SAS Rogue Heroes season two review – air-punchingly good | Television

Man down! Steven Knight’s crackerjack dramatisation of the formation and second world struggle exploits of the Particular Air Service returns with a snag to repair. In season one, this new elite British military regiment, and the present commemorating it, have been led by Connor Swindells as David Stirling, an officer with an intoxicating mix of debonair sprint and suppressed rage. However SAS Rogue Heroes relies on truth, albeit in a scatter-gun, tie askew, stolen-your-wife type of manner, and the very fact is that in January 1943, Stirling grew to become a prisoner of struggle in Italy. Season two begins within the spring and summer season of that yr, so Stirling is duly confined and Swindells, the star, is hardly in it.

Taking command now could be Jack O’Connell as Paddy Mayne, beforehand the screaming id to Stirling’s sensible ego. Can he hack it on his personal? The success of the operation depends upon him … Paddy Mayne continues to be a borderline-certifiable risk-taker and dead-eyed slayer of the faceless enemy, however his new place as a pacesetter requires a brand new stage of reckless bravery from the actor taking part in him. O’Connell is the same as the duty.

Having helped to realize management of north Africa within the first season by taking up ridiculously harmful missions behind enemy strains, the fledgling SAS are given what London-based strategist Dudley Wrangel Clarke (Dominic West) drolly describes as “a brand new and much more efficient manner of committing suicide”. The lads, quickly rechristened the Particular Raiding Squadron for tricksy army-admin causes, are to guide the southern extremity of the invasion of continental Europe, beginning with a touchdown on Sicily that the highest brass anticipate could have a fatality price of fifty%.

Earlier than all that, a postman bicycles calmly by means of a rustic lane in County Down. The letter he delivers is from Paddy Mayne, writing dwelling to inform his mom that his commanding officers haven’t allowed him compassionate go away to attend his father’s funeral. We see Mayne’s response to this in an early scene the place he smashes up a complicated Cairo restaurant and the 5 navy policemen who attempt to cease him breaking any extra chairs.

The second world struggle, with its unimpeachable casus belli, is protected floor for a drama about navy heroism – definitely you wouldn’t be capable of dramatise the postwar adventures of the SAS with out operating into thick moral murk and loads of icky soldiering fantasies. However one can get pleasure from SAS Rogue Heroes with out concern of turning into Alan Partridge salivating over an Andy McNab hardback. But the sequence is alive to the category divisions inside its solid: even with a trigger as unifying as stopping the Nazis, there’s nonetheless a robust component of posh males telling working-class lads the place and when to die.

As performed by O’Connell, Paddy Mayne is the best hero on this state of affairs. His snarling rejection of authority is absolute and, within the second sequence, he has an enchanting new ally/antagonist within the type of Invoice Stirling, David’s older brother. The reason for some real-life debate about which Stirling needs to be credited with the institution of the SAS, Invoice introduces himself to Paddy because the extra diligent, much less impulsive sibling, however his self-image is about to take a battering. Paddy greeting Invoice by staring him down and telling him he sees no cause to pay him any respect is certainly one of a number of moments the place O’Connell makes us need to punch the air.

As Stirling tries to convey Mayne round by mentioning their shared objectives, Gwilym Lee is great at bringing out the supposedly extra refined and succesful man’s blended feelings. Does Invoice Stirling really feel concern, admiration, envy or patrician disdain as he negotiates with a person who personifies the reckless braveness his facet might want to win? Lee offers us all of them directly. For his half, O’Connell is his personal whirl of conflicting strengths and weaknesses as he briefs the SAS rabble earlier than the journey to Europe, struggling to just accept his function as their superior however finally successful them over – and changing into the person he must be earlier than our eyes – by buying a sudden, steely stillness and quoting William Blake: “Put together to fulfill our fathers within the sky … ”

With its sober view of sacrifice and its intelligent use of maximum adversity to convey out completely different aspects of the male psyche, Rogue Heroes earns its stripes, however be reassured that with all that groundwork in place it’s, primarily, a proper outdated romp. The wildly incongruous however completely chosen rock soundtrack, the cool freeze-frames, the fist fights, the banter and naturally the battle scenes are all unashamedly thrilling – and the Sicily touchdown, with Mayne’s males dodging Italian bullets beneath powdery gray moonlight, is as cool as hell. It’s a thrill to observe O’Connell and his boys cost on.

SAS Rogue Heroes aired on BBC One and is on iPlayer now.