This City Is Ours season 2 finds female characters in the firing line – but no damsels in distress

Warning: This article contains MAJOR SPOILERS for This City Is Ours season 2.

This City Is Ours isn't afraid to flip the status quo on its head, with characters regularly rising and falling in the show's ever-changing power dynamics. By the end of season 2, the female characters have taken control – but not in the way you might expect.

We're reintroduced to criminal 'fixer' Michael (James Nelson-Joyce) and his girlfriend Diana (Hannah Onslow) during a trip to Spain; doubling as a holiday for the couple, and a moment of closure for their third wheel, Cheryl (Saoirse-Monica Jackson).

The trio return to the spot where Cheryl's untrustworthy husband, Davey (Stephen Walters), was laid unceremoniously to rest, but the sombre trek is interrupted by thugs working for cartel boss Felipe (Álvaro Morte).

Seeking retribution for the murder of his brother, Ricardo (Daniel Cerqueira), the unsettling character holds Diana and Cheryl hostage to force Michael into finding answers on the streets of Liverpool.

Although Felipe's use of women as collateral is unmistakably patriarchal, This City Is Ours screenwriter Stephen Butchard crafts characters with far more nuance than the stereotypical 'damsels in distress'.

Diana and Cheryl are thoughtfully developed protagonists, whose behaviour in this extreme scenario is entirely in-keeping with how they navigate the world more generally; in Cheryl's case, gloriously erratically.

Since being widowed by Michael and the Phelans, she has been in survival mode; bristling with resentment towards both parties and tenaciously pursuing Davey's cut of the business, as if his position came with a life insurance policy.

With nothing to lose, Cheryl is willing to make bold moves – for instance, simply strutting out of a public dinner with her captor. A major gamble that, astonishingly, pays off.

Some viewers might shake their head that Diana declines to accompany Cheryl – instead remaining a 'guest' of the unstable Felipe – but this act isn't born of cowardice or inertia. On the contrary, one could argue it's a far braver and more noble course.

Diana has more than just her own skin in the game; Felipe is hiding her IVF medication, putting her potential motherhood at risk.

By staying behind, she is refusing to give up on the dream of a conventional family life with Michael (despite growing evidence of its implausibility), while also keeping Felipe distracted long enough for Cheryl to break away.

This is perfectly consistent with what we know of Diana. She isn't native to Michael's world, nor does she want to be – their relationship only exists on the promise of him getting out. Alas, it appears she's the only one who is laser-focused on that goal.

Across a rollercoaster second season, including one genuinely stunning bait-and-switch, Michael proves that he still has a taste for his old life. When Felipe returns with a death wish, he uses his last hours to expose the worst instincts of Diana's baby daddy.

It's the final straw: in the season 2 finale, she walks away from Michael, seemingly for good. As sympathetic an antihero as Nelson-Joyce plays, it's difficult to deny the wisdom of that decision.

With her mother, Lesley (Leanne Best), fresh out of prison, and an ultrasound confirming a baby is on the way, Diana finally has the chance to create the loving family unit that she has always craved.

Tragically, Michael transforms from a central piece of that puzzle to the only thing standing in the way.

As far from 'helpless maidens' as you can get, the women of This City Is Ours take control in season 2. Not of the business, but of their own lives, which aspire to more than roadside executions and the peddling of illegal drugs.

Lesley and Diana definitively (one hopes) draw a line between themselves and their dark past, while Cheryl finally secures the payout she has worked tirelessly for – with incriminating material on Michael as her guarantor.

These outcomes subvert any early misgivings over their brief period as hostages, and feel entirely earned through blood, sweat and tears. In a sense, so too does the untimely fate of Phelan family co-leader Rachel (Laura Aikman).

We cannot discuss the women of This City Is Ours season 2 without reflecting on Rachel's horrifying exit, which occurs at the end of the suspenseful fifth chapter.

Again, Butchard avoids regrettable drama clichés, and particularly the trope of "fridging" female characters; that is, killing or maiming them in service to male development (so named after a 1999 story from DC's Green Lantern comic book, where Kyle Rayner discovers his murdered girlfriend, Alexandra DeWitt, in a refrigerator).

Rachel's situation differs in one crucial respect, that being her agency throughout this tragic saga.

Since we met her at the start of season 1, the overlooked niece of firm founders Ronnie (Sean Bean) and Elaine (Julie Graham) had wanted more than her backstage accountancy role in the business.

In season 2, her dream job doesn't just fall into her lap; she makes aggressive moves to claim it.

Rachel teams up with cousin Jamie (Jack McMullen) to usurp incoming bosses – her own husband, Bobby (Kevin Harvey), and strained family associate, Banksey (Mike Noble) – with an eye towards dramatically upscaling the Phelan firm.

It's characteristically ambitious (and not without reason), but in a cruel twist of fate, this power play indirectly escalates the volatile events that lead to episode 5's shooting.

Brutal? Absolutely. Deserved? Of course not. But it would be hard to argue that Rachel was a gentle dove caught in the crossfire of another man's conflict. She became central to this dangerous operation by her own conscious choices.

With This City Is Ours season 3 already confirmed, it will be fascinating to see how the show's female characters continue to evolve. Will Diana successfully keep distance from Michael? What chaos will Cheryl cause next? And will Elaine (Julie Graham) finally avenge her husband?

The answers elude us for now, but we're confident they will be worth the wait.

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This City Is Ours seasons 1 and 2 are available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

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