Black Doves Recap Season 2 Episode 5 ‘Murder Mix’
When you write your characters well, when there is proper set up to their relationships and conflicts, when history is present with every glance, every hurt tone, every moment of silence in between uncomfortable truths, even when the episode is primarily a gun fight, it remains a profound emotional journey.
And cool. Super cool. This is not meant to glorify violence. This compliment is very specific to Black Doves’s way of having its characters pick up weapons and aura farm the heck out of a scene. Multiple scenes. It was scene after scene of charismatic performances by Ben Whishaw (Sam Young), Gabrielle Creevy (Eleanor Davies), Ella Lily Hyland (Fionnuala Williams), Ambika Mod (Laila), Sarah Lancashire (Elizabeth Reed), and Keira Knighley (Helen Webb). By the end of the episode, it was as though the reveal of Williams’s first name (Fionnuala) happened a long time ago. Much happened. Nothing changed. Everything changed. By the time the familiar strings of Sinnerman started playing, it almost felt like three episodes happened instead of one, but I was also so thoroughly satisfied by the brilliant writing. Let’s get on with this recap.
I wanted to begin with Williams and Eleanor, who joined Sam and Helen to rescue Reed from a Black Doves facility guarded by a mercenary security force, though Eleanor accepted for the both of them the million-pound contract to kill Sam. Actually, let’s go further back and start with the music that opened the episode that I did not recognise (I looked it up, it was KFC Santeria by Cain Culto), and a shot of multiple highways; for a few seconds, I genuinely thought I accidentally clicked on the wrong show. It was the first hint that this episode would feel fresh despite it bringing together the show’s multiple storylines, the way shows often do with their penultimate episodes.
They were listening to Williams’s kill list, which she needed to listen to when she was doing a job. Sam could not stand the music and wanted to change it, which led to Helen’s realisation that she did not know what kind of music she liked. A simple thing, but it was a quick gut punch about the life of a spy. She has spent most of her adult life being someone else. She was Helen Webb, wife and mother, and she only listened to what her kids liked, which at this time was Olly Murs. There was a person underneath Helen, the person whose identity the Black Doves took care to erase to protect her cover. Perhaps Helen had erased her too, buried her pain so deeply so that she could no longer access her at will. There had been no need for Helen Webb to have a particular musical taste, and so she did not have one. This season in particular, Black Doves had done so well in revealing slowly the tempered humanity underneath the cool, cold undercover agents at the centre of its story.
When they reached the massive countryside mansion where Reed was being held, the group split up. Eleanor and Williams talked pros and cons, with Williams thinking that they were discussing their relationship whilst Eleanor’s mind was on whether or not to kill Sam. Eleanor liked Sam, but she was a professional killer, like Sam. Yes, they had formed a kind of spy/ assassin support group, but bear in mind that Sam’s first kill was his father. If anyone could understand that a job was a job in the world of assassins, it was Sam.
Williams decided to announce their presence with a grenade, despite Sam wanting to enter more stealthily. Williams and Eleanor bickered as they walked in, shooting heavily armed security whilst trying to sort their feelings for each other. It was then that Eleanor wrung Williams’s first name out of her.
Conteh was quickly alerted to the attack, and he sent a large contingent of reinforcements. Eleanor and Williams ended up pinned down in one of the rooms, and were saved by Sam. The camera took the time to linger on Eleanor, the member of the partnership more determined to kill Sam, as Sam efficiently dispatched the enemy before leaving to go get Helen and Reed, honouring their earlier agreement to come to each other’s aid should they need it.
Williams, whose life was saved by Eleanor, emotionally asked her if she would care if she died. If her name came up as a job, was that something Eleanor would consider? Williams pressed Eleanor, until Eleanor declared of course she would not, because she loved Williams too. Aw, these two. They kissed before returning to the action.
On the other end of the duo drama was Sam and Helen — Sam still carrying the weight of Jerry’s death, Helen determined to fight for the life she built uncomprehending of the pain Sam was in. Sam owed Helen for what she did for him and Michael, but he has repaid her many times over in the past couple of years. Though he very clearly told her that he did not owe her anymore, I don’t think him helping her has been about that debt for a while now. Sam found a friend in Helen, and he made a conscious decision to be there for her. It was just that the last couple of years have been hard, and it was as though Helen had not noticed.
‘I’ve nothing left to give, Helen. Not even to you.’ Exhausted and hurting, and despite claiming he was spent, Sam was still there, fighting for his friends. Ben Whishaw’s ‘I don’t have a life to fight for. I don’t have a life, Helen’ monologue deserves to be watched, and was a showcase of how this story of spies and assassins could find its emotional pulse even in the middle of a gunfight. The uncomfortable fact was that Helen had needed Sam far more, perhaps not just lately but even in the past when she was a newbie spy and he was teaching her the tricks of the trade. Helen had not just her public life, she had her husband and her children. They were all part of what she fought to protect, a cover, yes, but her life, too, a very privileged one. Sam only had Sam. His was a solitary life of drink and drugs until he tried to take a step toward a bit of connection. Helen did not make him kill Jerry, but it was his association with and affection toward Helen that made him feel boxed into that decision. The one piece of light in his life was lost. He was articulating to Helen, in perhaps his one chance to articulate to her, how tired he was.
Did Helen hear him? When she claimed she would do for Sam what she asked of him, to help her fight for her life, what exactly was she willing to give up for that? Once upon a time, what Helen gave up to save Sam and Michael was her chance to leave the Black Doves with her children. Would she have truly left, though? Reed did not think so. If Reed were right, then what was Helen willing to give up for this murder filled friendship with Sam? Or was this a relationship of mostly one sided taking, and Sam giving until he had, as he claimed, nothing left to give?
Helen found Reed calmly watching TV, and in a frank mood to answer her questions. Reed claimed she was being successfully set up. Ida was turned; she wanted anyone hearing the recording to believe she was scared of Reed, only, she did not anticipate that to truly sell the idea, she would have to die too. She denied having Klein and Ambrose killed.
Reed told Helen that Wildflower was her code name in Berlin. She thought the assignment would last a few months, but six years and a daughter later, there was no sign of ending. She lied to get out and people died. She left her daughter Vita and had all references to her deleted from files.
She had Franz killed when he resurfaced because he had been blackmailing Alexi Chernov, threatening to release evidence that he tried to defect to America in 1988. Franz had accumulated vast wealth which he used to bring back a bigger, more dangerous Kestrel. When Helen pointed out that Franz was dying when they met, Reed said he rebuilt Kestrel not for himself but for his daughter. Vita was alive, though who she currently was, Reed did not know.
Reed has not been on the field in decades, but even she aura farmed when she was given a shotgun. As they made their way out of the mansion, it looked like Sam considered shooting her, but in the end all five worked together to try to get out of that place alive. They were pinned down behind a vehicle when Laila arrived and singlehandedly killed all the men shooting.
Laila had followed them because Williams and Eleanor shot up her place the night before. They all piled into one vehicle, with another car with more reinforcements giving chase. Olly Murs played through the chase and the gunfight because the bluetooth connected to Helen’s phone. They stopped briefly and the four ladies (Sam was driving and Reed remained in the vehicle) shot up the chase car. I wonder how Wallace would react if he ever saw his wife handle a weapon like that.
Solitude by Billie Holiday was playing in the bar where they all piled up for a post fight drink. Sam asked Helen if she still wanted to fight for the life she built, and when Helen said yes, it was then that Sam quietly made a decision. He approached Reed, who had already figured out that her release from Black Doves was not a rescue. Sam told her they would finish their drink, then go for a walk. Reed finally gave Sam the answer to the question he asked years ago. The priest, Father Aldo, whom Sam killed in Italy, used to be an assassin. He murdered the wrong man one day and had to run. It took the Black Doves years to catch up to him. This was a bit of kindness, an assurance to Sam who was clearly bothered by the kill that his target was no innocent. Aldo was from the same violent world they lived in.
Laila was chill about Eleanor having accepted the contract out to kill her, and told her she was pretty hard to kill. Eleanor declared she had loyalty for one person, everyone else was on the table. She was amongst the few people in the world who would completely understand that. Laila warned her that Sam would be hard to kill, too.
Sam, via Patrick, now knew that Eleanor and Williams had the contract to kill him. Sam and Reed walked out of the bar and down the street, Laila watching from her bike. For Sam, this was the final price he needed to pay to keep Helen safe from Kestrel. For Reed, there was no point in fighting the inevitable. Perhaps she even had a spy's curiosity to see what Kestrel had planned for her through.
How do we end a recap of an episode with this many fireworks? With Wallace having concrete proof that the woman he loved for over a decade was a woman he did not truly know. Officer Perryman was in Downing Street to speak to Wallace about Helen’s security check, but before they could get started, Wallace had to go meet with Commissioner Thomas, who had an update on Alexi Chernov’s poisoning. He showed images of two individuals at the restaurant they wanted to question. One was Eleanor, whom Wallace did not know. The other was Sam, whom Wallace clearly remembered as Helen’s friend who joined the family for Christmas two years ago. Wallace notably did not answer Commissioner Thomas when he asked if he recognised them, and merely requested that the images be sent to him through his secretary.
With the knowledge that his wife was friends with an assassin who killed a man he had dinner with already weighing on his mind, Wallace resumed his meeting with Officer Perryman. According to Jim, a woman named Bonnie Weir who did time in prison for the murder of her father in 2003 had repeatedly contacted authorities making wild claims about Helen. Bonnie said that she was Helen’s stepsister, and that her real name was Lily Morris. Bonnie also claimed she was doing time for Helen. There was no evidence of this until Jim received a Social Services report from 2002 that mentioned the name Lily Morris.
Naturally, MI-5 investigated this, but there was no record of Lily Morris anywhere. It was almost as though all mention of her was systematically erased. A few days ago, more documents arrived – a school report, doctor’s records, a birth certificate, photos. Most of the photos were of a young girl but there was one who was very clearly a young Helen. Jim gently told Wallace that he was not sure his wife was who he thought she was.
This was how you up the stakes, by breaking open Helen’s secret to the one person she needed to keep in the dark. Beyond the heartbreak and betrayal was the fact that Wallace was the Prime Minister. Helen was a national security issue. Wallace himself had become a national security issue. Regardless of how he felt, MI-5 was now involved. With one more episode left, let's see if Black Doves lands what has been a terrific second season.
Rating: A
Strays
🏠Williams told Sam rather firmly not to slag Phantom of the Opera and I agree with her.
🏠The suspicion amongst the British side was that it was Moscow who had Chernov poisoned, a suspicion that his wife Katia shared. Against Cecile Mason’s objections, Wallace agreed to have Katia read Chernov’s speech at the summit.
🏠Who sent Agent Perryman compromising information about Helen? Who went through all that trouble to break her cover? If it was Kestrel, then was Patrick knowingly stringing Sam along?
Episode Title: Murder Mix
Episode Writers: Joe Barton
Episode Director: Kieron Hawkes
Release Date: November 5, 2026