There is a point in The Gentlemen Season 2 where you start looking at Bobby Glass and thinking, “Has this man finally lost the plot?” And honestly, I can’t blame anyone for having that reaction.
Bobby is suddenly making decisions that seem completely insane. He throws huge amounts of money around, interferes with Eddie Horniman’s increasingly complicated business affairs, makes moves that appear to put the Glass operation at unnecessary risk, and starts talking about things that sound less like criminal strategy and more like something he picked up after spending too much time in a sauna.
But that is exactly why Bobby works so well in this season. The show wants you to believe he has become unpredictable. It wants Eddie, Susie, and the audience to question whether the old gangster who built the empire is still capable of seeing the board clearly.
And the deeper you get into Season 2, the harder it becomes to believe that Bobby’s behavior is simply stupidity.
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Bobby Glass Is Playing a Different Game
Season 1 established Bobby as the kind of criminal who rarely needs to raise his voice because everyone already knows what happens when they disappoint him. He is experienced, ruthless, patient, and completely comfortable manipulating people around him.
So when that same man suddenly starts behaving like he’s making decisions on impulse, I immediately become suspicious.
That is the key to understanding Bobby in Season 2: his decisions only look irrational if you assume he is trying to achieve the same things as Eddie and Susie.
Eddie is thinking about expansion. Susie is thinking about the business. Their enemies are thinking about territory, money, supply lines, and leverage.
Bobby is thinking about something much bigger.
He is thinking about who deserves to inherit what he built.
The £100 Million Move That Makes Everyone Panic
One of the clearest examples is Bobby’s decision to spend an enormous amount of money dealing with Eddie’s debt to Stanley Johnston.
From Susie’s perspective, this is bordering on financial insanity. Why throw such a gigantic sum into a problem created by someone who is still trying to prove that he can operate independently? Eddie is valuable, obviously, but £100 million is not pocket change, even for an international criminal empire.
On the surface, Bobby appears to be protecting Eddie.
I don’t think that’s what he’s doing.
He’s buying the opportunity to test him.
Bobby doesn’t want Eddie to succeed because someone keeps rescuing him. That would produce an aristocrat with a criminal business, not a genuine successor. Bobby wants to know what Eddie does when the pressure becomes unbearable and there is nowhere left to hide behind family money, social status, or somebody else’s authority.
That distinction matters enormously.
Eddie entered this world almost by accident. By Season 2, he’s far more comfortable with violence and manipulation, but Bobby still sees something unfinished in him. The Duke has learned how to survive the criminal world. Bobby wants to know whether he can actually rule it.
Bobby Wants Eddie to Stop Being Bobby’s Protégé
This is where I think the season’s strangest decisions become much more interesting.
Bobby repeatedly puts Eddie into situations where the obvious solution is to rely on Bobby’s protection. Instead, Eddie has to make his own choices. The recurring idea of following the mysterious “X” becomes part of that larger psychological test.
Eddie eventually realizes that simply doing what Bobby expects isn’t enough.
That is a huge change from the man we met earlier in the story.
There is something almost cruel about Bobby’s approach. He is effectively saying: “If you’re going to inherit this world, I’m going to make sure you can survive it without me.”
And Bobby doesn’t exactly believe in gentle lessons.
He believes in throwing people into the deep end and seeing whether they swim.
Then Things Get Weird: The Bannik
This is probably the part of Season 2 that will divide viewers the most.
Bobby becomes fascinated with the Bannik, a supernatural figure from Slavic folklore associated with bathhouses and steam rooms. At first, his obsession is easy to dismiss. Eddie and Susie certainly don’t seem convinced that Bobby has suddenly discovered some mystical source of criminal intelligence.
And, frankly, neither was I.
When a hardened gangster starts talking about visions from a sauna spirit, my first reaction is basically: Right. Here we go.
But the show deliberately refuses to let the idea remain a simple joke.
The Bannik becomes increasingly important to how we interpret Bobby’s decisions. What initially appears to be nonsense starts looking like another layer of the season’s larger mystery. Bobby behaves as though he knows where events are heading, even when everyone around him thinks he’s making terrible choices.
That creates one of the season’s most interesting questions: is Bobby actually seeing something that the others cannot?
The series plays with that uncertainty instead of giving us a comfortable answer immediately. And that’s much more fun than simply revealing that Bobby was either completely delusional or secretly correct from the beginning.
Why Susie Doesn’t Trust His Decisions
Susie has another reason to be suspicious.
She isn’t some inexperienced daughter waiting for Daddy to hand over the keys. Susie has spent years building her own network, protecting her interests, and learning how to operate without needing Bobby to solve every problem.
That creates an uncomfortable power struggle.
Bobby knows exactly how capable Susie is. He also knows that the more independent she becomes, the harder she will be to control. His unpredictable behavior keeps everyone slightly off balance, including his own daughter.
And that is classic Bobby Glass.
He doesn’t need to tell Susie what he’s planning. He can simply make the situation so chaotic that everyone else starts revealing their cards.
Chaos Becomes a Weapon
This becomes especially important when the wider conspiracy surrounding Eddie’s family starts collapsing into violence.
Freddy Horniman’s resentment is a major problem. His bitterness over the loss of his inheritance makes him vulnerable to people who promise him another route to power, while Gospel John’s influence pushes him further toward decisions that eventually threaten Eddie’s entire position.
The resulting conflict isn’t just about Freddy.
It exposes weaknesses inside the entire operation.
People who were previously hiding have to choose sides. Rivals become more aggressive. Internal loyalties get tested. The more unstable the environment becomes, the more difficult it is for anyone to maintain a secret agenda.
That makes Bobby’s apparent unpredictability potentially useful.
He’s creating an environment where everyone has to react.
And when people are constantly reacting, they make mistakes.
Why Bobby’s Strategy Is So Frustrating to Watch
Here’s my biggest issue with Bobby’s storyline: the character is so deliberately mysterious that some of his decisions can feel frustrating rather than clever.
There is a fine line between “this guy is ten moves ahead” and “the writers haven’t explained why he’s doing this yet.” Season 2 spends a lot of time walking that line.
But when the pieces begin connecting, Bobby’s behavior makes considerably more sense.
He isn’t trying to maintain the exact empire he had before. He’s trying to shape the people who will control the next version of it.
That’s why Eddie matters so much.
That’s why Susie’s independence matters.
And that’s why Bobby is willing to make moves that look financially reckless or strategically bizarre in the short term.
Eddie’s Transformation Is the Real Payoff
The most interesting consequence of Bobby’s behavior isn’t Bobby himself. It’s Eddie.
Eddie started this story as a man who wanted to preserve his family’s world and avoid getting dragged too deeply into the criminal business surrounding it. That version of Eddie is practically unrecognizable by this stage.
He’s more confident. More ruthless. More willing to make decisions without asking permission.
Most importantly, he’s beginning to understand that power isn’t something Bobby can simply give him.
He has to take responsibility for it.
That is the real test Bobby has been constructing.
He doesn’t need Eddie to become another Bobby Glass. In fact, that would almost defeat the purpose. He needs Eddie to become someone capable of surviving when Bobby is no longer standing behind him.
So, Was Bobby Actually Losing His Mind?
After everything Season 2 throws at us, I don’t think the simplest explanation is that Bobby Glass suddenly became an incompetent old gangster.
His decisions are better understood as a mixture of long-term manipulation, succession planning, international expansion, psychological testing, and his increasingly bizarre belief in the Bannik’s guidance.
That’s also what makes Bobby such a dangerous character. You can’t judge his strategy by looking at one move. You have to wait and see what that move causes everyone else to do.
And that is where Bobby gets his advantage.
While Eddie and Susie are busy trying to control the empire, Bobby is effectively testing the people who will eventually control it.
Was every single decision perfectly calculated? Probably not. The season intentionally leaves enough ambiguity around Bobby’s mystical beliefs and motivations to keep that question alive. But calling him simply reckless misses what the story is doing with him.
Bobby Glass isn’t necessarily losing control. He’s deliberately making everyone else feel like they have lost control.
And in the world of The Gentlemen, that can be a far more dangerous position to occupy.
What This Could Mean for The Gentlemen Season 3
If Season 2 is ultimately about preparing Eddie to become something larger than Bobby’s successor, then the next chapter has a very interesting problem to solve: what happens when the student no longer needs the teacher?
Eddie is no longer the reluctant aristocrat from Season 1. Susie has her own ambitions and connections. Bobby’s empire has expanded far beyond its original boundaries, and the people surrounding it have become increasingly difficult to control.
That creates exactly the kind of volatile setup Guy Ritchie likes.
Personally, that’s the part I’m most interested in. Bobby’s bizarre decisions are entertaining, but Eddie finally realizing that he doesn’t have to play by Bobby’s rules is where the real fireworks should come from.
Because once Eddie stops asking what Bobby wants him to do, the entire power structure changes.
