Chancer: Series 2

You can’t help but find yourself charmed by Derek “Dex” Love (Clive Owen, The Bourne Identity, Gosford Park), the ultimate con man. He spent six months in jail for insider trading as Stephen Crane, during which time the real Stephen Crane—whose identity he had stolen—died. Now, using his own name, Dex is still ruthless, rude, arrogant, ingenious and unprincipled—and those are his positive qualities. Dex is at his best when the scams are deep, the stakes are deadly and the fraud is overpowering. In these seven episodes, “our hero’s” personal life has become messier than his business affairs. With his loyalties thinly stretched between a previous love interest Jo (Susannah Harker, Pride and Prejudice) and his workplace sidekick Victoria (Lynsey Baxter, Rebus), tensions mount as the second series careens toward its surprising, devastating conclusion. The New York Times has called Owen’s “volcanic charisma in movies like Closer and The Children of Men reined in here, where cynicism, skullduggery, even a degree of sincerity…are served up with a wink.”

Episode 1: Jo

Released from prison and casting aside his Stephen Crane alias, Derek Love immediately begins searching for his former love, Jo. But she flees to Piers’s country estate with her baby and is joined by her newfound friend Anna, a woman on the lam herself.

Episode 2: Ashes

Assuming that he is baby Joseph’s father, Piers prepares to battle Franklyn for custody of the child. Meanwhile, Dex enlists Anna to help scam Franklyn’s newly opened casino, but Anna has her own designs on the money.

Episode 3: Secrets

In an attempt to raise funds to refurbish Winterleigh, Dex and Piers hatch a plot to turn the estate into a private gambling club. First, though, they need a list of well-heeled patrons—which they aim to get from Franklyn’s casino by any means necessary.

Episode 4: Remembrance

Anna finds a series of Nativity drawings, possibly by Albrecht Dürer. Selling them might finance further work on Winterleigh, but their provenance remains mysterious. Meanwhile, Dex antagonizes the estate’s former caretaker—with disastrous results.

Episode 5: Blood

With money and membership records stolen from Franklyn, Winterleigh’s gambling club gets off to a smashing start, and Franklyn vows revenge. Then, just as the results of baby Joseph’s paternity test come in, Anna uncovers Jo’s long-lost letter revealing the child’s true father. 

Episode 6: Fall

Roman, Anna’s ex-lover, secures his release from an African prison and begins tracking her down, bent on vengeance. And, with bankers threatening to pull financing for Franklyn’s proposed industrial park, the embattled businessman bargains for Dex’s help.

Episode 7: Sacrifice

Having already kidnapped Jimmy Blake, Roman abducts baby Joseph, taking Anna with him. After asking for ransom, Roman phones Dex, saying ominously, “Come to the Holy City—alone. You can be Abraham. I’ll be God.”