— If you haven’t already watched season 1, we suggest heading to and catching up before reading on. —
The first season of Rogue Heroes was about as much fun as it’s possible to have during World War II. A high stakes, high drama look at the formation of the UK’s most unhinged special forces unit – that’d be the SAS – it managed to combine thrilling action with personal drama that didn’t feel tacked on. Mostly because the trio behind the formation of the SAS appear to be, to put it bluntly, total maniacs.
In season one we meet Connor Swindell’s David Sterling, a drunk who liked a fight and was sick and tired of the British Army’s reluctance to take the fight to the Afrika Corps in Africa. The year was 1941, the German forces were advancing across Libya towards the Suez Canal, and if they took control of that then Britain’s forces in India and Asia would be cut off.
The action continues: Paddy Mayne (Jack O'Connell) in season 2 of 'Rogue Heroes'. Credit: Dino Sertovic / BBC / Banijay
The time for playing nice was over: Sterling proposed a unit that would drop down behind enemy lines cutting off their supplies, and together with Paddy Mayne (Jack O’Connell) and Jock Lewes (Alfie Allen) pretty soon they were jumping out of planes, blowing up Nazi airfields and ports, and training French Foreign Legion troops to help out with the carnage.
It all looked like a lot of fun – the action sequences in the series are consistently top-notch, and the series isn’t above a rocking soundtrack and the occasional freeze-frame to sell the sheer coolness of fighting Nazis – but it came at a price. By the end of the first season Jock was dead, David Sterling was a POW, and while the unit now had the blessing of no less than Winston Churchill himself, its future remained somewhat up in the air (and not in the sense of them getting ready to jump out of another plane).
A secret strength of the series was that, behind all the thrills and swearing and action and suspense, it also delivered a surprisingly nuanced look at the kind of man who would dive head-first into the insanity of this kind of combat. Impulsive thrill-seekers with a distain for authority pretty much covered it, but there was enough variety between the leads to show that their success was a team effort.
Which is a problem, because as season two begins the team is well and truly broken up.
David Stirling (Connor Swindells) returns for season 2 of 'Rogue Heroes'. Credit: Robert Viglasky / BBC / Banijay
In the first season Paddy could fly off the handle safe in the knowledge that David Sterling had his back. Now he’s leading the SAS, and that requires a very different set of skills. Especially as he’s now dealing with David’s older brother, Lt Colonel Bill Sterling (Gwilym Lee), who offers to help him keep the unit going. Paddy has just trashed a bar and punched out a bunch of military police because the Army wouldn’t let him take leave for his father’s funeral: safe to say he’s not really in the mood to defer to authority.
The central irony of Rogue Heroes is that the SAS is about breaking the rules to get the job done, while existing as part of an organisation that’s built entirely on following rules (and the class divide that comes with it). Bill is the more traditional leader, but he’s no fool, and he knows if lax discipline is the price to pay for getting results, then he’ll be willing to let things slide… to some extent.
As for Paddy, being the one the men on the ground look to for leadership is a new role for him, and it’s one he’s going to have to wrap his head around quickly. The unit (now renamed the Special Raiding Squadron, thanks to the British Army’s endless love of bureaucracy) has been given a new mission: spearhead the invasion of Italy by dropping into Sicily and taking out the enemy defences.
The good news is, they’re given a 50 per cent chance of survival by strategist Dudley Wrangel Clarke (Dominic West). The bad news is, if anyone gets in trouble during the mission – if their glider crashes into the sea, for example – everyone else is ordered to let them die.
Reg Seekings (Theo Barklem-Biggs) and Dave Kershaw (Bobby Schofield). Credit: Ludovic Robert / BBC / Banijay
And that’s just for starters. Operating in Italy means working with the Mafia, dealing with collaborators, and fighting a heck of a lot of Germans. And while Hitler has given a personal order that all Allied commandoes operating in Europe are to be executed, David Sterling is still stewing in an Italian POW camp, just waiting for his chance to get back into the action.
He needn’t worry about missing out: in Rogue Heroes, there’s more than enough action to go around.
Rogue Heroes season 2 premiered Wednesday 26 February on SBS and SBS On Demand. Episodes air weekly each Wednesdays on SBS, with the new episodes also arriving weekly at SBS On Demand. Season 1 is also streaming at SBS On Demand.
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Rogue Heroes
