You know that feeling when a show finally finds its legs? That’s exactly what happened with The Inspector Lynley Mysteries Season 2. Honestly, the first series was fine, but it felt a little like it was trying too hard to be "The New Morse." By the time the second season rolled around in 2003, the chemistry between Nathaniel Parker and Sharon Small had shifted from awkward professional distance into something much more compelling. It’s gritty. It’s posh. It’s deeply British in that way that makes you want to drink tea while someone uncovers a dark secret in a manor house.
The dynamic is basically the whole show. You’ve got Thomas "Tommy" Lynley, the 8th Earl of Asherton, driving around in an upscale Bristol car, paired with Barbara Havers, who is basically the human personification of a chipped mug. She’s working-class, she’s grumpy, and she has zero patience for his aristocratic lineage. In season 2, this isn't just a gimmick anymore. It’s the engine of the plot.
What Actually Happens in The Inspector Lynley Mysteries Season 2?
This season consists of four feature-length episodes: Playing for the Ashes, In the Presence of the Enemy, A Suitable Vengeance, and Deception on His Mind. Each one is a massive two-hour commitment, which was the style at the time for BBC prestige dramas.
Take Playing for the Ashes. It kicks off with the death of a star cricketer. It’s not just a "whodunit." It’s an exploration of fame and the pressure of public expectations. This is where the show gets smart. It uses the murder as a lens to look at the weird social tiers of British life. Lynley fits in with the suspects; Havers looks at them like they're aliens.
The third episode, A Suitable Vengeance, is a huge deal for fans of the Elizabeth George books. It actually takes us to Lynley’s family estate in Cornwall. Seeing his mother (played by the incredible Lesley Vickerage) and his drug-addicted brother Peter adds a layer of "oh, that's why he's like this" to his character. It’s not a happy homecoming. It’s messy.
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The Casting Genius You Might Have Missed
One thing people forget is how many "before they were famous" faces pop up here. In In the Presence of the Enemy, you’ve got a young James D'Arcy. The production value jumped up significantly in this block of episodes. The locations feel bigger. The cinematography moved away from that flat, early-2000s TV look and started feeling a bit more cinematic.
Deception on His Mind is probably the most controversial episode of the bunch. It tackles racial tensions in a coastal town. While some modern viewers might find the 2003 handling of these themes a bit dated, it was remarkably bold for a Sunday night procedural back then. Havers goes undercover—well, sort of—and the friction between her personal loyalty to Lynley and her professional duty starts to fray.
Why Season 2 Still Holds Up in 2026
If you’re watching this now, you’ll notice something. The pacing is slow. Really slow. But that’s the point. Modern shows like Line of Duty are a million miles an hour. The Inspector Lynley Mysteries Season 2 lets you sit with the characters. You see them eat bad sandwiches in the car. You see Havers deal with her mother’s declining health, which is a subplot that hits incredibly hard if you've ever been a caregiver.
It’s realistic. Well, as realistic as a show about an Earl who solves murders can be.
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The dialogue avoids those snappy, Joss Whedon-style quips. Instead, it’s full of silences and subtext. When Lynley tries to apologize for his privilege, Havers doesn't give him an easy out. She just stares at him. It’s great TV.
The Difference Between the Books and the TV Show
Purists always complain. It’s a law of nature. Elizabeth George’s novels are famously thick—sometimes 700 pages or more. Compressing those into 120 minutes of television means things get cut.
- The Helen Issue: In the books, Helen Clyde is a much more complex, and frankly, sometimes annoying character. In the show, the relationship feels a bit more "TV friendly."
- The Timeline: The show shuffles the order of the books. A Suitable Vengeance was actually the first book George wrote, but the BBC saved it for Season 2 to act as a "prequel-style" origin story.
- Havers’ Appearance: In the books, Barbara is described as quite plain, even unattractive. Sharon Small is, let’s be real, very pretty, even when they put her in frumpy sweaters and give her a bad haircut.
Despite these changes, the spirit is there. The show understands that the mystery is secondary to the class war happening inside the police car.
Crucial Episodes to Revisit
If you only have time for one, watch A Suitable Vengeance. It’s the closest the show gets to a Gothic thriller. You get the sweeping Cornwall cliffs, the decaying family mansion, and the realization that Lynley is running away from his title just as much as he’s leaning on it.
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Deception on His Mind is the one to watch if you want to see Sharon Small carry the show. Parker is great, but Small is the soul of this series. Her performance as a woman who knows she’s smarter than her bosses but lacks the "breeding" to get promoted is masterclass level.
How to Get the Most Out of Your Rewatch
To truly appreciate what the BBC was doing here, you have to look past the standard "detective show" tropes. This was a transitional era of television. We were moving away from the cozy mysteries of the 80s and into the psychological darkness of the modern era.
- Watch the background. The set dressing in Havers' flat compared to Lynley’s townhouse tells a better story than the script sometimes does.
- Pay attention to the music. The score by Robert Bond is subtle but does a lot of heavy lifting in setting that melancholic, rainy British mood.
- Track the power dynamic. Notice how often Lynley uses his title to get through doors and how much it clearly bothers him when he has to do it.
The Inspector Lynley Mysteries Season 2 isn't just a relic of the early 2000s. It’s a blueprint for how to do a character-driven procedural without losing the plot. It’s about two people who should hate each other finding a way to work together because they’re both fundamentally broken in different ways.
If you're looking for where to find it now, it’s frequently cycling through BritBox and Acorn TV. It’s worth the subscription just for these four episodes. They don't make them like this anymore—mostly because nobody can afford the gas for those old Bristol cars.
Next Steps for the Inspector Lynley Fan:
First, track down the original Elizabeth George novel A Suitable Vengeance to see how much the TV adaptation changed the family dynamics. Then, compare the BBC’s portrayal of the Cornwall landscape with the actual filming locations around the Roseland Peninsula to see how cinematography can alter the mood of a narrative. Finally, watch the Season 2 finale again, paying close attention to the final exchange between Lynley and Havers; it sets the stage for the massive character shifts that define the later, darker seasons of the program.