Series Two of Neil Forsyth's 'The Gold' isn't really about gold.
As Jessie J would say, it's "all about the money."
Picking up from Series One, which aired in 2003, Hugh Bonneville's Metropolitan Police DCS Philip Boyce and his team remain determined to jail the criminals behind the 1983 Brink's Mat Robbery in Heathrow - well some of them, if not all of them.
However they also want to make them pay - financially.
Hitting their pockets, though, won't be easy.
Tom Cullen's silver tongued, former gold dealer John Palmer is living a life of luxury, having dodged conviction in the Old Bailey for his role in recycling the gold.
Now based in Tenerife, he is making a fortune duping British holidaymakers into purchasing timeshares.
Meanwhile Sam Spruell's East End gangster Charlie Miller has recovered some of his share of the Brinks Mat bullion from a Cornish tin mine and sets about trying to launder the proceeds.
Engaging Joshua McGuire's dodgy Isle of Man tax expert Douglas Baxter, Miller, he soon finds himself in the Virgin Islands where Tom Hughes' Logan Campbell is laundering cash for Jack Bandeira's American drug trafficker Scott Errico.
Back in London, Boyce is under pressure from Peter Davison's pompous Assistant Commissioner Gordan Stewart to shut down the Metropolitan Police investigation because it has become too expensive.
Quietly encouraged by Amanda Drew's Commander Cath McLean to keep going, he dangles the prospect of the proceeds of crime they recover going into the coffers of the Met.
That's enough to persuade Stewart to give him and the team more time.
Soon Boyce is flitting between London and Tenerife, keeping an eye on the increasingly cocky Palmer - waiting from him to trip up.
Emun Elliott's DI Tony Brightwell and Charlotte Spencer's DI Nicki Jennings get to eat fish and chips in the Isle of Man as they try to track Miller's money via Baxter.
Another member of the team, Stephen Campbell Moore's DI Tony Lundy uses his contacts in London's underworld to try and understand what Miller is up to.
What emerges is a smart, cat and mouse game, blending fact with highly speculative fiction.
It's a tale of greed and the lengths people were prepared go in the Thatcher years to acquire and hold onto dirty money on either end of the social spectrum.
Miller and Palmer are working class lads whose heads are turned by the money they've made through criminal activity - the latter flaunting his wealth with private jets, bodyguards, a mistress and a cocaine habit.
Campbell and Baxter's public school duo, though, are just as shallow and unscrupulous.
What really upsets the apple cart is the resurfacing in Tenerife of Jack Lowden's embittered Kenneth Noye who has served his time in prison for masterminding the disappearance of the gold but has little to show for it.
Against all odds, Noye becomes the show's loose cannon.
You're just waiting for him to explode.
As with Series One, Forsyth has again crafted an intelligent tale that is just as fascinated with the power dynamics at play in the police and criminal underworld as it is with Boyce's diligent investigation.
All six episodes move at a brisk pace, with director Patrick Harkins keeping a steady hand on the wheel throughout.
However it is the quality of Forsyth's storytelling that is the show's greatest asset, allowing the cast to shine.
Bonneville has rarely been better as the extremely focused senior investigator who, like Elliott Ness in 'The Untouchables,' is prepared to bend the rules just a little to exact justice.
Elliott and Spencer remain an engaging detective duo, with Moore really growing into the role of their maverick colleague who likes to dance in the shadows.
Cullen also enjoys sinking his teeth into arguably the most developed character of the show, turning Palmer into an arrogant, coke fuelled mess.
Spruell deftly manages to avoid Miller becoming a stock East End villain, as his character is increasingly seduced by the notion of having money and holding onto it.
Lowden is excellent as the on the run Noye who is haunted by the way Brinks Mat has ruined his life.
Hughes and McGuire enjoy playing the show's blue blood characters, while Davison and Drew are good value as Boyce's interfering bosses.
James Nelson Joyce reprises his role as Brian Reader, a criminal associate of Noye's while 'Quadrophenia' and 'Face' star Phil Davies makes a welcome appearance as Joey Wilkins, an old school East End gangster who Lowden's character comes across in Spain.
Dominic Cooper returns brieflyas the money laundering lawyer Edwyn Cooper, while Bandeira injects more menace into the show as Errico.
Aa Stefanie Martini's Melanie Palmer grows increasingly estranged from her Tenerife based husband, Rochelle Neil and Antonia Desplat engage our sympathies as Campbell's girlfriend and Palmer's mistress respectively.
Madalena Alberto amuses as a US DEA agent Gabriella Lunez, while Lorna Brown demonstrates as the Virgin Islands Governor how people in power will turn a blind eye to crime for political gain.
With clever needle drops from Joy Division, New Order, The Cranberries, Portishead, Faithless and Oasis, Forsyth ties everything up into a much neater bow than the real life Brinks Mat investigation ever achieved.
But you're prepared to forgive him all that because of the hard yards 'The Gold' puts in to building its characters and explaining the dynamics of a complex police investigation of this nature.
Series Two of 'The Gold' doesn't just confirm Forsyth as one of the best writers working in British TV at the moment, it makes a strong claim to be one of the best police shows British television has ever made.
And that's some recommendation.
(Series Two of 'The Gold' was broadcast on BBC1 between June 8-23, 2025 and BBC iPlayer on June 8, 2025)
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