‘Black Doves’: Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw Mix Espionage and Murder in Darkly Festive Thriller

Tony Sokol

Double lives, political intrigue, targeted murders, and Parliamentary cocktail receptions are just another Wednesday in Netflix’s suspenseful and convoluted new series “Black Doves.” The rest of the week tends to escalate for the operatives at the center of this London-based espionage drama. Created by Joe Barton, the fast-moving first season collides with as many genre tropes as the cover-ups it offers.

Keira Knightley adds to her impressive roles of formidable professionals with lethal skills. Exactly what her character, Helen Webb, does for Black Dove is open to interpretation, well above official security clearance, and Helen’s own pay grade. She gathers sensitive and lucrative intelligence for the private firm, which sells it to the highest bidder, whether they are friend or foe. Casual treason is an occupational hazard. Organization head Mrs. Reed (Sarah Lancashire) hired Helen because the wary recruit routinely calculates exit strategies. 

A gifted student who turned down an Oxford scholarship, multilingual Helen is an efficient killer, as well-versed in bare-handed combat as she is with guns, knives, cheese graters and boiling kettles. Mostly, Helen is a mother to twins (Taylor Sullivan and Charlotte Rice-Foley), and the dutiful, covertly professional wife to the British Minister of Defense.

Tory MP Wallace (Andrew Buchan) is a government official on the rise. The Prime Minister himself believes Wallace will one day take the top job. He also warns against this, as it would ruin the Minister of Defense’s authentic innocence. Wallace has a lot on his mind. A Chinese ambassador to the U.K. was discovered dead of an overdose, and his heroin-addicted daughter Kai-Ming (Isabella Wei) can’t be found.

Helen and Wallace’s palatial dwelling houses a noncommunicative family. “Black Doves” opens with the execution of a civil servant named Jason (Andrew Koji) in London’s South Bank. In the coordinated attack, Jason is killed along with two seemingly unrelated targets. This may not be the most troubling detail to the already overloaded defense minister. He barely notices Helen’s obsessive need to know who murdered the civil servant, who was leaving his lover Helen a voicemail prior to his death.

Mrs. Reed orders assassin-for-hire Sam (Ben Whishaw) to keep things clean in order to eliminate any snares the complicated scenario imposes on Helen. Fresh off a seven-year, self-imposed, exile in Rome for traumatizing his boyfriend Michael (Omari Douglas) with an off-the-clock job reveal, the renowned triggerman also gets caught in the sights of his ex-boss Lenny, agilely played with scene-stealing ease by Kathryn Hunter, who calls in old debts.

To ensure Sam’s commitment to completing an unfinished job, Lenny contracts rival triggermen Williams (Ella Lily Hyland) and Eleanor (Gabrielle Creevy) for a hit on Michael. The homicidal partners become unlikely allies to Sam, and the most entertaining characters of this series. Witty dialogue is par for the course in espionage programming, served as dry as a James Bond martini. Refreshingly, Hyland and Creevy, and later Isabella Wei, share an easy, natural comic flow. This both in spite and because of their predilections for violence, heroin, and cheesy Christmas movies. In a moving reveal, Eleanor admits she gifted herself a rocket launcher last Christmas.

Apparently, spies can do anything, especially mercenary espionage professionals. They leap from exploding high-rise apartment windows into an accommodating Thames without a scratch. Helen bashes a would-be assassin’s head in with a statue, before he nonchalantly stands to endure a slew of full-body assaults before going down, but still not out. For Sam, it appears receiving beatings keeps him ticking. Scars suit him, if not his wardrobe. Incendiary devices do not mar clothes. Spies can even find crucial cell phones and computers in apartments where police already collected evidence. On most criminal procedurals, and actual investigations, digital devices are the first items catalogued in multi-targeted homicides. The series reserves this for the incriminating video footage at the center of the chase.

“Black Doves” subverts the buttoned-down British spy genre with an attempt to analyze the quiet desperation of job-threatening empathy. Long, lingering fades suggest that past regrets filled with the melancholy of missed opportunities permeate every rash decision. The esoteric question of whether a life filled with a series of alibis and deferred choices is any way to live, brings these British spies their version of psychological analysis. The job comes at a cost. Morale is low among the prime operatives, and all sense of self is lost in a web of necessary lies.

On top of that, these not exactly government-issued secret agents must avert a possible nuclear showdown before Christmas. The season includes enough children’s pageants, advent calendars and Yuletide masses as a reminder. Possibly because its introductory season is set during Christmastime, “Black Doves” is not afraid to be silly. A steady barrage of one-liners helps make transitions between the ever-evolving mysteries go down like a handful of sugar plums.

The stockings have holes. Much like the plots, which meander into a nihilistic mess, going as far as teasing an international criminal cabal resembling “the Krays mixed with the Freemasons.” Momentarily invigorating the series during episode four, this is truly a conspiracy the MI5, MI6, or CIA could get behind. It they aren’t already. The American CIA Agent in Charge suggests a call to the president, discussions in the Prime Minister’s office are not what they seem, and Black Doves are trained to speak in code.

Black Dove is a capitalist organization, not ideological, but is as lethal as any government, except the family behind the cabal of ultimate evil. The firm’s heroes are villains. Conspirators run the world. Key players switch sides, enemies join forces, duplicity is a job requirement. The Damned’s drummer, Rat Scabies, sells guns out of a music store in a cameo. Tracey Ullman steals an entire episode with one scene. 

While “Black Doves” includes espionage, double identities, international intrigue, and a cast of roguishly amusing psychopaths, the premiere season of “Black Doves” is more of a detective story than a spy thriller. The action, while first rate and of the highest voltage, is never over-the-top. This makes the suspense more intimate. Decades of flashbacks empathetically round the portrayals. And though the convoluted clues, allegiances, and perils jumble so inconsistently, the pacing and performances are distracting enough to accept the official report.

“Black Doves” begins streaming Dec. 5 on Netflix.