The Gentlemen has hit a bit of a ratings bump in Britain.

The second season of Guy Ritchie’s Netflix crime series was watched by around 500,000 fewer UK viewers than the show’s Season 1 premiere, according to the latest figures from Barb, the country’s official audience measurement service.

Season 2 arrived on Netflix September 3, with Theo James back as Eddie Horniman, the aristocrat who gets pulled into the criminal underworld after inheriting his family’s estate and discovering that it’s home to a lucrative cannabis operation. As Netflix puts it, Eddie “transitions from duke to drug baron.”

The show’s first Season 2 episode was watched by roughly 3 million people in Britain during its first seven days. That’s a drop of about 15% from the 3.5 million viewers who watched the first episode of The Gentlemen when it debuted in March 2024.

And Netflix’s own numbers tell a similar story.

According to Deadline, Season 2 picked up 6.7 million views during its first four days on the streamer. That’s nearly half of what the first season managed during its opening weekend.

Still, there’s no immediate reason for fans of the series to panic. Netflix has already renewed The Gentlemen for a third season.

The ratings dip also arrives at an interesting time for the show, which has recently been caught up in reports about a possible addition to its cast: Meghan Markle.

The Duchess of Sussex was reportedly in advanced talks to take a role in a future season of Ritchie’s series before she and Prince Harry relocated to Britain last month with their two children.

The Telegraph reported that the acting offer played a role in the couple’s decision to move back to the UK, although it was not the only reason behind the relocation.

Then things got complicated.

Less than 24 hours after the reports surfaced, Meghan’s potential involvement was thrown into doubt following a public backlash. Tina Brown, a former editor of Vanity Fair, reported that the offer “has been withdrawn due to a public backlash”.

The Telegraph also reported that the deal could collapse following the reaction to the news. If it had gone ahead, the role would have marked Meghan’s first major acting job in roughly a decade.

The reported hesitation was said to be coming from Netflix or the Sussexes, rather than the team behind The Gentlemen, who had reportedly expected a strong public reaction to the casting news. Netflix and the Sussexes did not comment.

Meghan, of course, had a successful acting career before she met Prince Harry. She spent seven seasons playing lawyer Rachel Zane on Suits before stepping away from the profession in 2017.

At the time, she told the BBC that she viewed her departure from acting as “a new chapter” after meeting Harry the previous year.

She hasn’t completely stayed away from the screen, though. Meghan recently returned to acting with a cameo as herself in the upcoming comedy Close Personal Friends, which stars Lily Collins and Brie Larson.

A role on The Gentlemen would also bring her back into the Netflix fold.

Meghan and Harry have maintained a relationship with the streamer for years. Netflix was a commercial partner for Meghan’s lifestyle brand, As Ever, which she plans to continue operating from Britain. She also hosted With Love, Meghan, the unscripted series centered around the brand.

The couple signed a reported $100 million (£74 million) five-year deal with Netflix after stepping down as working royals in 2020. That partnership ended last year amid reports that the relationship between the Sussexes and some Netflix executives had soured.

Meanwhile, The Gentlemen’s second-season audience drop comes as Netflix faces a broader issue with some of its returning shows. Several high-profile series have struggled to bring back the same audience they attracted with their first seasons.

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos addressed the phenomenon in July when the company reported its financial results. He pushed back on concerns about what has become known as “second series syndrome.”

He said: “It’s very common in the industry, but it’s even more so with us because we launch our shows so big. Our global reach, our discovery mechanism, releasing all at once…This enables us to find a very large audience early, so our shows tend to start really big while most other places, their shows start pretty small and occasionally grow from there.”

Sarandos added: “Our season-two fall-off is actually slightly improved this year relative to last year.”

So, yes, The Gentlemen has lost some viewers. But with Season 3 already on the way, Netflix doesn’t seem particularly worried about letting Eddie Horniman hang up his duke’s robes just yet.