WARNING: SPOILERS ahead for Black Doves season 1.
Keira Knightley’s Helen Webb has a complicated relationship with her assassin friend Sam, whose first kill was his own father in the Netflix espionage seriesBlack Doves. Created by Joe Barton (The Lazarus Project,Giri/Haji),Black Doveshas outstanding reviews, earning a98% Rotten Tomatoes critic scoreafter its August 10, 2025 release date. Knightley (Atonement,Pirates of the Caribbean) leadsthe cast ofBlack Dovesalong withBen Whishaw’s Sam Young, best known for playing Q in Daniel Craig’s James Bond films.Black Dovesfeatures a stellar supporting cast, including Sarah Lancashire’s Reed, Kathryn Hunter’s Lenny, and Ella Lily Hyland’s Williams.
Black Dovesfollows public figure Helen Webb, the loving and supportive wife of Andrew Buchan’s Wallace Webb, a prominent British politician.Webb is also a secret agentworking for the mysterious covertspy organization known as the Black Doves, which Mrs. Reed is the head of. Reed confronts Helen over an affair she was having with a civil servant namedJason (Andrew Koji), who was shockingly shot and killedin a park from long range. Suspecting that Helen could be in hot water with a powerful criminal conspiracy, Reed enlists a trusted triggerman namedSam Young, who has plenty of his own dark secrets to hide.
Sam’s First Kill For Lenny Was His Own Father
Lenny gave Sam a brutally hard first assignment
The most shocking death inBlack Dovesis also Sam’s very first kill, which is revealed in one of the series' extended flashback sequences. As revealed in a flashback scene, Lenny gave Sam the unthinkable first hit on his own father, Frank. When Sam was a boy, he would watch his ominous and towering father closely and listen to his indirect advice about how to be an assassin.His dad used to tell him that he “never pulled a trigger that didn’t make the world a better place”, an ideology that Sam also adopted when he initially approached Reed and Lenny to become a hitman himself.
By giving Sam this brutal first assignment,Lenny was able to grasp just how serious Sam was about becoming an assassin. It proved to Lenny that Sam could be one of her most reliable assassins since every other kill after that would theoretically be easier, so to speak. This is why Lenny was surprised that “reliable Sam” as she calls him didn’t take out Hector Newman even though he was just a boy. In that moment, Sam developed his own code that allowed him to kill his own father – which he must have deserved in some way – but not take the life of young Hector.
Why Lenny Made Sam Kill His Father
Frank has crossed a line and lost his honor in Lenny’s eyes
ThroughoutBlack Dovesseason 1, Lenny is ruthless and seemingly cold-hearted, which is how she gets Sam to cooperate and go after his own father – and later Hector Newman – in the first place. Despite his profession, Sam has a good heart, which is why he wanted to see whether Lenny also has any good inside of her at theend ofBlack Dovesseason 1. Sam was first introduced to Lenny by Mrs. Reed, who he used to work for as an “odd-job” type of fixer back when he also met Helen Webb. After telling Reed thathe wanted a more serious line of work, Reed referred him to the notorious Lenny Liles, who gave Sam an unbelievable first assignment.
Lenny hired Sam to kill his own father after Frank had “crossed a line” which isn’t elaborated on specifically in Black Doves season 1. As an assassin himself, Frank had crossed many moral boundaries in his line of work but, apparently, he had overstepped and done something unforgivable in Lenny’s eyes. Whatever Frank had done to disavow his own code, Sam seems to have come to terms with his decision to take his father’s life and simultaneously carry the touch of his family business.Sam doesn’t appear remorseful about his father’s death, hinting that he knew he would make the world a better placeby killing him.
How Sam Killing His Father Connects To The Triggerman Code He Taught Him
There is a profound connection between the lesson that Frank taught Sam and the tragic conclusion of their relationship. WhileBlack Dovesseason 1 does not reveal whatever atrocious thing Frank must have done to have Lenny put the hit on him, it does make it clear that Sam would stick to the lessons that Frank had taught him. Sam must have realized thatFrank failed to practice what he preachedwhen he said that all of his kills made the world a better place.
Lenny likely believed that Frank “had to go” for one of two reasons. One, Frank disobeyed her and refused to kill a target because of his own moral code, deeming that it would not “make the world better.” Alternatively, Frank broke his own code and perhaps killed an innocent person, leaving Lenny to call upon Sam to right his father’s wrongs. Hopefully, Sam or Lenny will reveal what Frank actually did inBlack Dovesseason 2.
Black Doves
Cast
Black Doves is a suspenseful thriller released in December 2024. It follows a spy masquerading as a politician’s wife who, after discovering her lover’s murder, joins forces with an old assassin associate to uncover the truth and seek revenge.
