Review based on episode 1.
Serial killer drama The Game returns for a second season, and quickly delivers enough tension and shocks in the first episode to make it essential viewing for thriller fans.
The first season, broadcast in 2025, followed retired police detective Huw Miller (Jason Watkins) as he became obsessed with his new neighbour, Patrick Harbottle (Robson Green). While Patrick seemed a friendly enough chap, Huw was convinced that Patrick was in fact the Ripton Stalker, a prolific serial killer who watched his victims for months before finally killing them.
ITV
By the end of the first season, Huw finally proved that Patrick was the murderer he had been chasing for years, and Patrick was taken away in a police car as the end credits rolled.
While at that point The Game seemed like a one-and-done series – after all, the bad guy had been put away, hadn’t he – the show’s success demanded a second instalment, and creator and writer Tom Grieves has risen to the challenge, cleverly managing to make Patrick just as sinister behind bars as he was roaming free.
The second season picks up a year after the first and Patrick is indeed in prison, but it soon becomes apparent that his reach extends beyond the prison walls. He’s determined to maintain a relationship with poor Huw, who he sees as his only worthy opponent, and manages to track Huw down at his remote coastal home, torturing him with letters and requests for Huw to visit him.
While an entire season of Robson Green and Jason Watkins staring at each other across a prison dining room table would be perfectly entertaining viewing, events in the first episode soon reveal that – just like Hannibal Lecter – Patrick has a plan that could potentially bring the adversaries face to face on the outside. And that plan could also involve Huw’s family, including his wife Alice (Sunetra Sarker) and daughter Margot (Indy Lewis), who is perhaps picking the wrong time to assert her independence and move out of the family home.
There is also a new development in Patrick’s case to explore, and by the end of the first episode there are so many questions to be answered that the second episode won’t come soon enough for fans.
ITV
It’s possible that some of the twists will be a little preposterous to contrive to get the two leads together, but Watkins and Green work so well together on screen, it’s easy to forgive the occasionally eyebrow raising plot point.
As with the first season, Jason Watkins and Indy Lewis both shine in their roles as beleaguered dad and the daughter who has to deal with his protectiveness. But it is Robson Green who is the true joy here, pivoting from his likeable role as Geordie in Grantchester to play Patrick as a sinister, enjoyably evil murderer who Hannibal Lecter would be proud of.
The Game season 2 debuts on Tuesday at 9pm on 5. Season 1 is available to stream on 5.
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Freelance film & TV writer, Digital Spy
Critic and writer Jo Berry has been writing about TV and movies since she began her career at Time Out aged 18. A regular on BBC Radio, Jo has written for titles including Empire, Maxim, Radio Times, OK!, The Guardian and Grazia, is the author of books including Chick Flicks and The Parents’ Guide to Kids’ Movies.
She is also the editor of website Movies4Kids. In her career, Jo has interviewed well-known names including Beyonce, Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Kiefer Sutherland, Tom Cruise and all the Avengers, spent many an hour crushed in the press areas of award show red carpets. Jo is also a self-proclaimed expert on Outlander and Brassic, and completely agrees that Die Hard is a Christmas movie.