The last we saw of Paddy Mayne he was in in the desert, machine gun on his up, contemplating commanding the 1st SAS regiment after David Stirling had been captured by the Germans, and saying through gritted teeth: “Blood will follow”.
It was quite a final line for the show. And pleasingly, he was right. Blood is in plentiful supply in the eagerly-anticipated season two of SAS Rogue Heroes which lands like a boot to your groin this New Year’s Day.
As is plenty of Paddy action, from the very start. There he is, Jack O’Connell as Mayne (who, like most of the characters in the show, was real and just as wild) sat in a Cairo hotel as he’s refused some compassionate leave for the death of his father. He’s quiet for a minute. Very un-Paddy. Then he smashes up the table and chairs. Very Paddy.
Collecting himself, he addresses the onlookers, “Apologies ladies and gentlemen, but GHQ in Cairo has got my f***ing goat.” Before then beating up about 15 soldiers to Rip It Up by the Adolescents. Terrific stuff.
So with Paddy suitably riled up, off we go for another gleefully rambunctious march through the history of late Second World War by big men with no shirts and large machine guns to a loud punk soundtrack.
With North Africa won by the Allies – with the help of the maniacs in the SAS operating behind enemy lines, as told in season one – attention now turns to the liberation of Europe. Though it seems that the main task is simply to turn Paddy in that direction.
It’s Spring 1943 and it turns out Stirling is in a prisoner of war camp in Italy, and with him off-grid, Bill is trying to stop the disbanding of the SAS and in fact aiming to form a new unit, the SRS, Special Raiding Service to lead the charge. It’ll be the same men but new guise to satisfy the pencil pushers.
But will Paddy be interested? “You, Paddy Mayne, could be the first Allied commander to set foot in Nazi occupied Europe… but I need to convince GHQ that the Irishman can change.” Of course he can’t change but this is the set up that is sure to make the second season as big a hit as season one.
It isn’t messing with the formula, this one is even bigger and louder, and gets on with delivering the same kicks as the first but with some additional audience pleasing tricks… like a dog. And the mafia.
The first season was a surprise mega-hit for the BBC. Which shouldn’t really have been much of a surprise since Steven ‘Peaky Blinders’ Knight was behind it, and due to the enduring popular appeal of anything featuring those three letters S.A.S.
Elite soldiering. The Israeli embassy. The balaclavas. The special ops behind enemy lines. These are things impossibly exciting to men of a certain age.
The series was always going to do well, but such was its success – 9.4 million for its first show over Christmas 2022 – that clearly it was connecting with far more demographics than the obvious.
Why? Because it was really good.
It had an epic sweep to it of your classic war films, with Stirling (played by Connor Swindells), the originator of the SAS portrayed as the ultimate cool guy, the real James Bond, able to switch between environments with ease, from the sophistication of Cairo nightclubs to the testosterone-fueled mess halls.
Stirling was fueled by a rebellious spirit, and a fearless approach to warfare, and found a kindred spirit, if a very different kind of character, in the all-drinking, all-punching, all-grumpy bastard Mayne. Jack O’Connell’s performance go-to is ‘kinetic’, but here he was incandescent.
Stirling’s attitude was: why dilly dally around lengthy armed conflicts, when he could just pull together a small group of elite soldiers, head behind enemy lines in secret and knock out entire enemy airfields?
And the show matched that spirit. The series was based on the true story of the SAS, as told in the books by Ben McIntyre, but why dilly-dally with historical accuracy when you can just stick a bunch of sexy armed men on a jeep and play some AC/DC.
It’s difficult with spoilers to negotiate – since there was a fair bit of who is and isn’t dead at the end of the last season – but Dominic West is also back as Dudley Clarke and Sofia Boutella also returns as Eve Mansour, French Intelligence officer and Stirling’s ally.
Basically what we have here is Stirling trying a Great Escape and Paddy leading the charge into Nazi-occupied Italy, via Sicily.
And while there is some sense of missing the desert rats landscape as we go into more conventional warfare situations, SAS Rogue Heroes S2 is nothing less than a joy from start to finish.
The set pieces are spectacular, full of tension, thrilling action and stunning locations. The series delights in nodding to your classic throwbacks and these urban settings allow for a bit more Kelly’s Heroes, a bit more Dirty Dozen, and a good dose of The Godfather’s Sicilian scenes too.
And actually there is depth here. The moral quandaries encountered by Paddy and his troops are many, forever putting aside human impulses for the task of soldiering for the greater good is put across very well.
One scene where the troops have to sail on past some drowning British men in the Mediterranean is a particularly haunting one. “No mercy,” says Paddy. Later, he will go float in the water with one of the bodies, in remorse and self-punishment and solidarity.
Tough men, or men given no choice but to act tough?
SAS Rogue Heroes series two is available in full on BBC iPlayer from 6am on New Year’s Day, and airs on BBC One from 9pm that night. Catch up with series one on BBC iPlayer now.
