A Gang War Erupts in 'Sherwood' Season 2 as Nottingham Tries to Heal

It's time to return to Nottingham for the second season of Sherwood, which picks up in 2024, twenty years after the gruesome murders and investigation of the first season. There's a new Sheriff of Nottingham, Lisa Waters (Ria Zmitrowicz), determined to do good for the community and create a better tomorrow for her wife and their newborn baby daughter. Ian St. Clair (David Morrisey) has left the force and is focusing on violence prevention programs for the local youth. He's doing newspaper op-eds and dabbing the teens at the local gym (that's not a joke; he really does it). Even Julie (Lesley Manville) is doing her best to move on. The house is up for sale, and she's trying to figure out her next chapter. 

It's hard for anyone to move on when the past seems determined to repeat itself. On a macro level, the Tories are vying to put in a new mining pit in Nottingham. The locals are staunchly against the idea, as the mining strikes of the '80s and the depression that followed after the mine closed are still fresh in the minds of many. Lisa argues for the government to invest in cleaner energy and tech rather than trying to force the community back into fossil fuels. 

Samuel (Robert Emms) and Franklin Warner (Robert Lindsay) represent the capitalist interest in returning Nottingham to its mining roots. You can tell that Franklin is evil because he bullies his way into a ceremony for the reopening of Nottingham Castle by pointing out that his name is on the banquet room door and then has the nerve to compare himself to Robin Hood in his toast to the castle. When Lisa points out he wouldn't have had to donate to reopen the castle if his corporation had paid their fair share in taxes, he argues there'd be more growth for middle-class citizens to pay taxes if corporations didn't have to. The lack of self-awareness boggles the mind. 

As Nottingham fights to prevent being shoved into the past, tensions also rise locally. The Season 2 premiere introduces us to Ryan Bottomley (Oliver Huntingdon), a young drug dealer who has grown estranged from his stepmother, Pam (Sharlene Whyte), and his little sister Stephie (Bethany Asher). Pam can't allow Ryan to be around Stephie until he goes to rehab and gets sober, but he's not interested in the straight and narrow path. 

Unfortunately, Ryan is not the charismatic drug dealer he imagines himself to be. He loudly tries to coerce Ronan Sparrow (Bill Jones) into buying drugs while he's meeting his biological sister Rachel (Christine Bottomley) for the first time at the local skating rink. Nicky Branson (Sam Buchanan) steps in when it's clear that Ryan is making Ronan and Rachel uncomfortable and tells Ryan to get out of the rink. Once Ryan clears out, Nicky offers to take Ronan and Rachel out the back of the rink to ensure that Ryan won't bother them on their way home. 

Nicky seemingly has the best intentions, but when he opens the back door of the rink, Ryan is already hanging out with a gun. He follows the trio back into the rink and shoots Nicky twice before running away. Rachel, who never wanted to be involved with Sparrow's crime business, bails and leaves Ronan there with the body. In comes the new DCS, Harry Summers (Michael Balogun), who immediately recognizes the power keg on his hands, with a dead Branson and a Sparrow as the only witnesses. 

Ryan is quickly identified as the main suspect, even without Ronan cooperating with the police. He can't tell the coppers anything or else be labeled as a snitch, and he can't tell his family what he was doing at the rink without revealing that he found Rachel and sought her out without talking to his mother first. As quickly as the police found Ryan, the Branson gang found out faster and shot up the Bottomley house with Pam, her brother Dennis (David Harewood), and Stephie still inside. No one was injured, but the incident convinces Harry to move the Bottomleys into a safe house. 

That doesn't sit well with Ann Branson (Monica Dolan), who is mega-peeved that Ryan will get to sit pretty in jail rather than face the justice she'd doll out for the murder of her son. Despite the Branson and Sparrow Family's violent history, Ann and her husband Roy (Stephen Dillane) pay a visit to Daphne (Lorraine Ashbury) and Mickey (Philip Jackson) so they can get on the same page. Monica Dolan doesn't speak for the first scene and a half that she's in this show, but there is no question that she is going to be the HBIC of this season. Don't let the sweet voice fool you; this woman is terrifying. 

Ann and Roy tell the Sparrows they had nothing to do with shooting up the Bottomley's house. They find the incident to be too indelicate for their taste, but that doesn't mean they don't mean the family any harm. Ann pushes her way into Ronan's room and tells him he needs to point out who the Bottomleys are – he saw them at the police station when he was called in to ID Ryan – because there's a code their families must live up to. 

Poor Ronan was just trying to make a connection outside of his violent family and is instead embroiled in something much darker than what he witnessed last season. To make matters worse, Rachel has completely ghosted him, so he deals with the weight of Ryan's actions on his own. The Bransons are out for revenge, and the Sparrows are stuck in the middle, which could lead to even more bloodshed as the season progresses. 

The tensions only increase in the second episode. Ann calls Daphne to tell her that she and Roy are going after the Bottomleys the next day and insists that Ronan go with them. Daphne can't convince Ann to leave Ronan out of it, so she volunteers to go with them. However, the only person who can help Ronan out of the situation is Rachel, who is still ghosting him because she can't handle the violence of the situation. 

When Phyllis can't get Ronan to tell her who he was at the rink with so that she can negotiate with Ann, she breaks into his phone and discovers Rachel's text messages. She doesn't know exactly who she's texting but manages to get Rachel's address. She goes to the address, and the two have a reunion that neither of them expected. Phyllis' shock is momentary before she steps up and asks Rachel to take Ronan's place with the Bransons so he doesn't have to get his hands dirtier than they already are. 

She successfully convinces Rachel to come along, and they ride with the Bransons to the village where the Bottomleys are hiding out. If there was any hope of talking Ann and Roy out of getting revenge for their son, it goes out the window when Ann plays through the old voicemails on Roy's phone and hears one from Nicky. 

They wander around the village until Rachel stumbles upon the Bottomleys at a local pub. Phyllis and Rachel fail to warn them before Ann comes in and spots them for herself. Phyllis uses her burner phone to try to message Pam, but the phone dies before Pam or Dennis sees it. They call Harry, but the junior copper who picks up the phone doesn't tell Harry who is on the phone. Instead, he warns Pam to expect a visitor soon. 

Naturally, this is when Dennis decides to mow the lawn. The sound of the riding mower stops him from hearing Roy and his nephew entering the house. Roy shoots Pam in the head, and the nephew takes out Dennis in the yard, even though they were only supposed to kill one of them. This leaves Stephie without any guardian and screws up the balance of the code. To make matters worse, Stephie saw Roy and his nephew leave the house. She sneaks up on the nephew and stabs him with a pair of garden shears. Phyllis and Rachel are also not in the clear because Roy found the phone Phyllis dropped into Pam's coat and can potentially trace the rescue number in the text message to Phyllis' primary phone. 

The episodes end with police taking Stephie's statement and Harry surveying the carnage at the seaside village. Will there be retribution for these homicides? Will Stephie ever recover from this incredible trauma?

Things look bleak, but if you need a silver lining in all of this darkness, there is a moment of awkward loveliness in the episode when Ian asks Julie to go for a drink. It takes too much explaining and a lot of snapping for them to agree to go on this date, but we are here for these two to find a bit of romance. We need something to root for in this show because the rest of it is bumming us out. 

Sherwood Season 2 continues with two more episodes every Thursday on BritBox until November 28.