SAS Rogue Heroes is back for a second season, and fans have been noting one particularly great scene from the show.
The series has been just as well received in its second outing as it did in its first, with the Steven Knight written show getting a perfect 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes for the second season running.
The Peaky Blinders creator, by all accounts, has done it again.
The show, starring Connor Swindells, Sofia Boutella, Jack O’Connell, and Dominic West, follows the real-life story of the formation of the SAS during World War Two.
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The first season leaves off on a massive cliffhanger, so spoilers ahead.
Right at the end of season one, Swindells’ David Stirling is captured.
In real life Stirling spent the rest of the war as a prisoner-of-war, leaving Jack O’Connell’s Paddy Mayne in charge of the SAS.
The show’s second season takes a move away from the explosions and chaos the show has come to be known for, and the very first scene sees Paddy Mayne sending word home to his mother that he had been denied compassionate leave to return home for his father's funeral.
Due to this denial, Paddy proceeds to smash up a table, leading to a brawl with military police in Cairo.
One fan tweeted: “Jesus the opener of SAS Rogue Heroes S2 is brutal. Must watch television.”
Another replied saying: “Indeed, absolutely incredible series”.
Reviews for the show have been similarly emphatic in their praise.
The Guardian gave the show a perfect five stars in Jack Seale’s review, saying: “With its sober view of sacrifice and its clever use of extreme adversity to bring out different facets of the male psyche, Rogue Heroes earns its stripes, but be reassured that with all that groundwork in place it is, primarily, a right old romp.”
Martin Robinson of the Evening Standard said in their four-star review: “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.”
Connor Swindells, who continues as part of the show in a more solitary role of playing David Stirling in prison, has received particular praise for his season two performance.
The character, due to his time imprisoned, loses a lot of weight in season two, something Swindells did practically.
In an exclusive interview with LADbible, the actor said: “I sort of put myself under a self-imposed diet. I wanted to get a bit skinnier and look a bit more gone, which I didn't enjoy.
“Yeah, I'm actually on that diet again. I've just eaten a plate full of egg [whites].”
Swindells couldn’t disclose exactly how much weight he'd lost for season two, but described it as a ‘good chunk’.
He added, regarding the dieting: “It was a personal decision. It was described in the script a lot that he goes through a big weight change, so it was laid out for me.
“I wanted to just feel, you know, a sense of hunger for getting out of that place where he was at and it helped. I don't know if I'd really done it before. It required me, you know, not drinking and doing all of that stuff is, you know, just restricting everything you're doing really.
“I was running a lot of the time because I was training for a half marathon that I did. But, yeah, it wasn't fun."
He went on to add though: “But again, I want to reiterate, it was nothing in comparison to what people like this really go through
“It was purely for my own vanity.”
SAS Rogue Heroes series one and two are available to stream on BBC iPlayer now.
Topics: BBC, TV and Film, TV
Michael Slavin