Black Doves episode 2 recap: ‘A Little Black Dove’

Black Doves episode 2, “A Little Black Dove,” takes viewers back a decade in the first scene. It’s 2014, and Helen, played by Keira Knightley, sits down for a job interview as a translator for a company. She explains the many gaps in her resume, and the interviewer hints that he knows more about her past, which seems to include some tragedy that resulted in her stepsister killing her stepfather.

If you watch episode 2 back to back with episode 1, it’s definitely a change of pace, almost a pause. Remember, Helen and Sam (Ben Whishaw) were about to confront the person who killed Helen’s lover, Jason (Andrew Koji). 

Anyway, Helen tries to leave the meeting, but the man gives her a phone number. He explains that she’ll be calling a woman, Reed (Sarah Lancashire). The man says that she needs to tell Reed that she is “a little Black Dove.” And, that appears to be the origin of how Helen becomes a spy with the Black Doves. 

Later, Helen meets Mrs. Reed, which implies she has a husband or partner, for the first time. Reed shares more information about the program and invites Helen to join. 

We don’t see her accept, but in the next scene, she’s at a conference at a hotel listening to her soon-to-be husband, Wallace Webb (Andrew Buchar), give a speech. She picks up a nametag for Helen Dawson. That night, Helen meets Wallace at the bar, and they hook up. After, Helen downloads information from Wallace’s laptop. 

Then, Helen meets Sam for the first time outside the hotel in the parking lot. He’s waiting for Helen to take her from the hotel to the train station. Helen returns to the room to get something she forgot, and then she returns and stays the full night with Wallace. 

That’s how Helen got her job, and met her future husband, and someone very special to her, Sam. It’s a lot of exposition, but it’s important for understanding why Helen is doing what she’s doing right now.

In the present, Sam picks up Helen from her home to visit the apartment of Elmore Fitch (Paapa Essiedu), the man who allegedly killed Jason. Elmore isn’t home, and his apartment is mysteriously spotless. Helen, almost too late, realizes it’s all a bit too convenient for them to find a bullet casing with fingerprints on it. Just in time, Sam grabs Helen’s hand, shoots out the window, and they jump from the window into the river below as a bomb triggered by a Christmas ornament explodes. Sam drops Helen off at home, after apologizing for walking her right into a trap.  

After returning home, Elmore Fitch shows up at Helen’s house to kill her. He pulls a gun on her after a brief altercation. He asks her for a pinhold video camera or if she knows where it is. He also explains that he’s looking for someone named Kai-Ming Chen (Isabella Wei). The people he’s working for think that Helen is connected, but it’s unclear why or how if that is true. 

Elmore admits that he killed Jason, but he won’t admit who hired him to kill him. Helen kills him in the garden shed. I don’t know much, but I do know that Essiedu is going to make a great Severus Snape in the new Harry Potter TV series. 

The following day, Sam meets with Lenny (Kathryn Hunter) who he was working for before he left London seven years ago. She believes that Sam owes her Hector Newman (Luther Ford), who Sam was supposed to kill years ago but didn’t. Williams (Ella Lily Hyland), one of the assassins who tried to kill Helen at Jason’s apartment, threatens to kill Sam. Lenny threatens Sam. Either he takes out Hector, or Williams and the other assassin kills Michael (Omari Douglas), Sam’s ex. 

Wallace meets with a colleague, who reveals that the Chinese believe the Americans killed Ambassador Chen. Wallaces ponders the idea, but he worries that they could be right. 

Later, Sam meets with Reed and Sam about what happened with Jason. They are trying to find the link between Jason and Kai-Ming, who is missing. Helen stomps off, but Reed reminds Sam that they need to make sure that Helen is kept alive, despite her erratic behavior.  

That night, Helen spies on her husband at an event. Wallace reveals to Stephen Yarrick (Sam Troughton) that Phillip Bray, before he was murdered, had reached out to him about Yarrick being involved in the murder of the Chinese Ambassador. Wallace is trying to get to the bottom of this, but he’s also not going to turn over his friend immediately. Yarrick denies it, but Helen follows him from the event. 

Then, she visits the bench where Jason was killed. In a flashback, we see Helen confess to Jason that she is a Black Dove while in bed together. She admits, basically, that she’s a spy. Was that why Jason was killed? For knowing her? We still don’t know. 

Sam decides to take Lenny’s offer to kill Hector after Wiliams threatens Michael again. When Sam arrives, the compound has already been attacked. Hector’s men have been killed. Sam walks through the compound and eventually finds a video camera pointed at a bed. Sam rewinds the tape and see Hector leave with Kai-Ming, the Ambassador’s daughter right before the shooting begins. On the tape, Hector says, “It’s the Clarks.” 

Who are the Clarks? 

This case just took a turn, and now, Sam, Helen, Wallace, Reed, and all the main characters seem to be involved in this mystery in one way or another. 

Up next is Black Doves episode 3! We’ll see how it all shakes out.