In espionage parlance, the word “legend” refers to the backstory given to a person going undercover. What their name is, where they’re from, what their dad did for a living, which football team they support, the side of the bed they sleep on, whether or not they pick their nose. “You need a plan, you need a persona,” undercover expert Don Clarke (Steve Coogan) tells his new recruits in Netflix’s police procedural Legends. “And you need to believe in them both.” But can this show prove as immersive as all that? Does it buy into its own legend, or leave its characters floundering?
It’s the 1980s and there’s a new horror on the streets of Britain: heroin. “The pursuit will be relentless,” we see Margaret Thatcher warn drug dealers from the television, “until we’ve beaten you.” To achieve that end, new powers are afforded to a team of customs officers led by Coogan’s Don, a man who has, himself, gone deep inside the smuggling and distribution operations of the narcotics industry. He assembles a crack team (of underpaid volunteers) including Kate (Hayley Squires), Bailey (Aml Ameen), Erin (Jasmine Blackborow), and, particularly, Guy (Tom Burke), who must go deep undercover, despite the concerns of his wife Sophie (Charlotte Ritchie). “Mrs Thatcher needs a crisis she can solve and here it is,” Alex Jennings’ home secretary informs Don. But breaking into these close-knit operations – whether it’s the Turks in London or the brutal Scouse kingpins – is not a simple task.
