Season two of The Gold has come to a dramatic conclusion, with fans singing the praises of the BBC drama.
The BBC One show, which stars Hugh Bonneville, Dominic Cooper, Charlotte Spencer, Sean Harris, Jack Lowden, Sam Spruell and Tom Cullen, focuses on the true story of the 1983 Brink's-Mat robbery, when six men stole more than £27m worth of gold bullion.
While the first season focused on how the fortune was manoeuvred through the criminal underworld, the second season turns its attention on the speculative longer-term consequences, including how the money went on to fund smuggling operations around the globe.
Warning: The rest of this article contains major spoilers for The Gold season two
The finale largely focuses on the fates of the three main criminals involved in the robbery: John Palmer (Cullen), Charlie Miller (Spruell) and Kenneth Noye (Lowden).
Palmer, who is in court for large‑scale timeshare fraud, initially manages to charm the jury with his charisma. Just when it looks like he’s about to get away with it, DI Nicki Jennings (Spencer) purposefully aggravates Palmer in order to expose his true colours. The jury eventually finds him guilty and he is sentenced to eight years in prison and fined £33m.
Elsewhere, Miller, who has been made persona non grata in the UK for the robbery, manages to avoid charges due to insufficient evidence against him. He is, however, extradited to the US, where he is charged with racketeering and hit with a fine worth more than $150m.
Finally, Noye, who has been on the run in Spain after committing a murder in season one, is captured by police in a tense sequence that follows a high-stakes chase.
At the conclusion, Detective Boyce (Bonneville) takes a well earned retirement. When catching up with his old colleagues in the Brinks-Mat taskforce, he tells them that the recouping of the Brink’s-Mat bullion was the “biggest financial result in the history of British policing”. The irony of this scene is that most of the gold was never actually recovered.
Fans who tuned into the finale were more than pleased with what they saw, with many calling it “superb” and heaping praise on the performances.
“Just watched the final episode of The Gold entire series was amazing and performances of all main characters brilliant,” wrote one fan.
Another added: “Jack Lowden is superb in this. The air of menace and desperation.”
“Loved The Gold. Well done to all. Brilliant acting”, remarked a third viewer.
Some fans even watched the finale twice, with particular praise being shown to Bonneville. “Here we go! Last part of The Gold......AGAIN! so good I had to watch it twice. Hugh Bonneville has to one of Britain's all time best actors, just brilliant,” one one ecstatic fan.
Another wrote: “Boyce is such a great character. Really wish he was fictional so it could continue on. But I really would love more stories with in The Gold world as Boyce did work on other cases (including the Stephen Lawrence case) which could be adapted.”
In a three-star review, The Independent’s TV critic Nick Hilton wrote said that the show’s “wash of creative licence and composite characters dulls the edge of this second instalment of The Gold, which might have been better off just focusing on the rise and fall of Palmer and Noye, men whose stories have all the drama of a great crime saga, just without any of the convenient structural neatness”.
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