“Once you stop taking responsibility for your own actions, it’s very hard to go back.” Lord Eddie is talking to Susie Glass about his time in the military when he drops this little nugget. She interprets it as a shot at her willingness to follow her daddy Bobby’s orders. I interpret it as an indictment of this charming man, issued by the man himself. He’s decided he has no choice but to do the bad things he does, which means he can choose to do anything he wants.

This installment of The Gentlemen moves us past the stage-setting of the first two hours of Season 2 and heads straight into the show’s usual mode: Edward and Susan discover they have a problem, which leads to another problem, which leads to another problem, and so on and so on until one or the other of them unlocks the solution that solves all the other problems like dominos…until the next problem (or next episode) comes along, of course.

Consider Eddie’s many plights this episode. Jimmy (Michael Vu), the stoner botanist responsible for developing new strains of weed for the Horniman-Glass operation, creates a psychosis-inducing variety that leaves one guinea pig institutionalized, another to assault a security guards with groceries, and a third to throw himself off his roof, believing himself to be an airplane. The lack of care provided for the institutionalized victim by his erstwhile employer, the weed farm, has caused his coworkers to launch a work slowdown in protest, demanding better working conditions, higher wages, and a cut of the profits. 

I’m sure you can imagine how labor activism goes over with a peer of the realm and a gangster. Eddie and Susan offer the workers a bit of what they’re asking for — it’s a damn sight better than what you’ll get from an entry level job at most American corporations — but nowhere close to meeting the demands issued by the ringleader, dubbed Red Ned (George Webster). Eddie and Susan fire him, then straight-up threaten to kill him if he talks, with Eddie in particular laying the villain schtick on real thick.

Part of this is, no doubt, his innate Toryism. Part of it is a need to seem tough. But part of it seems to be an attempt to paper over his guilty conscience. Throughout the episode he keeps having prolonged visions of the accountant he killed last episode, a man who was only trying to defend himself and had committed no crime other than sending an email about an irregularity he’d discovered, making himself a witness. Eddie’s new quasi-love interest Bella assures him that Boss Moretti is most grateful, but this doesn’t do much to make the Duke feel better about blowing a civilian family man’s brains out, even if it is good for the organization in the end.

As for Red Ned, he decides to get a little payback with the help of his Albanian crony Kris (Rowan Polonski). But instead of pinching just a little weed, Kris and his minions steal ten full containers — an amount of gear that will have not just Eddie and Susie but Bobby himself, who they realize must be told, hunting for the culprits. This goes double when they discover that the stolen herb is the lethal kind that Jimmy cooked up. If they don’t recover it before it hits the streets, stoners will be going nuts in the streets, and Parliament’s decriminalization bill will be dead in the water.

Victor (Antonio Bustorff), the Albanians’ boss, sees an opportunity in this ill-advised major theft from a big-time kingpin. He attempts to ingratiate himself with the Glasses by executing Red Ned (you deserved better, comrade; the cause of labour is the hope of the world) and offering to bring in his own, much more loyal (read: frightened) workers to take over from their unreliable labor force. 

But Eddie, still fixated on both the accountant and that memorable lesson about kindness and weakness he received in a dream from Mr. Johnston, has other plans. This is no negotiation, he informs Victor — then has a sniper buddy from the service take out his entire goon squad. Before long the weed is back in its rightful owners hands, and then buried deep underground where it won’t hurt anyone. (Until they dig it back up again, I suppose.)

Eddie’s newfound reservoir of cold-bloodedness comes in hand in another unpleasant-to-watch way when he strongarms a neighbor, Simon MacDougall (Charles Edwards, who really did crackerjack work as the Elf genius Celebrimbor in Season 2 of Amazon’s Lord of the Rings show). MacDougall owns a very nice house on adjoining property that was built by Edward’s ancestor for his mistress, and Edward wants it back. He’s prepared to pay well over market value, but MacDougall won’t budge due to feeling slighted by the Hornimans over the years. What’s more, he knows what kind of person Eddie is given all the activity at the estate, and he’s simply not going to sell. 

“You think you can just buy whatever you want, but the truth is that you can’t,” he says defiantly, adding some obscenity for emphasis.

Eddie simply says okay, let’s say you’re right, and I am a gangster. “Do you really think you can stop me getting what I want?” The way MacDougall reacts, I’ve got a feeling he’s realized he can’t.

There is at least one wholesome development this episode: Geoffrey is made one of baby Tarquin’s two godfathers by his parents Charly and Nanny, even though King Charles himself was slated for the honor. Charly, knowing Geoffrey is secretly her father, couldn’t bear to keep him on the outside looking in. (Every woman at the ceremony looks gorgeous during this sequence, if that’s the kind of thing you’re interested in.)

But there are more ominous developments, too. In the process of their “negotiation,” the overconfident Victor mentions that Bobby Glass’s reputation has been slipping. People are saying he’s crazy — not “crazy” as in “dangerously unpredictable” but “crazy” as in “coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs.” Unless the goddamn Bannik really is real and the sound of jungle drums really is audible in the sauna (don’t ask), the rumors are right, of course! And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they surface in an episode where every sidequest is about ensuring the organization’s reputation is maintained. If stealing a bunch of weed makes Bobby Glass look weak, what does gossip that he’s seeing things do? Nothing good.

Meanwhile, the increasingly weird Bobby has heard tell of Susie’s newfound closeness to her old friend Joe Green, the coke distributor she’s been shagging. (Sorry to appropriate a British colloquialism, but it really feels appropriate here.) Susie shows no more signs of obeying her dad here than she does on getting that decrim bill killed per his wishes.

I want to return once again to the work of Theo James in the lead here. Eddie Horniman is such an interesting creation: He is very likeable, right up until the moment he does something to remind you that the only reason he’s the star of this story is his willingness to do unlikeable things. Speaking as a socialist who’s walked picket lines, his behavior with Red Ned and his fellow workers makes my skin crawl, no matter how many fun quips about capitalism and socialism Eddie and Susie get off between them. The poor guy really was only trying to look out for people, and he got a bullet in his head for his troubles. 

Eddie didn’t pull the trigger, but he put Red Ned into that position. He’s comfortable threatening the life of a guy whose house he’s trying to buy. He’s killed before, of course, both as a soldier and as a gangster — the whole point of the show is that being either an aristocrat, a soldier, or a politician makes you more than half a gangster already — but killing that accountant is different. It’s wrong in a way he can’t argue his way out of, so instead its seems like he’s chosen to double down, throwing good morals after bad as it were. That will probably be good for business, given the way businesses are run in 2026. But it’s bad for his soul.

Sean T. Collins (@seantcollins.com on Bluesky and theseantcollins on Patreon) has written about television for The New York Times, Vulture, Rolling Stone, and elsewhere. He is the author of Pain Don’t Hurt: Meditations on Road House. He lives with his family on Long Island.