Source: https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/tv/a71268563/legends-season-2/

Will There Be a ‘Legends’ Season 2? The Chances Look Surprisingly Good

We know you are craving more Coogan

It’s been called perhaps “the most watchable crime drama Netflix puts out this year”, and it’s fair to say that Legends, a thriller inspired by the real life stories of customs officers going deep undercover in the ‘90s to smash international drug rings, has been a global hit.

But as it loiters in the most-watched spot at the top of Netflix’s chart, viewers will be wondering if there’s any hope in uncovering a second series. Here’s everything we know so far.

Legends Season 2

While Netflix – or the writer Neil Forsyth – is officially to confirm a second series yet, things do look promising, for a couple of reasons.

First of all – and as noted by some eagle-eyed fans – the series isn’t marked as a “limited series” on Netflix, like, say, Adolescence or Baby Reindeer. This suggests that it could potentially be greenlit for a second series.

Secondly, the series is inspired by the real Guy Stanton (portrayed brilliantly by Tom Burke), the customs officer-turned-undercover-agent and his 2022 memoir, The Betrayer: How an Undercover Unit Infiltrated the Global Drug Trade.

The book in itself is a thrilling read, and although Stanton does talk about infiltrating Turkish and Kurdish gangs who were trafficking heroin from Afghanistan into the UK, this is one of Stanton’s first ever undercover jobs.

Remarkably, not only did he live to tell the tale from this mission, but he went on to go full gangster double-agent for another decade. And has got the incredible stories to tell from it.

In his book, he talks about ending up in South America, where he was blindfolded and taken to a remote warehouse by Pablo Escobar’s cousin. However, this contact led to the seizure of a shipment of cocaine – stashed in a cargo boat of fruit pulp – in Belem, Brazil. He narrowly cheated death several times, including an incident in Curaçao where a man drove by and shot at him with an Uzi machine gun. While in Kenya, he managed to escape a trap set up for him. Stanton also had to testify in a court case in The Hague – in a dodgy disguise – against one of the drug traffickers who was his target.

His incredible story has even more twists. The police eventually turned on Stanton, and he was wrongly accused of taking bribes from his contact, Keravnos – called Mylonas in the series – but was subject to a two-year investigation, which was eventually dropped to the lack of evidence. All told, there are more than enough plotlines in his memoirs to flesh out three or four more series, if needed.

Writer Neil Forsyth also backed this up with his own research and evidence, which included speaking to many former customs people who turned spies, and presumably there were stories and people who didn’t make the short six-episode cut. As per Radio Times, he said: “I conducted lots of interviews, some with people who were happy to talk to me publicly, others who needed to be a bit more clandestine. The more I listened, the more extraordinary the tale revealed itself to be.I did need to condense and simplify it, because otherwise it would be extremely complicated and we’d have far too many characters.”

Who Could Be in Legends Season 2?

If Stanton’s memoirs were to be further mined, that would likely mean Tom Burke would return, and possibly his wife (Charlotte Ritchie). Spoiler alert for season one: Stanton was left looking over his shoulder in the finale, so the fear of reprisal may follow him into a new outing of the thriller.

Steve Coogan has won a lot of plaudits for his role as the droll Don, boss of the undercover team, and could potentially give him another break-out character to rival his most famous creation, Alan Partridge. Whether the Customs Avengers team of Bailey (Aml Ameen) and Kate (Hayley Squires) and Erin (Jasmine Blackborow) will return will depend on the storylines, but the gang were arguably the backbone of the series, so it might be likely that they’ll also reunite.

Legends Season 2 Release Date

If the second season does get confirmed, it’s interesting to note that Legends was first commissioned in 2024, and was released in 2026. If it follows the same timeline, we might expect to see the follow-up series released at some point in 2028.