Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Irvine Welsh’s Crime’ Season 2 On BritBox, Where DI Ray Lennox Tries To Put The Confectioner Case Behind Him

Two years after its first season debuted on BritBox, a second season based on Irvine Welsh’s novel Crime debuts, with Dougray Scott coming back as DI Ray Lennox, a cop who is beset by his mental health issues, most of which are tied to cases that he takes extremely personally. Will the second season case be as compelling as the one from the first season?

IRVINE WELSH’S CRIME SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A group of ants crawl on a spigot and hose in front of a countryside mansion. As the camera makes its way into the mansion, we see a laptop playing online porn and a general mess. Then a man in a military uniform hangs from a light fixture above the central staircase, blood dripping down onto the table and floor below.

The Gist: Ten years later, DI Ray Lennox (Dougray Scott) is running in the early morning, when he comes up to the columns where Britney Hamil’s body was found. His voice over talks about fear, saying, “It’s good to face up to your fears; however, doing so doesn’t guarantee success. If it did, it wouldn’t be such a big deal.

It’s Lennox’s first day back at work after being on a mental health leave, implemented as he was able to connect the long simmering Confectioner serial killer case to Britney Hamil’s murder. His first stop, though, is the office of his therapist, Sally Hart (Laura Fraser). He’s single again, having broken up with his girlfriend Trudi (Angela Griffin). To him, the only relationship that lasts is his relationship to the job; in fact, he thinks he’s OK enough to stop going to therapy, though Sally disagrees.

He gets a warm welcome back, and notes that his partner, Amanda Drummond (Joanna Vanderham), has been promoted to detective inspector. She’s happy that Lennox is back; she was partnered with DI Dougie Gillman (Jamie Sives), who harassed her to the point where she was ready to put in a formal complaint, until others stepped forward and he was let go.

A visit to his sister Jacinda (Nalini Chetty) gets uncomfortable when she hands him their father’s ashes, he has to break bread with Jock (Sam Graham), the man his mother Avril (Ellie Haddington) cheated on his father with for years, and then has to sit there an watch his sister berate her son Fraser (Gabriel Scott) for wanting to wear a dress.

A call comes in from Lauren Fairchild (Rebecca Root), who asks for Lennox specifically; Lauren was Lennox’s first partner when she was Jerry, before she transitioned and quit the force a decade prior. “I’ve never met Lauren,” Lennox tells Drummond. She got attacked when she went to the flat of her friend Gayle, after she noticed that the door was opened and the flat was ransacked. Gayle, a sex worker, was just dumped by her wealthy, influential boyfriend, and she’s afraid something has happened to her connected to that.

When Lennox and Drummond search the flat, they find an NDA that she was supposed to sign, as well as material from an upscale hotel she’s frequented. At the same time, DI Tommy Stark (David Elliot) gets a tip that a violent, bloody attack happened at the same hotel the previous night, but was somehow covered up.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Just like with Season 1 of the series, Crime gives us the same feeling as Law & Order: Organized Crime, especially given how much of the show is wrapped up in the mental health journey of its main character.

Our Take: One of the things that we cited when we reviewed Season 1 of Irvine Welsh’s Crime (which was simply Crime two years ago) is that Dougray Scott’s character, Ray Lennox, is fantastic, but the rest of the cast around him seem to be a group of stock British cop show characters. Things generally haven’t changed in Season 2, though it seems Welsh and co-creator Dean Cavanagh is attempting to rectify that with a B-story that deepens Drummond’s character, introduces us to Stark and may or may not be connected to the main story.

That B-story involves Helena Carins (Kim Chapman), a sex worker who is now doing a podcast that promises to out customers of hers and her colleagues, including cops. It seems that Drummond and Stark are rivals. Stark thinks that their boss, DCS Robert Toal (Ken Stott), will retire soon and it’s between him and Drummond for his job, and if Helena outs him, it’ll kill those chances. Given that Gayle, whom Lennox and Drummond are trying to find, is also a sex worker, it won’t be a surprise if the stories are connected.

But what it looks like in the first episode is simply a matter of giving some of the people Lennox works with more to do than just be in his orbit. The show is still dominated by Scott’s performance as Lennox, who always seems to be barely one step ahead of a total meltdown. As he tries to spread his father’s ashes on a local soccer pitch, for instance, his mixed feelings about their relationship come spilling out. He still has visions and demons that he has to deal with, as we see in the AA meeting where he talks about spreading his father’s ashes.

This season seems to be straining to make connections between Lennox’s life and the case he’s trying to solve. He’s connected to Lauren, and the writers take pains to flesh out her character by showing her lecturing a college class about gender then giving them a piece of her transition story. But his nephew is also going through his own struggles with being his true self. Then we see that the law firm that put together the NDA Gayle had to sign just happens to employ Lennox’s sister Jacinda, as well.

It’s all an effort to make things personal for him, which will of course affect his mental health. It feels unnecessary, given that Lennox personalizes every case he works on. But with Scott going through the acting gymnastics of Lennox’s emotional ups and downs, the show is still somehow compelling to watch.

Sex and Skin: Aside from the initial scene where the man who was slashed has relations with a blond woman, there’s nothing.

Parting Shot: We see a carved up torso of a body hanging upside down. It’s intercut with Lennox imagining someone at the AA meeting laughing at him, and he screams.

Sleeper Star: David Elliot’s Tommy Stark is such an over-the-top asshole of a character, that you have to give Elliot credit for giving Stark even the slightest of moral shading.

Most Pilot-y Line: Apparently, Stark is such a dickhead that he tells Lennox that Lauren isn’t “one of us” anymore and calls her “your tranny ex”. Somehow, he manages to get away with that line in 2023.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Again, it’s really hard to get excited about anything in Irvine Welsh’s Crime outside of Dougray Scott’s performance. But once again his performance draws viewers into the story.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.