Reviewed by Alicia Glass
Originally based on the novel of rather broadly accurate adventures of the Special Air Services or SAS, titled SAS Rogue Heroes by author Ben Mcintyre, the show details the doings of a specially formed regiment of British soldiers who use unique and unusual methods to fight Nazis and their allies during WWII.
Welcome back to the war, still in progress! The bad boys of the SAS have been on standby, essentially directionless since their triumphs, and many tribulations, in the deserts of Africa from Season 1. With David Stirling (Connor Swindells) languishing in an Italian POW castle, the burden of leadership of the SAS is about to fall on the formidable shoulders of everyones favorite madman, Paddy Mayne (Jack O’Connell). And a new Stirling, the much more stiff and by-the-book elder brother Bill (Gwilym Lee), is tasked with delivering the news of dubious promotion in a last-ditch attempt to save the SAS from being disbanded entirely, to Paddy Mayne after he once again gets his spoiling-for-a-fight butt landed again in a Cairo lockup. To be fair, Paddy Mayne’s request for bereavement leave to attend his fathers funeral was deliberately denied which just righteously pissed him off, and restraint has never been part of his vocabulary.
Elsewhere, the “we knew she had to be still alive, she’s the only woman on the show!” French Algerian spy Eve Mansour (Sofia Boutella) is meeting with the other puppeteer of the SAS, the on-and-off-again alcoholic Dudley Clarke (Dominic West), to try and flesh out the next moves of our berserker boys in their currently sand-colored berets. After some to-ing and fro-ing, its decided that our bedlam boys are going from the sands of Africa to the green fields of Sicily, to take on fascist Italy and Hitler’s Nazis much more directly!
Season 2 of Rogue Heroes details a lot more of the brutality and awful circumstances of the war that our madcap murderous men have to endure. Just getting them to the European boot is an endurance trial they never thought they’d likely have to experience, as Paddy Mayne orders his men not to offer any aid or assistance to the men lost in the sea from the downed Allied planes on and near the coast of Italy. The cries for mercy, for mother, for God, for the men in their motorboats leaving downed American allies behind to drown in foreign waters to save me, haunts our bereaved boys, as well it would any human.
After landing in and taking over the Sicilian town of Augusta, our brutal boys are forced to contend with a bunch more of unexpected occurrences – the turncoat priest of the town who tries to insist that our crazy crew needs to meet with the Sicilian mafia Cosa Nostra as potential allies, the arrival of the Italian partisan resistance who are determined to fight Nazis too, and most especially unnerving, the announcement of Hitler’s infamously cruel Commando Order, which goes directly against the Geneva Convention as far as the “rules of war” are concerned. All while being informed that the original SAS is being renamed to the SRS, or Special Raiding Services, suffering changes to their uniforms and especially the color of their beloved berets, and being made aware that British Military Command is training a brand new regiment of SAS, to be known as SAS2 from now on. The one bright spot is Paddy Mayne managing to get the newly-returned SAS Sergeant Jim Almonds (Corin Silva) assigned to his unit before they ship out to take over another Sicilian town. Oh, and, Eve has somehow astonishingly made it all the way to Augusta too, and is insisting on joining Paddy Mayne and our bombardier boys as they head off to take over Termoli.
What happens to our beleaguered boys both inside Termoli and nearby at the manor home turned laundry is absolutely devastating and truly highlights the kind of atrocities that the Nazis and their fascist allies got away with during WWII. Reg Seekings (Theo Barklem-Biggs) and his attempts at reconnecting with humanity being literally blown up in his face, is particularly shattering and heartbreaking to watch. The multiple almost-executions of John Tonkin (Jack Barton), his night spent with an enemy Commandant in strange gentlemanly comfort, and his long hard journey across war-torn territory to find his way back to his SAS brothers, only highlights the ripple effects of the war on the innocents in the surrounding countrysides of the invaders – both foreign and domestic. Yet somehow through it all our beloved bomb boys manage to cling to their duty, to the shreds of their humanity by sheer force of will, and give it their ever-loving foul-mouthed all in the face of a gruesome, unmerciful enemy and their allies.
See the full range of manly military might coupled with crippling emotional scenes, and shout “Bombs away!” with our SAS brothers in Rogue Heroes Season 2, out on the MGM+ channel now!