Black Doves is Netflix’s action-packed spy thriller set during Christmas. With an all-star cast including Keira Knightley, Ben Whishaw, and Sarah Lancashire, it tells the story of Helen Webb (Knightley), an undercover spy for the Black Doves organization.
As the web of lies she finds herself in begins to unravel with the impending threat of global war hanging in the balance, she finds herself caught up in it all. Throughout, she must fight against London’s criminal underworld and global political powers to uncover the truth.
Here's a recap of everything that happened in Black Doves episode 2.
The second episode opens in 2014. Helen arrives at an office for an interview with her name tag, Daisy Bradshaw. The employer questions why she wants to be a translator and that she turned down a scholarship for Cambridge and disappeared for ten years. He asks her about a woman named Bonnie Weir - her stepsister, serving life imprisonment for murdering her own dad. She says she doesn’t know Bonnie, not since her own mother died. He says they don’t hire people with family complications, but instead gives her Reed’s number to call. He tells her to say he thinks he found one. She says, found one, what? He says, “A little black dove.”
Helen meets Reed that night. Reed wants to hire her as a Black Dove, a spy dealing in information, which they sell to the highest bidder. Reed thinks Helen would be good at the job for many reasons; being highly intelligent and a risk-taker just two of them. She offers her a new name.
It cuts to Helen picking up a name tag, Helen Dawson, at a Future Speakers event. She walks into Wallace’s talk and watches him. At the hotel bar after, she approaches him and flirts with him. They sleep together and afterwards, when he’s asleep, she breaks into his laptop. After she’s copied the files she leaves and meets Sam downstairs - seemingly the first time they've met. She realises she left her mother’s lighter upstairs and must get it. He says he’ll wait for her and if she doesn’t draw the curtains, he’ll come and get her. Wallace is awake when she returns and they flirt again. She closes the curtains.
Back in present day, more flashbacks of Jason haunt Helen as she goes with Sam to track down Elmore Fitch, a former marksman for the SAS. They break into his flat, but there’s nothing much there aside from a solitary Christmas decoration. Helen says it feels a bit off that they’d lead them so easily to Elmore’s home address. The lights start flickering and the Christmas decoration ticks. They’re blasted out of the flat into the water below as the decoration, a bomb, detonates.
Back home that night, a man breaks in. Helen throws a knife at the man as he approaches and he holds a gun to her. He says he’s there because the people who hired him think she has something they want and the whereabouts of a person they’re looking for. A digital recording device, a small black pinhole camera, and Kai-Ming Chen. It’s Elmore Fitch and she tells him he’s going to regret killing Jason.
They fight and Helen overpowers Elmore, holding a knife to his neck. She asks who hired him to kill Jason. He says he doesn’t know, just that they paid £100,000. She holds a gun to his head and walks him into the shed outside and kills him. A flashback to Jason shows Helen whispering that she wants to tell him a secret. The next morning, Wallace says he’s going for memorial drinks for Jason after work.
Three women approach Sam at a pub. One is the woman who tried to kill Helen the other night at Jason’s flat, the other is another assassin, and the last one is an older woman called Lenny. Lenny says you shouldn’t be working for anyone else while you still owe me the killing of Hector Newman. Lenny names the woman from the other night, Williams, and says she’ll come after Michael if you don’t kill Hector and finish the job. She shows him a photo of Hector and says he’s at a drug warehouse in Brixton.
It cuts to Hector at his warehouse watching the news, the Chinese are now saying the Americans killed the ambassador and the UK are helping to cover it up. He sees Kai-Ming and calls someone to get a live feed into a room at his warehouse from the other night. Kai-Ming is there.
Reed meets Helen and Sam. They discuss that Maggie went to school with Kai-Ming, Phillip wrote 12 articles about Kai-Ming’s party lifestyle, and Jason called her five times before he died, but they can’t find the link. Reed asks Helen again if she told Jason anything she shouldn’t have. She insists she didn’t and storms off.
As Helen looks up Kai-Ming at home, she reads a news article about Stephen Yarrick, a member of the UK government, and links it to Sy from the text sent by Phillip Bray to Jason in episode 1. Helen goes to the memorial drinks knowing Stephen Yarrick will be there. She hides a listening device in the pub and listens outside. Wallace asks Stephen why Phillip Bray contacted him and says he has a story and footage of Stephen. He asks if he had anything to do with Phillip’s death and he denies it. Helen visits Jason’s bench where he died and has a flashback of her telling him she’s a Black Dove.
Sam watches Michael outside his home. Williams turns up and says she’s going to hang around and keep a watch on him. Sam goes to kill Hector as Lenny instructed to protect Michael, but when he turns up, everyone’s dead and Hector is gone. Looking round the warehouse, he finds a camera recording and watches the footage. He sees Hector leaving with Kai-Ming when the gunmen show up. Hector has Kai-Ming and Sam’s two jobs have collided.
All episodes of Black Doves are available to stream on Netflix now.
