By the end of The Gentlemen Season 2, the question isn’t really whether Eddie Horniman has changed. It’s how far he’s willing to go. Theo James’s character spent the first season trying to free his family estate from the Glass marijuana empire, only to discover he had a talent for the criminal life. The second season pushes him further: he wants to become bigger than Bobby Glass, gain political influence, expand into Italian crime, and build a system where aristocracy and the underworld coexist under his control.
But the more Eddie reaches for power, the more he loses. His marijuana legalization project collapses. He’s nearly killed by the beating Bobby orders. His new wife Bella dies in a plane explosion. And then comes the blow he never saw coming: someone in his own family is behind it all.
Freddy. His own brother.
What Eddie does next isn’t an execution. It’s something far more disturbing—and it tells you exactly who Eddie has become.
The Gentlemen Season 2 Ending Explained: Who Ordered the Attack on Eddie?
The finale begins with a fundamental misunderstanding. Eddie is convinced Bobby Glass, played by Ray Winstone, is responsible for everything. It’s a reasonable assumption. Eddie and Susie had been working behind Bobby’s back on the marijuana deal, cutting him out of arrangements with Marco Moretti and Lord Hawthorne. When it all collapsed, Bobby responded by having Eddie kidnapped and beaten. Suspecting him isn’t paranoia.
But Eddie is wrong.
Bobby reveals to Susie that he had nothing to do with Bella’s death or the later attack. In fact, Bobby had made a gesture Eddie didn’t know about: he’d repaid the Duke’s debt to Stanley Johnston. It was a truce—a way to end the internal war, at least temporarily.
Then a hitman tries to kill Bobby. Eddie intervenes and saves his life. That’s when the truth begins to click into place. Bobby isn’t the mastermind. He’s a target, just like Eddie. Someone wants to destroy the entire Glass-Horniman system.
The question shifts. It’s no longer “who wants revenge on Eddie?” It’s “who wants to erase his family?”
The Tarquin Detail
The attempted kidnapping of Tarquin—Charly and Nanny’s newborn son—seems strange at first. If this were simply revenge against Eddie, why take a baby? But Tarquin is a Horniman. He’s the heir to the family line. That detail matters.
During a dinner party, Lady Sabrina mentions that Freddy called and that her son seemed strange. It’s a small moment, but Eddie connects the pieces. Freddy knew Bella would use the family’s private plane to reach Switzerland. He’d told Eddie personally. Bella died on that plane.
The threat was never from Italy, or from Marco Moretti, or from the Glass family, or even from Stanley Johnston. It came from inside the house.
Is Freddy Responsible for Bella’s Death?
Yes. Freddy didn’t pull the trigger, but he’s implicated in the plan that led to Bella’s death. His storyline finally snaps into focus. Freddy had been sent to rehab for his cocaine problems—but the clinic wasn’t what it seemed. It was run by Gospel John.
That’s where the past comes flooding back. Gospel John had access to a fragile, resentful, drug-addicted man who never got over his father’s death. Freddy believed he should have inherited the title and estate. Instead, everything went to Eddie. In Season 1, Freddy’s irresponsibility was played for laughs—the drugs, the humiliations, the catastrophes. But the resentment was always there, buried underneath.
Gospel John found that resentment and gave it shape. He gave it a mission.
Why Does Gospel John Want Revenge?
To understand this, you have to go back to the beginning. Freddy owed Tommy Dixon a massive debt. Eddie tried to resolve it, but during the meeting Tommy humiliated Freddy by forcing him to dress as a chicken. Freddy, high on cocaine and completely unhinged, grabbed a rifle and killed him.
Tommy was Gospel John’s brother.
The Hornimans avoided revenge through lies, manipulation, and the intervention of the Glass family. But Gospel John never forgot. The Gentlemen is a show where consequences can take entire seasons to arrive. This is that arrival.
Gospel John used Freddy to get close to Eddie. His goal wasn’t just to kill the Duke. It was to destroy his line of succession. That’s why Tarquin mattered. Gospel John didn’t want to kill the baby—he wanted to take him, raise him in another family, and erase the Horniman future entirely.
And Freddy went along with it. Why? Because the land, the title, the property—all the things Freddy still believes were stolen from him. Gospel John didn’t create that resentment. He just fed it.
The Van Scene
Eddie has every reason to kill Gospel John himself. The man organized the attack that killed Bella. He tried to have Eddie murdered. He orchestrated the assault on the family. He attempted to take Tarquin. By the logic of the series, Eddie should put him down without hesitation.
He doesn’t. He has a worse idea.
Eddie takes Freddy to an isolated location. He beats him—unleashing an amount of rage that probably goes beyond the events of the past few days and reaches back through a lifetime of cleaning up Freddy’s messes. Then he presents his brother with a choice.
Inside a van is Gospel John, tied up. Next to him is a chainsaw. Eddie closes the door. The rest isn’t shown, but it doesn’t need to be.
Why Eddie Forces Freddy to Do It?
This is the real revenge. If Eddie killed Gospel John himself, Freddy would still be Freddy—the one who creates problems and lets his younger brother solve them. That pattern has defined their relationship since the first episode. Freddy makes a mess. Eddie cleans it up.
This time, Eddie breaks the cycle.
You chose Gospel John? You participated in the plan? You contributed to Bella’s death? Then you get to eliminate him yourself.
After a few minutes, the van door opens. Freddy emerges covered in blood, holding Gospel John’s severed head. He screams—a raw, animal sound. Eddie watches. And he almost smiles.
What Eddie’s Smile Means?
The first season ended with Eddie personally killing Henry Collins. It was the moment he accepted that he’d become a criminal. The second season goes further. Eddie doesn’t have to kill anymore. He gets others to kill for him. He moves people around the board. He decides who does what.
It’s the difference between a soldier and a general. Between a criminal and a boss.
At the start of the season, Stanley Johnston tells Eddie he’s destined to become king. Eddie spends eight episodes trying to become one through land deals, Parliament connections, marijuana, the Italian mafia, and marriage. But he really becomes king in that van scene—not because he wins anything, but because he exercises absolute power over another human being.
The almost-smile tells you everything. Part of him enjoys it. Guy Ritchie is moving Eddie in a clear direction: each season strips away another moral justification. In Season 1, Eddie did everything to protect the family. In Season 2, he wants everything. In Season 3, he may have to answer the question that’s been building all along: what happens when you finally get what you wanted?
The Alliance Reforms
The finale also puts Eddie, Susie, and Bobby back on the same side. For much of the season, the three have been going their separate ways. Eddie wants to expand without limits. Bobby sees that ambition as dangerous. Susie tries to build her own autonomy, even trafficking cocaine behind her father’s back.
Then everything collapses, and the external threat forces them to cooperate again. Susie proves Bobby’s innocence. Eddie saves Bobby from the hitman. Bobby reveals he protected Eddie by paying the debt to Johnston. The old triangle comes back together.
But it’s a temporary peace. No one has solved the fundamental problem. Eddie wants to be in charge. Susie wants independence. Bobby is still the boss. Three people can cooperate. They can’t all be the boss.
What Season 3 Might Hold
Netflix has confirmed a third season, but there’s no official plot information yet. That leaves room for speculation, and the finale provides plenty of material.
Could Freddy Become Eddie’s Enemy?
This is the most intriguing possibility. Eddie just humiliated, beat, and forced his brother to commit a horrifying murder. Freddy may have been saved from death, but the relationship could be permanently destroyed. Freddy has already betrayed Eddie once over the inheritance. Now he has an even more personal reason to hate him.
Does Freddy emerge from that van broken—or dangerous?
Will Eddie Try to Replace Bobby?
It feels inevitable. The entire second season was built around Eddie’s ambition. He wants territories. He wants political legitimacy. He wants everything. Bobby remains the one clear obstacle.
Will Susie Have to Choose?
Susie has spent two seasons caught between her father and Eddie. Bobby represents the family empire. Eddie represents something new. There’s also the unresolved romantic tension between them—and Bella’s death removes one obstacle, even if it doesn’t mean they’ll end up together. Susie has watched Eddie transform. She may be the first person to recognize that the man in the finale isn’t the partner she met in Season 1. He’s someone who can force his own brother to behead a man and then smile.
The Real Meaning of the Finale?
The first season was about discovering power. The second is about addiction to it. Eddie isn’t forced to be a criminal anymore. He wants to be. But more than that, he wants to be the one who decides everything.
He tries to turn crime into politics, marijuana into legal commerce, marriage into international alliance, family into a power structure. Then he loses it all. And it’s precisely in losing that he understands who he is.
He doesn’t step back. He gets harder.
Gospel John’s beheading isn’t just revenge. It’s a ceremony. Freddy emerges from the van covered in blood, as if he’s been initiated into a new version of the Horniman family. Eddie watches like the man who organized the ritual. The Duke doesn’t just want to protect his home anymore. He wants to build a dynasty.
Season 3 will have to answer the question that’s been building since the pilot: what kind of king will Eddie Horniman become? The answer, based on the finale, is troubling. A king who’s learned to use people—including his own brother—as instruments. A king who no longer needs to bloody his own hands. A king who smiles when the people he loves are forced to become monsters.
The van scene works because it closes a two-season arc perfectly. Eddie used to solve Freddy’s problems. Now he forces Freddy to solve his own. With a chainsaw. The question for Season 3 isn’t whether Eddie becomes king. It’s what’s left of him when he does.