Sherwood Season 2 Review: BBC Crime Drama Struggles to Recapture Freshness

When “bad” King John, during his hasty retreat amidst the First Barons’ War, reached The Wash, a tidal estuary in the Midlands, he was in turmoil. The Crown Jewels were lost to the waters during the crossing, and shortly thereafter, he died at Newark Castle in Nottinghamshire. John’s malevolence seemed to have been punished by Nottingham’s landscape, but his legacy was sealed by local legend. This is a land that defies authority, challenges the affluent, and is rich with tales of lost treasures – themes that resonate in the second series of James Graham’s Sherwood, which makes its return to BBC One.

In Ashfield and its surrounding areas, rumors abound about plans to reopen a pit in Nottinghamshire’s coal belt, propelling the new Sheriff, Lisa (Ria Zmitrowicz), into a confrontation with the unscrupulous tycoon, Franklin Warner (Robert Lindsay). But while this overarching narrative looms large, more immediate tensions arise between local crime families when the volatile Ryan (Oliver Huntingdon), under the influence of drugs, summarily executes the son of a rival family, igniting an all-out turf war. The quick escalation pulls in a host of returning characters – including David Morrissey’s detective, St Clair; Lesley Manville’s grieving widow, Julie; and Lorraine Ashbourne’s cunning matriarch, Daphne – alongside new faces played by an impressive lineup of British TV talent: David Harewood, Monica Dolan, Sharlene Whyte, and Stephen Dillane.

The first series of Sherwood depicted a community grappling with generational trauma. Old wounds from the closure of the mines reopened, juxtaposed with a contemporary story of disenfranchisement. Despite leaning into some predictable elements – such as a crime spree by an archer in Nottinghamshire’s woodland – it felt vital, a rarity in primetime crime dramas. However, this second installment of Sherwood struggles to maintain that freshness. “After years of deindustrialization, everywhere else is getting jobs in tech or science. Can we not invest in that instead?” the Sheriff argues against the prospect of reopening a mine. Yet, the connection between the scarcity of new computers for local schools and violent gun incidents on the Nottingham coast remains underexplored.

There’s no denying that Sherwood aims to be more intellectual than Line of Duty, a show whose influence stretches over all BBC primetime thrillers. Writer James Graham, whose background is in political drama, reflects this in the series. Nonetheless, this second series excels when it focuses on the human consequences of street-level violence. Attempts to shoehorn contemporary politics – including a critique of the doomed “Levelling Up” agenda – come across as superficial. Lisa, a “very modern” queer, female Sheriff of Nottingham, likely intended to provoke certain viewers, is given some rather heavy-handed dialogue. “It feels like a gimmick,” she tells Lindsay’s caricatured, goatee-twirling baron. “Tossing some red meat to the Red Wall.” Perhaps when this second series was conceived, it was not anticipated that the Tories would already be in electoral Siberia.

Real, substantive issues – such as the complexities of decarbonizing the power grid while maintaining energy security, or balancing economic growth with raising taxes – are largely overlooked. Instead, the drama centers on three families: the struggling Sparrows, still reeling from the events of the first series; the Bransons, led by a formidable Dolan and Dillane; and the Warners, the landed class possibly involved in Thatcherite machinations. Though the season begins with an uncertain retracing of the first series’ steps, it soon picks up speed with the muzzle flashes of guns and the flow of blood. If it aspired to be a “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” version of Line of Duty, it ends up resembling Top Boy for Guardian readers.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The expanding ripples of a single crime create an electrifying backdrop. Even if the politics are simplified, the inter-family maneuvering is anything but straightforward. “Come to Nottinghamshire,” Lindsay’s character sneers, “where the outlaws are back and thriving!” It’s this sense of a renegade land that Graham captures so vividly, in all its bloody, brutal beauty.

Source: The Independent, BBC