A Champagne toast is in order for Helen Webb (Keira Knightley) and Sam Young (Ben Whishaw), who survived the action-filled Season 1 finale of Black Doves — although not without sacrifice.
After making it her personal mission to figure out who murdered Jason (Andrew Koji), Helen uncovers the shocking truth during a showdown with London crime boss Alex Clark (Tracey Ullman). It turns out that Alex’s son Trent (Angus Cooper) ordered the hit on Jason — as well as Maggie (Hannah Khalique-Brown) and Phillip (Thomas Coombes) — to cover his tracks after accidentally killing Ambassador Chen (Andy Cheung) in a heated argument.
With her gun aimed at Trent, Helen demands justice for her deceased lover, but it’s Sam who ultimately pulls the trigger. It’s a costly move considering that Sam has now forfeited his chance to leave the assassin game behind, and must deal with the fallout from surviving members of the Clark family who are itching for revenge. So, why does he kill the Clark matriarch and her son?
“He does it because he loves [Helen] and because he owes her and because he’s trying to protect her from the burden of killing that kid,” series creator, writer, and executive producer Joe Barton (Giri/Haji, The Lazarus Project) tells Tudum. “He’s always lived his life by this code of not killing innocent people. Though you can argue that Trent isn’t innocent, that he’s done bad things, he’s still a gentle soul who's made a terrible mistake.”
Barton adds, “The idea was that Sam makes a personal sacrifice for his friend because he loves her, and because, as you see in Episode 3, she sacrificed her own chance to get out in order to help him. He’s there to do anything for her, so he does it.”
Keep reading to dig deeper into the finale and find answers to those lingering Black Doves questions, including where Helen and Wallace stand, what happens with Sam and Michael, and more.
No! Barton explains, “There was a different reveal about who killed the Chinese ambassador that we filmed and didn't end up using.”
Previous versions of the script featured a subplot involving Perryman (Adam Best), the Irish MI5 agent who visits Helen and Wallace’s house about the break-in at the US embassy, who was hired to kill Ambassador Chen.
Reed (Sarah Lancashire) gives Helen a hard drive with everything she has on the real Jason, who we find out was actually an MI5 agent investigating Helen over concerns that she was leaking government secrets before his death. Rather than dig into Jason’s life, Helen tosses the drive into the Thames.
Barton says that her reasoning for the bold move is open to interpretation, but from his perspective, explains: “She has enough information about him, which is that he loved her, and he saved her, and the details are superfluous because she's invented a whole new set of details for herself. … What was in his heart, ultimately, was the one thing that she knew was real, so that act of saving her was real, and that’s all she needed.”
Although there’s a sense that “they have secrets from each other,” Barton says, Helen and Wallace stick together in the end. We see that in the finale as they celebrate Christmas with the kids, looking very much like the picture-perfect family.
“They accept each other for who they are a little bit more, flaws and all,” Barton notes. “They do really care for each other.”
Unfortunately, no. Barton notes that when Sam and Helen do the dirty work of their job, “the consequence is that it takes a little bit of their happiness or their freedom away.”
By killing Trent and Alex Clark, Sam has “put himself in the firing line, so he knows that he’s just not able to be with the man that he loves because he’s dangerous,” the EP adds. “That’s emphasized by the fact that Hector (Luther Ford) turns up at Michael’s (Omari Douglas) house and gives him an ultimatum: ‘You can either come work for me and continue being in the criminal world, or you can leave — but you leave forever.’”
Within that choice, “Michael isn’t even an option, so it’s kind of over,” Barton explains. “Sam knows when he goes back to Michael’s flat that it’s impossible [to be with Michael], but he can’t say it, so they have a little dance.”
Wisecracking assassins Eleanor (Gabrielle Creevy) and Williams (Ella Lily Hyland) not only survive that ordeal with the Clarks, but they also walk away with a new friend: Ambassador Chen’s daughter Kai-Ming (Isabella Wei). An ending montage shows the trio spending the holiday together, drinking and having a merry ole time.
“I liked the idea of the found family,” says Barton. “I wanted to show that they were having a nice Christmas, and I find those three really funny.”
Does that mean we might see them working together in Season 2? The Black Doves showrunner says the idea isn’t so far-fetched. “You could definitely see them forming a little group,” he muses. “Kai-Ming would have to stop being a heroin addict party girl, probably. Maybe they could start their own little assassin agency working out of their canal boat. I’d like to see that.”
Like Wallace’s co-worker Dani (Agnes O’Casey), the Webbs’ nanny Marie (Molly Chesworth) is also revealed to be a Black Dove spy working for Reed.
“She’s like the cuckoo in the nest,” says Barton. “It’s that realization [of], ‘Oh, even their nanny is working for Reed and secretly spying on them.’ ”
Nope! Sam meets with Lenny reeking of gunpowder, but that’s just residue left over from when he killed the Clarks.
“He is weighing whether or not to work for Hector, and Lenny’s still like, ‘Did you kill him? Because I asked you to several times,’ and he hasn’t,” Barton explains.
The scene with Lenny and Sam in the diner explores whether they can coexist in London, or if they must eventually go after each other. “It’s [like] two cats that don’t like each other in the same room, and they just walk around each other,” Barton posits.
Although Sam chooses not to kill Lenny, the story originally called for her death. “In the script, Lenny was killed by Eleanor and Williams,” the EP explains. “But we just love Kathryn Hunter so much that we were like, ‘We can’t. We’ve got to keep her around. [There’s] going to be a second [season].’ ”
So Lenny lives to fight another day, but as Barton notes, “I feel like it won’t be the last time those two come into conflict with each other.”
With Wallace on track to become the next UK prime minister, Helen is sticking with the Black Doves to deliver more government secrets. Even so, Barton says “there always will be underlying tensions” between her and Reed.
“I think Reed genuinely cares about Helen [and] feels quite maternal over her in a sense, but also would absolutely have her taken out if she had to,” he explains. “And Helen feels the same way about Reed. They could work together and everything could be fine, or they could end up being nemeses. We’ll see how it goes.”
Barton, who has already begun work on Season 2, says he likes the idea of Helen “getting pulled deeper into the world of spies having been so close to leaving.”
As Wallace’s career grows — and they land at 10 Downing Street or elsewhere — that “increases the pressure and the danger on her as a spy,” Barton adds. “Just seeing the tension of that, seeing Sam back in London … I would like to see more Eleanor and Williams, Kai-Ming, all those people. I’d like to start to throw them up against one another again, and maybe make things more dangerous and challenging for them.”
Stream Black Doves Season 1 on Netflix now.
