Keeley Hawes returns as sardonic mercenary Julie Green in Prime Video’s thriller series The Assassin, navigating a chaotic second season alongside Freddie Highmore as her wan, bookish journalist son Edward, despite scripts that lean heavily into sitcom bickering rather than high-stakes drama.
What Viewers Need to Know About Julie Green’s Return
- Prolific TV thriller creators Harry and Jack Williams return as showrunners for the second outing of The Assassin on Prime Video.
- The central dynamic shifts to a Mediterranean honeymoon setting where Edward’s wife Kayla is kidnapped, forcing a reluctant call to his underworld mother.
- Critical reviews point to pacing issues and an increasingly exasperating portrayal of Edward as an implacably passive intellectual.
How the Williams Brothers Built a Labyrinthine Conspiracy
Prolific TV thriller writers Harry and Jack Williams have carved out a distinct niche across British television. Since The Missing premiered in 2014, their collaborative output has expanded to include Rellik, The Widow, Liar, Baptiste, Angela Black, Boat Story, and The Tourist. When they originally pitched their concept for The Assassin to Prime Video, they secured a greenlight for a slick, twisty drama following a top contract killer.
The first season established Julie Green, played by Keeley Hawes, as a sarcastic middle-aged operative with little patience for external interference. Her path collided with Edward, her adult son portrayed by Freddie Highmore, who remained entirely oblivious to his mother’s true profession. Following an investigation into a dodgy mining company, Edward fell inlove with the CEO’s daughter Kayla, played by Shalom Brune-Franklin. A subsequent Greek-island ambush and subsequent revelations untangled a wild backstory: Julie is not Edward’s biological mother, having instead picked him up as a baby three decades prior after being sent to kill his father, and raised him as her own.
Where the Second Season Begins to Disintegrate
Season two opens with Edward and Kayla’s wedding, an event from which Julie remains excluded following a mysterious falling out in Berlin. While Julie handles insomnia by calmly eliminating a cartel boss and his henchmen, trouble follows the newlyweds to Spain. Kayla gets snatched during their honeymoon, and local police involvement leaves Edward with no choice but to dial his estranged mother for intervention.
The narrative begins to fray not purely from plot mechanics, though the Williams brothers frequently write as though their delete key is broken. The scripts wander into narrative dead ends before executing implausible leaps to safety. Every mystery—from who snatched Kayla to the identity of the shadowy figure trailing Julie in Spain—slips through the viewer’s fingers like sand. The creators construct revelations solely to bridge the gap to the next twist.
Why the Central Dynamic Proves Frustrating
The core issue lies squarely in the central pairing. Highmore’s performance as Edward suffers from a script that turns him into a worrywart whose pathological cowardice acts as an anchor on the pacing. Thrillers routinely utilize fearful civilians thrust into unfamiliar danger, but Edward leans into a caricature of an intellectual pacifist. Even after violent criminals abduct his wife and repeatedly attempt to kill him, he continually begs Julie to avoid resorting to force.
Meanwhile, Hawes delivers a reliably excellent turn as Julie despite material that barely scratches the surface of her character’s age or professional reality. Instead of examining how a lone-wolf killer’s experience with rage might intersect with a stage of life where societal expectations fade, the script frames her as a generic smart aleck. She dismissively nicknames a French Interpol agent “Onions” and a rogue police officer with a metal prosthetic leg “RoboCop.” These small-time sitcom exchanges ultimately undermine the grand concept of an unstoppable murder machine.
| Production Element | Key Talent & Creators | Narrative Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Showrunning & Creation | Harry and Jack Williams | Twisty, high-concept international thrillers |
| Lead Operative | Keeley Hawes as Julie Green | Sardonic mercenary navigating familial ties |
| Supporting Cast | Freddie Highmore, Shalom Brune-Franklin | Civilian entanglement and cartel conspiracies |
The Assassin is available to stream now on Prime Video.
