Criminal Record Season Two Review (Apple TV)

Apple TV’s Criminal Record is back for a second season, and this time, the show is taking a broader approach.

Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo return as DCI Daniel Hegarty and DS June Lenker, but this time their story takes them closer to what we see on the news. Season One was tight, methodical, and built around the story of a wrongful conviction. Whereas season two focuses on Britain’s more recent anxieties. The politics is louder, the stakes are higher, and the show feels bigger. It doesn’t even feel like you need to see the first season to get the second season, but knowing Lenker and Hegarty’s backstory gives every scene an added layer.

The main strength of the first came from Lenker and Hegarty’s dynamic, and this season pushes them even closer together. It’s a bold move, and it mostly pays off as a result of the epic performances by Capaldi and Jumbo. Daniel Hegarty continues to walk a thin line between authority and slipperiness, whilst Jumbo’s Lenker appears more confident than previously. Dustin Demri-Burns joins as a new villain, Cosmo Thompson, who regularly makes your skin crawl because of his disturbingly possible beliefs.

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Visually, the series continues with its gritty London look and remains grounded in a realism that stops the show from going off the rails. Sometimes, the pacing drags, and what’s meant to be slow and tense occasionally feels sluggish, but the season still feels relevant with hot topics like political disinformation and far-right extremism. The show successfully digs into these ideas smartly by letting moral lines blur under pressure, but there’s a sense that it doesn’t want to go any deeper. If you’re already tired of shows tackling similar issues, it might feel a bit fatigued, not because it’s lazy, but because we’re starting to see these stories play out so often on our screens.

For me, it often felt like it wasn’t trying to do anything new, and I found that really took away my interest in the wider story. The performances are good, and they want you to believe it’s high stakes, but it never truly felt like it. For others, though, it might not matter that it doesn’t always feel fresh. There’s still a really strong crime thriller here, it just doesn’t feel as unique as the first season.

In the end, season two is bigger and riskier, even if it loses some of the focus of the first outing. When it’s good, it’s a sharp, intense drama that mirrors what’s happening outside our doors. When it’s not, it strains a bit, although often the acting pulls it back. Criminal Record still stands out as one of Apple TV’s most polished dramas, even as it takes a more ambitious approach this season.