Undercover work is stressful and dangerous. Maintaining a second identity is tricky. Forget one fact about the created persona, and enemies may see through the disguise. Professional law enforcement train for years to pull off this complex subterfuge. Legends focuses on four individuals pulled from their ordinary lives in England to go toe to toe with brutal drug gangs.
The premise of this six-episode series on Netflix might be deemed ridiculous if it wasn’t a true story. The would be spies, plucked from their boring government jobs, had little training but possessed the needed skills and tenacity to carry through on what was a difficult, if not impossible, assignment.
Steve Coogan as Don in Legends. Cr. Courtesy of Sally Mais/Netflix © 2026
The cast is stellar. Steve Coogan, best known for his comedic roles, shows off his dramatic chops as Don, the team leader who bears his own scars from years of undercover work. (Coogan will be seen in the fourth season of The White Lotus now being filmed in the south of France.) Don, upon orders from Angus Blake, the head of Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise, played by Douglas Hodge, is ordered to pull together a team to infiltrate two drug gangs, one operating in Manchester, the other in Liverpool. Without access to trained officers and a virtually nonexistent budget, Don sends out a cryptic offer to possible applicants now working for customs. More than two dozen respond, but the group is quickly whittled down to just four.
Guy (Tom Burke, who also plays the title character in BritBox’s Strike), stands out as a natural for undercover work. He will be tasked with finding a way into the Turkish gang in London. Guy is aided by Mylonas (Gerald Kid), a Greek informant now spending time in prison. In exchange for helping Guy, Blake arranges for Mylonas’s release. The target is Hakan (Numan Acar), who controls the Turkish gang. Guy presents himself as an import-export expert who can help the Turks get their heroin into the country, dodging inspections by customs.
(L to R) Aml Ameen as Bailey, Hayley Squires as Kate in Legends. Cr. Courtesy of Sally Mais/Netflix © 2026
Meanwhile, Kate (Hayley Squires, recently seen in The Night Agent), and Bailey (Aml Ameen), will concentrate on the Liverpool gang run by a narcissistic club owner, Declan Carter (Tom Hughes). They tap a local VAT worker, Shaun (Thomas Coombes), who, posing as a parolee, gets a job in a bakery run by Carter used to funnel the drugs onto the street. However, one slip up in what Shaun tells a member of the gang, is enough to have him targeted. Kate and Bailey rescue Shaun and his family before his home is firebombed.
Shaun’s misstep is a warning to the rest of the crew. Don drums into the team, particularly Guy, that once they create a “legend” they have to become that person not only being able to stick to background facts, but to create a physical demeanor and attitude that is convincing.
(L to R) Tom Burke as Guy, Charlotte Ritchie as Sophie, in Legends. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2026
Guy tells Don he wants to keep his real name undercover so he will always be able to answer to it. He delves so deeply into his character, that he’s, at times, unrecognizable to his wife, Sophie (Charlotte Ritchie). Fortunately, for Guy and the operation, Sophie once worked in intelligence and understands what Guy must do to succeed. She serves as his rock whenever he wavers between the real life Guy and the fictional, but very real, Guy, who presents as someone who can move drugs for the gang.
The fourth member of the team, Erin (Jasmine Blackborow), impresses Don early on with her research and investigative skills. There doesn’t seem to be a government or criminal website she can’t get into. She remains at headquarters and proves her value time and again as she directs activity in the field, saving more than one life in the process.
Johnny Harris as Eddie McKee in Legends. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2026
There’s a lot at stake. The two gangs working together plan to import two tons of heroin, an amount with the potential to kill millions who overdose. There’s a come-to-God moment with Carter’s right hand man, Eddie McKee (Johnny Harris). Home on leave, Eddie’s son gets close to a young woman who hooks him on heroin. When the young man dies of an overdose, Eddie begins to question what he and Carter are doing. He becomes a target for Bailey who hopes to turn him against Carter.
Legends is a tense drama, but one with moments when the moxie demonstrated by the team brings home that these amateurs did what so many others couldn’t do. Neil Forsyth, who created and wrote the series, spoke with many of the legends who work undercover. In an interview he said: “The more I listened, the more extraordinary the tale revealed itself to be. As a writer, the true excitement lies in the story’s complexity; the number of surprising worlds and people it involves. When you’re writing something across six episodes, you look for complexity and surprise, and this story delivered both.”
The bad guys in this series are not just the drug lords, but the government officials who only worry about how everything will play out in the press so they can save their powerful jobs. In the end, not even Thatcher can hold onto hers.
Top photo: Legends. (L to R) Tom Burke as Guy, Jasmine Blackborow as Erin, Steve Coogan as Don, Aml Ameen as Bailey, Hayley Squires as Kate, in Legends. Cr. Courtesy of Sally Mais/Netflix © 2026
