season, including that weed shipment being stolen, their distribution route being sabotaged and even pulling Henry Collins’ strings when it came to Jack, apparently Bobby Glass doesn’t mind befriending him. So what’s going on here? Is Bobby looking to strike a partnership with Stanley, or is this a long ruse to lower the man’s defenses, and then exact vengeance on him when he least expects it? Ray Winstone believes it’s the former, telling Tudum:
I think that’s a very clever move from Bobby. Stan is quite a chap. He’s very sophisticated. Bobby can learn one or two things from this man, and Stan will be very handy for the future.
Conversely, Kaye Scodelario, who plays Susie Glass, is of two minds about what this means for the future, saying:
They’re either going to partner up and run everything, or Stan is going to be Bobby’s little bitch.
In any case, if Netflix does move forward with another season of The Gentlemen, count on seeing a lot more of Ray Winstone and Giancarlo Esposito together. And if they are indeed set up to be allies, then I can’t wait to see the threat that they, along with Eddie and Susie, have to face.
Where Things Stand With The Horniman And The Glass Families
Whether or not The Gentlemen Season 2 happens, the Horniman family members’ lives have been forever changed by Eddie’s decisions this season. Sure, his father was the one who reached that business arrangement with Bobby Glass, but Eddie kicked things up a notch. He’d been determined at first to make the Glass’ a lot of money so that they would get off his family’s estate, but it soon became clear that he actually handled the world of criminals and illegal activities. By the end of the season, he was willing to take a life without blinking an eye, and in the aforementioned Tudum piece, Theo James described this as “the beginning of his journey into the heart of darkness.”
So now he and Susie are business partners, but that doesn’t mean they’re suddenly the best of friends or even on the way to becoming romantic partners. Theo James said that while the two have “grown to love each other in their own way,” they’ll “never fully trust each other.” Kaya Scodelario said that Susie is the kind of character where “once you’ve broken her trust, she never forgets it.” So even though they’re working together, the fact that each betrayed the other is “going to fester below the surface for a long time.”
Finally, when it comes to Eddie’s siblings, Freddy finally admitted in “The Gospel According to Bobby Glass” that his brother was the killer he’d always wanted to be, but never will become, and even acknowledged earlier in the episode what a “piece of shit he is.” As such, he gave up his aspirations to bid for the marijuana business. So even though he’ll likely continue being part of the operation, he’s been taken down a peg, which could easily affect how he’s characterized in Season 2. Meanwhile, although their sister Charly, played by Jasmine Blackborow, returned home from college towards the end of the season on account of being pregnant. But along with having a baby on the way, she also finally learned that Vinnie Jones’ Geoffrey Seacombe, Halstead Manor’s groundskeeper, was her biological father, so hopefully that new aspect of their relationship will be explored if Season 2 happens.
Keep visiting CinemaBlend for any updates on if the future holds anything in store for The Gentlemen. If you’d like to stick around on its streaming home, be sure to look over the other best shows on Netflix.
