Black Doves on Netflix has turned Williams and Eleanor’s partnership into a Season 2 romance, shifting the pair from co-workers in violence to something far more personal. The new run is already streaming, and the relationship now sits at the center of the story instead of on its edges.
Joe Barton’s Rewrite
Joe Barton first imagined Williams as a Season 1 villain seeking revenge on Sam after Sam killed her partner. He later wrote Eleanor as a completely new role for Gabrielle Creevy, while Ella Lily Hyland proved a natural fit for Williams. That change gave the series a cleaner two-hander and made the relationship between Williams and Eleanor the engine rather than the garnish.
“I could see how the two of them could be this little gang, which was a nice discovery,” Barton said of the pairing. That discovery matters because the show now uses their bond to carry the action scenes, not just decorate them, and Season 2 moves the pair from tactical trust into emotional risk.
Creevy and Hyland
The chemistry clicked only after Gabrielle Creevy and Ella Lily Hyland finally read together. Creevy said, “I went in and read with a Welsh accent, and they really loved it,” and Barton started writing Eleanor as a Welsh badass. She also said, “I think humor and understanding. I also do think, strangely, the accents help.”
Hyland drew the sharpest line around the new dynamic: “They care about each other. I think it’s almost like you discover it the way Joe [Barton] probably discovered it as he was writing it. It all feels very natural to unfold like that.” Her read fits the season’s structure, where Williams and Eleanor move from professional chemistry to feelings they can no longer keep buried.
Season 1 to Season 2
Creevy said the shift was not obvious to her in Season 1: “I don’t know. … I don’t think so. No, I’m going to say no. A solid no. I thought in Season 1 they were just good pals.” Season 2 changes that reading fast, with the pair sharing a confession under sniper fire, another in the middle of a shoot-out, and a first kiss that arrives with a live grenade.
Hyland’s line that Williams “can’t exist without Eleanor” gives the new storyline its edge. The series has always been built around private lives colliding with public danger, but now the most volatile part of the plot is not Helen’s marriage or Sam’s violent path; it is whether Williams and Eleanor can keep treating each other like business when the show has already made them personal.
Season 2 is streaming now, so the immediate question is not whether the romance exists but how long Barton plans to keep it moving before the next rupture. For viewers, the new season is the point where the partnership stops being subtext and becomes the plot.
