How the ‘The Gentlemen’ Season 2 Went International With Some Major New Italian Cast Members

If you thought the criminal empire of The Gentlemen couldn't get any bigger, Netflix has decided to prove you wrong. After the success of the first season, the Guy Ritchie-created series returns with eight new episodes and a new development that hits very close to home for us: Italy officially enters the series' universe. And it does so in the most The Gentlemen way possible: among aristocrats, betrayals, and a decidedly unsettling number of people you would be better off never meeting. As well as adding two actors we know very well to the cast.NetflixEddie and Susie have a new problem: their empire has gone internationalWhen we find Eddie Horniman, played by Theo James, back in season 2, a year has passed. What began as an aristocrat almost unwillingly drawn into the world of crime has now become someone much more aware of the power in his hands. Together with Susie Glass (Kaya Scodelario), he has continued to expand the empire built around cannabis trafficking, and the goal has become even more ambitious: to take the business beyond British borders. The problem? The more power grows, the more people are willing to do anything to seize it. And even the alliance between Eddie and Susie, which in the first season became one of the series' most interesting elements, is tested by interests that are increasingly difficult to reconcile.This is where Italy comes into play. The second season of The Gentlemen in fact expands the world of the series to our country, introducing a new network of characters and criminals that forces Eddie and Susie to confront an environment very different from the one they knew. Among the new additions are Benedetta Porcaroli, who plays Bella, an Italian aristocrat destined to have an important role in Eddie's story, and Michele Morrone, who takes on the role of Cico Maldini, a fixer as charming as he is unreliable. They are also joined by Sergio Castellitto, as Italian boss Marco Moretti. In short: if the first season was a very British matter of old money and drug money, the second takes the game onto a decidedly more international playing field.An even richer cast and an even bigger worldNetflixPorcaroli and Morrone's arrival, however, is not the only new development. The second season also introduces Hugh Bonneville, Maya Jama, Benjamin Clementine, Amra Mallassi, Tyler Conti and boxer Chris Eubank Jr., while Theo James, Kaya Scodelario, Ray Winstone, Daniel Ings, Joely Richardson, Vinnie Jones and Giancarlo Esposito return. The result is an even more international cast, accompanying the story's geographical expansion without losing that combination of crime, black humor, unbridled luxury and criminality that made the first season so distinctive.Why watch The Gentlemen 2NetflixIf you love crime stories with ambiguous characters, a British touch and constant twists, The Gentlemen 2 is definitely one to put on your list. It is far from predictable and will accompany your evenings on the couch episode after episode, but beware: this is not a season to start without having seen the first. The new story picks up directly from the consequences of what happened to Eddie and Susie and takes for granted several dynamics and relationships already built in the first episodes. Catching up on the first season, therefore, is not just a way to “get up to speed,” but becomes essential to truly understand the power dynamics, the bonds between the characters and, above all, why in the second season every new alliance could very quickly turn into a problem.There is also another reason why this second season could be particularly interesting: Netflix has already confirmed the third as well. Guy Ritchie has explained that the series’s ambition has grown along with its universe and that, with the world now much larger, the consequences of the protagonists' choices inevitably become weightier.In short, Eddie Horniman may have begun his criminal adventure almost by chance, but by now it is definitely far too late to turn back.