The Artful Dodger — Second season of rollicking series is full of surprises

Review by C.J. Bunce

You, too, will be asking, Who the heck is Salt Peter? Just when you thought there would be no way to keep the kind of momentum The Artful Dodger brought to its first season, a new season arrives that leaves you anxious for another. With both seasons now streaming on Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ elsewhere, there’s no excuse not to see some of the best performances of 2026. It’s a brilliantly good romp, with The Queen’s Gambit co-star Thomas Brodie-Sangster as the Dodger, and the ubiquitous David Thewlis as a bedraggled but feisty elder Fagin–both delivering the kind of performances that have racked up awards and nominations. But this is the kind of crowning achievement for Thewlis that should get the attention of the British Crown, as in OBE or the like. Thewlis has inhabited for two seasons a true British classic with Charles Dickens’ timeless character, and it’s the quality of work where everyone should take notice.

But the big surprise of the season is not found in the show’s leading characters.

Jack Dawkins, the “Artful Dodger,” is a character from Charles Dickens’ 1838 novel Oliver Twist. The book has held its fame over two centuries, such that the phrase “artful dodger” has maintained its meaning as someone who uses skillful deceit to accomplish his ends like the pickpocket in the story. The TV series took this supporting character and made him its anti-hero lead, with his old mentor Fagin, also from the novel, along for the ride. This is a sequel faithful to its roots, a historical drama full of action and humor, also pulling in historical, scientific, medical, and technological achievements of the era while moving the characters to Australia to unveil the rest of the story, all backed by familiar modern pop music infused into instrumentation of the era.

Brodie-Sangster’s Dodger, or “Dodge” as Thewlis’s old frenemy Fagin calls him, is savvy and sharp after escaping England following the events in the Oliver Twist novel. This is the grotesque and grimy world of the mid-19th century, where the idea of sterile surgery is only just taking hold. Jack seizes every opportunity to make money and that includes flipping a coin to do the surgery with a higher ranking doctor, to perform in theater in front of a crowd like a modern boxing match–some of these surgeries including a wager to beat a certain time limit. But at the end of last season Jack ended up arrested, and this season begins with his head literally in the noose.

Maia Mitchell is back again as Lady Belle Fox, but unfortunately the writers didn’t take the hand-off from the first season to make her something greater this time around. Belle, always clad like a Valentine in bright red, is something more than Jack’s love interest, but it seems to be where she’s stuck in the plot. She represents Progress itself in the series, but her mother, played by Susie Porter, will stop at nothing to keep her at home and bound for a marriage to someone respectable. Her status is up and down this season, first held back but then granted the ability to work in the hospital to meet her calling as the first woman doctor. More up to date on scientific improvements than the local medical establishment, Belle is just another reason that the Professor and former hospital chief gets sidelined. He’s played again by Kim Gyngell, and that slight tips off the darkness of the season. Back again in more helpful ways as cholera arrives are Vivienne Awosoga as the trustworthy Nurse Baggett and Luke Carroll as orderly/medical tech inventor Tim Billiberliary.

Fortunately for Belle, her father–the Governor–is in her corner. He’s played again by Damien Garvey, who sees his sometimes jolly character sidetracked and rattled more often than not this season because of his visiting brother, played by Jeremy Sims. Belle and Jack’s romance takes over most of the airtime this season, in lieu of the Fagin-led hijinks fun of the first. Jack balances being sensible and taking the proper track to win Belle with the pull to pursuing the excitement of his past as Fagin cons him into stealing some platinum Jack could use as a device to help save patients–including Belle. This episode Belle is fed up, then the next she wants him back. Then she seems to fall under the wiles of a newcomer police official, Inspector Henry Boxer, a charmer and do-gooder who is also a widower, played by Luke Bracey. And then she’s back to Jack.

Fagin continues to rule over all with his stunning skills at deception and all things P.T. Barnum. His magic trick this season is selling arable land in the middle of Australia to all the most wealthy toffs around. Of course he’s not seen it and has no rights to it, but that’s beside the point. He has a plan to raise the funds to buy Jack out of his indentured servitude status to hospital chief Dr. Sneed, again played by Nicholas Burton. That is, so long as he can dodge Dickens’ Pigpen predecessor Uriah Heap, played by Benedict Hardy, and Tim Minchin’s Darius Cracksworth. And the cons are all thrillingly aided and abetted by Brigid Zengeni back as barkeep Rotty, Fagin’s two exasperated minions: explosives savant Flashbang, played by Aljin Abella, and put-upon henchman Aputi, played by Albert Latailakepa, and… a surprise character…

The writing staff outdid themselves by catapulting Belle’s sister Lady Fanny Fox (played by Lucy-Rose Leonard) to the fore this season. After she accidentally kills her most promising beau in a bizarre ceramic pot-making session a la Ghost fiasco, Fanny falls into the clutches of Fagin, who convinces her she’s a murderer now. But instead of being the shy and unwilling participant in Fagin’s future crimes, she embraces it with a verve you’ll not have seen on TV before. She is witty and wise in the ways of crime, soon one-upping even Fagin in her inspiration and knack for tricking her fellow toffs into giving up money and power. Lucy-Rose Leonard and David Thewlis become the best reasons to seek out this second rollicking season.

A contender for the year’s best TV series and best acting, The Artful Dodger is back with gusto. Catch both seasons now on Hulu in the U.S and Disney+ elsewhere.

Catch up with our reviews of other quality British TV series (including Australian and New Zealand shows you’d find on PBS, BritBox, or Acorn TV) beginning with our Top 10: Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes, Zen, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?, Mr. Selfridge, Guilt, The IPCRESS File, The Hour, The Gentlemen, Black Doves, and Shetland. You could stay pretty busy with our full list of top British TV recommendations, including The Artful Dodger, Van Der Valk, the first season of Sherlock, Deadloch, Troppo, Case Histories, This is Going to Hurt, the second season of Black Snow dragged the series from the Top 10 tier down to here, Mystery Road: Origin, Death Valley, Dept. Q, Bodkin, The Bletchley Circle, Good Cop/Bad Cop, Grace, Hinterland, Glitch, Mystery Road, Culprits, Harrow, Annika, The Day of the Jackal, Code of Silence, Luther, Professor T, and Supacell. After you’ve seen all of those, try Viva Blackpool, Marchlands, Lightfields, State of Play, I, Jack Wright, Population 11, Protection, After the Flood, Traces, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Ordeal by Innocence, Unforgotten, The Bay, Wild Bill, Quirke, Requiem, The Gloaming, The Clearing, The One, The Tourist, The Tower, Collateral, Roadkill, Stay Close, The Salisbury Poisonings, and A Confession.

Other British series across genres that are worth checking out (a few still to be reviewed here) include fun romps like Monarch of the Glen, Para Handy, Cranford, Viva Blackpool, and As Time Goes By, and cozy mysteries Rosemary and Thyme, Father Brown, Hetty Wainthropp, and Death in Paradise. One of the best of all British productions is the reboot of All Creatures Great and Small, which is in our British Top 10 (and the original is good, too). Of course there’s always Doctor Who for your sci-fi fix (and spin-offs Torchwood and Class), The Watch for your fantasy fix, Truth Seekers and Sea of Souls for your supernatural fix, and Spaced for more sci-fi fun, and we really should add House, MD, for Brit lead Hugh Laurie’s one-of-a-kind performance. (We’ve also reviewed but don’t heartily recommend so much Dublin Murders, The ABC Murders, The Pale Horse, Reef Break, The One That Got Away, The Silence, The Five, The Missing, Thirteen, or Broadchurch, as well as No Offence, which could have merited a review for its first season but, like Sherlock, its later episodes were a disappointment).