‘Black Doves’ Review: Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw Shine in Netflix’s Darkly Festive Spy Thriller

“I have a cheese grater in the dishwasher. I have a peeler. I have skewers. I have a kettle. I have a NutriBullet.”

These words are uttered by Helen (Keira Knightley), prim and proper wife of an ascending government minister (Andrew Buchan’s Wallace), to a houseguest in the second episode of Netflix‘s new drama Black Doves.

Helen is more than just proud of her well-appointed kitchen, and her visitor is more than just a late-night caller. He’s an assassin, sent to kill her for … reasons. She’s a spy. Her list of available culinary implements is less bougie braggadocio and more a warning that behind her public image as a well-put-together spouse, mother and domestic goddess is a woman capable of turning the fruits of a Williams Sonoma shopping spree into instruments of torture.

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It’s a great line and a great scene, in a six-episode series that flirts with greatness before settling for a tonally disjointed approach that finds clever creator Joe Barton (Giri/Haji) and his exceptional cast bouncing between a probing psychological examination of the human toll of espionage, a semi-satirical exploration of the expectations of a suddenly oversaturated genre and a lovingly corny Christmas drama. That Black Doves is this all over the place yet this frequently satisfying is some triumph.

With Christmas approaching, Helen and Wallace have a full slate of official events, including several office parties and a school pageant for their twins (Taylor Sullivan and Charlotte Rice-Foley). At the same time, Wallace is dealing with a burgeoning international incident related to the sudden death of the Chinese ambassador to the U.K. and the disappearance of his wayward daughter Kai-Ming (Isabella Wei). Helen’s preoccupation, which may or may not be related, is with the murder of civil servant Jason (Andrew Koji) and two of his acquaintances — deaths that interest her because she’s been having an affair with Jason.

Helen is, as I’ve already mentioned, a spy, but not for MI5 or MI6 or the CIA or any of the other traditional organizations that have been the focus of a recent avalanche of programming. She’s a Black Dove, part of a private intelligence-gathering operation fronted by Sarah Lancashire‘s Reed. The information Helen has been able to get through her husband, considered a future prime minister, is extremely valuable. This in turn makes her very useful to Reed, especially since that information is sellable to the highest bidder.

“We’re a capitalist organization, not an ideological one,” Reed explains to Helen in a flashback.

“Well, capitalism IS an ideology,” Helen replies — accurately, though I wish this potent idea were more frequently text instead of just subtext.

Sensing that Jason’s death might cause Helen to either have a career-ending breakdown or go on an unauthorized mission for revenge, Reed summons Helen’s longtime collaborator Sam (Ben Whishaw) back from a self-imposed exile in Rome. Sam had left abruptly seven years earlier, leaving behind an emotionally scarred long-term boyfriend (Omari Douglas’ Michael) and an unpaid debt to Lenny (Kathryn Hunter), operator of a different capitalist crime organization in which Sam was a so-called “triggerman.”

Escalations of political intrigue, violence and seasonal jovialities ensue.

If Paramount+ with Showtime’s The Agency is about the psychological havoc that an “undercover” life can wreak, Barton hones his focus on the impact of that damage on relationships of every type. Sam is haunted by the failures of his past with Michael, and Helen by the loss of her real love with Jason as well as by the strain on her professional marriage to Wallace — which is not without some affection, however grounded in artifice.

There are the relationships built on professionalism and mentorship, like Reed’s connection to Helen and Sam’s to Lenny. And then, perhaps deeper than romantic love, are the workplace partnerships, especially the intense bond between Helen and Sam and the ties between Williams (Ella Lily Hyland) and Eleanor (Gabrielle Creevy), a pair of triggermen (it’s gender nonspecific, Sam explains) forced together by circumstances early in the season.

“It can’t be just business. Not with the cost of it all,” Williams says of the necessity of resisting the inherent loneliness of their job.

There’s still a nobility, or at least a patriotism, to what the characters in The Agency are doing, which Barton knows can’t be found in capitalistic spycraft. He nevertheless pushes hard to make the characters likable or sympathetic, which works better the less you think about it.

Elements of these professional unions will probably remind some viewers of the labyrinthine assassination bureaucracy in John Wick. There are repeated mantras and codes of professional ethics. Each leader holds their meeting in a different London establishment that represents a small triumph of location scouting and/or production design.

In this case, though, instead of a preening Ian McShane running things, the organizations seem to be exclusively matriarchal. Are Lenny and Reed at the top of their pyramids or just the top that we see? Are there other guilds or unions that aren’t run by women with androgynous names? Unclear. But because Lancashire is, as ever, an authoritative and towering presence, and Hunter is, as ever, magnetically enigmatic, and a third boss, Alex, played by a late-arriving guest actress I won’t spoil is a blast, I’m going to assume that this is indeed a brutal and transactional world controlled exclusively by women.

While I have some fear a twisty mythology could make future seasons even more Wick-ian in a bad way, there are many facets about which I want to know more. For now, I’m interpreting those questions as Barton holding back for later adventures, rather than forgetting to add details the story needs.

Barton has a firm sense of the conventions of the genre, and although he can’t make the main plotline feel anything other than perfunctory, he’s at least able to keep the potential conflict between China, England and the United States from becoming a complete black hole at the series’ center. (See the second season of The Diplomat for the way such a black hole can upstage the positive attributes in an otherwise solid show.) Still, there’s little doubt that when characters are following clues and seeking answers, Black Doves is entertaining but unremarkable.

What makes the drama so good at times is the way that the stains from the violence linger long past the shocking and abrupt violence itself. And yes, I am referring to several extended conversations carried on with one or both parties drenched in blood spatter.

Those conversations are really where Black Doves lives and thrives. Knightley and Whishaw are good separately but wonderful together, their characters freed from sexual tension to build their bonds around trauma, professionalism and compassion. Her simmering fierceness is well complemented by his haunted weariness, and when the series is just Sam and Helen sitting in cars talking, it’s as strong as any show this year. The dialogue is funny, theatrically complex and peppered with references that are smarter and more meta than required, all delivered by two stars relishing Barton’s wordiness. Very nearly as compelling are the scenes with Hyland and Creevy, a naturally comic duo given gravity by what Williams and Eleanor do for a living.

There’s a lot happening at once in Black Doves. There are love stories and betrayals. There are undercurrents of Yuletide redemption. There’s violence that’s meant to be shocking and violence that’s meant to be cartoonish. There are stretches where directors Alex Gabassi and Lisa Gunning are struggling to maintain momentum and stakes, and then others that are breathlessly effective, binding the wild swings to a portrait of London at the holidays.

Barton tips his ambitious hand with repeated use of the Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York,” a song that blends saccharine and strychnine on a level that very few seasonal offerings would dare to attempt. He deserves full credit for such daring, if only partial credit for its execution. I’m very curious, in a fully engaged way, at what he and Black Doves might have in mind for the already-ordered second season.