• Netflix's "Black Doves" follows a spy who seeks revenge when her lover is assassinated.
• Keira Knightley plays Helen Webb opposite Ben Whishaw as Sam Young.
• The end of the season leaves things open for both characters.

Netflix's "Black Doves" is the latest buzzy espionage TV drama to get audiences talking in 2024 after the likes of "Slow Horses," "The Day of the Jackal," and "The Agency."

The show follows Helen Webb (Keira Knightley), a spy who seeks revenge over the death of her lover, Jason Davies (Andrew Koji), who is assassinated on London's South Bank during the show's opening sequence.

Webb works for a private espionage organization, the Black Doves, and her boss orders hitman Sam Young (Ben Whishaw) to protect her because she's also a potential target as the wife of the British defense secretary.

By the end of the six-episode series, Webb and Young figure out who killed Davies and why. Here's what happened.

Trent Clark killed Jason Davies to cover up the accidental murder of the Chinese ambassador.

During Webb and Young's investigation into who assassinated Davies, they discover that it's closely linked to the death of the Chinese ambassador in London.

The coverup around the incident brews a potential war, because the Chinese government believes the U.S. and Britain planned the attack. However, the truth is much different.

Webb and Young discover that Trent Clark (Angus Cooper), the son of the powerful Clark crime family in London, accidentally killed Ambassador Chen (Andy Cheung) in a moment of rage. The high-ranking official confronts Clark, who has been supplying his daughter, Kai-Ming (Isabella Wei), with heroin.

Clark pushes Chen during the argument, causing him to fall and hit his head — killing him.

Davies and his associates record the whole incident and plot to release the footage to expose the Clark family and the political corruption they were involved in.

That's why Clark had Davies executed.

Sam Young kills Trent Clark at the end of "Black Doves," putting a target on his own back.

This all culminates in a dramatic confrontation between Webb, Young, and Clark, who is backed up by his mother and the family's steely matriarch, Alex Clark (Tracey Ullman). Webb is determined to execute Clark for killing her secret boyfriend — but when Alex attempts to disarm her, Young jumps in and executes both of the Clarks.

Webb is angry that she was unable to get revenge on the people who killed her boyfriend. But by killing two prominent members of the Clark family, Young effectively paints a target on his back and cuts his chances of leaving the life of a triggerman behind.

Season two was confirmed in August without a release date. When it arrives, Young will probably have to deal with being hunted by the rest of the Clark family.

Showrunner and creator Joe Barton told Tudum that Young saving Webb is a poetic moment because she did the same for him. During a flashback to 2017, she chose to save Young's ex-boyfriend, Michael (Omari Douglas), instead of leaving the Black Doves while pregnant.

Barton said: "The idea was that Sam makes a personal sacrifice for his friend because he loves her, and because, as you see in episode three, 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."

The final episode closes leaving a few other threads open for exploration in season two. Young still hasn't killed gangster Hector Newman (Luther Ford) for Lenny (Kathryn Hunter), which will probably continue to cause tension.

Meanwhile, Webb's husband, Wallace Webb (Andrew Buchan), is on track to become the next prime minister, which will likely make her job as a Black Dove even harder.

• Netflix's new thriller series "Black Doves" follows a spy who hunts for her lover's killer.
• It stars Keira Knightley and "Paddington" voice actor Ben Whishaw.
• The streaming service renewed "Black Doves" months before the first season premiered.

Netflix's new series "Black Doves" is taking off on the streamer.

The London-based spy thriller was met with critical praise when it dropped on Thursday, receiving a 97% rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

The show stars Keira Knightley as Helen Webb, an operative for the Black Doves, a private espionage agency that gathers secrets and sells them to the highest bidder. She's also married to the UK government's defence secretary, something she uses to the advantage of her company.

However, she embarks on a revenge mission with her old mentor, Sam Young (Ben Whishaw) when the man she's been having an affair with is assassinated shortly before Christmas.

Knightley's role as a spy is a little different from what audiences might expect from her, and in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, the actor said that the series would've impressed her younger self.

"My teenage self is thrilled with this. Sometimes you have to listen to your teenage self and go, 'This one's for you,' you know. I think she would have found this very cool," she said.

Fans who have binged the six-episode series already will be keen to know whether Webb and Young will return for more shady shenanigans. Here's what we know about "Black Doves" season two.

'Black Doves' season 2 was confirmed in August 2024

The streaming service seemingly had a lot of faith in "Black Doves," because it announced that it had renewed the series for a second season back in August 2024, several months before it premiered.

The streaming service has not yet announced a release date or production timeline for the new season, so it's unclear how long of a wait fans will have.

The ending of "Black Doves" leaves Webb and Young in a precarious place. In season two, their hunt for the person responsible for killing Jason Davies (Andrew Koji) will lead to more problems that will no doubt have to be solved with lots of guns and bloody murder.

Showrunner and creator Joe Barton told Variety that he's in the middle of writing "Black Doves" season two, which might involve exploring Webb's backstory further using material cut from the first season.

"We're still early in the process. I'm writing the first episode still, and we're kind of feeling our way through it," Barton said. "We filmed some flashbacks, which didn't make the final cut, of young Helen and her stepdad and her sister Bonnie. I think that would be really interesting to find out more about."

"Black Doves" is streaming on Netflix.