Who is Michele Morrone Playing in The Gentlemen Season 2? Meet Cico Maldini

Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen is back on Netflix for Season 2, and this time Eddie Horniman and Susie Glass are taking their criminal operation well beyond the familiar English countryside. After the first season became such a huge success, there was always going to be pressure on the show to make the next chapter feel bigger without losing the strange mix of crime, comedy, aristocratic manners, and sudden bursts of violence that made it work in the first place. The arrival of Italian star Michele Morrone is one of the clearest signs that the series is widening its world.

Morrone, best known internationally for the 365 Days franchise, is playing against the polished romantic image many viewers associate with him. Under Ritchie’s direction, he becomes Cico Maldini, a volatile Italian criminal with connections all over the underground. He is not there simply to look dangerous in a tailored suit. Cico has his own relationships, his own interests, and enough local influence to become a serious problem for Eddie and Susie when their British operation reaches Italy.

Who Plays the Italian Duchess in The Gentlemen Season 2? Meet Benedetta Porcaroli

Who Is Michele Morrone’s Character in The Gentlemen Season 2?

Michele Morrone plays Cico Maldini, a mercurial fixer and small-time Italian criminal whose greatest asset is not money or official power, but the enormous network of people he knows. Netflix presents him as someone deeply connected to the underground, which makes him useful to Eddie and Susie when they begin pushing their criminal business into Northern Italy. He operates very differently from the polished kingpins the pair have dealt with in England.

Cico is also married to Bella, played by Benedetta Porcaroli. Bella is an Italian aristocrat, and her family becomes increasingly tied to the British operation. That relationship gives Cico an unusual position between two very different worlds. He understands the old families and their connections while also knowing how things work on the street.

Eddie and Susie’s expansion takes them toward the area around Lake Maggiore, trading the estates and hidden marijuana plantations of England for the far less familiar criminal landscape of Northern Italy. That means local syndicates, family loyalties, old rivalries, and people who have little reason to care about the rules Eddie has become accustomed to making for himself.

That is where Cico comes in. He effectively becomes the pair’s man on the ground, guiding them through territory they do not understand and connecting them with people they could never reach on their own. The problem is obvious almost immediately: having the right connections does not mean having the right intentions.

Can Eddie and Susie Actually Trust Cico Maldini?

Trust has never been a particularly reliable currency in Guy Ritchie’s criminal worlds, and Cico fits that tradition almost perfectly. Executive producer and lead writer Matthew Read teased the character before Season 2 arrived, making it clear that Eddie and Susie would have to rely on Cico while knowing that he was fundamentally not someone they could trust.

That makes him especially dangerous. Cico is volatile and unpredictable, but he is not reckless in the simple sense. He understands his environment. He knows who owes whom a favor, who can be bought, who needs to be threatened, and which family connection might suddenly matter when everything starts falling apart.

For Eddie, that creates a very different challenge from the one he faced in Season 1. He is no longer the reluctant aristocratic heir trying to understand the criminal empire that has landed in his lap. By the second season, Eddie has accepted both sides of his identity: the English aristocrat and the increasingly capable criminal strategist.

But Cico is not a problem Eddie can solve simply by being smarter or more powerful. The Italian fixer knows the territory better, and his motives remain questionable. Eddie and Susie have to work with a man who may be indispensable one minute and deeply dangerous the next. That tension becomes one of the more interesting parts of the Italian storyline.

Michele Morrone Gets a Very Different Kind of Role

For viewers who mainly know Morrone from his sleek, romantic roles, Cico Maldini is a pretty sharp change of direction. The carefully polished image associated with his earlier screen persona is still there in fragments, particularly in the expensive Italian tailoring, but Ritchie uses it almost as camouflage.

Cico looks like a man who belongs in a luxury hotel. He behaves like someone who could turn the entire room upside down without warning.

That contrast suits The Gentlemen surprisingly well. Morrone’s character is rougher around the edges and carries a sense of genuine danger beneath the style. He fits into Ritchie’s particular criminal ecosystem, where a conversation about business can suddenly become absurd, violent, or both. Early fan reactions on forums and social media have also highlighted how different Morrone feels in this role compared with his better-known romantic performances.

One of the strangest and most memorable examples comes from Cico’s storyline involving a real tiger. It is exactly the sort of bizarre visual gag that could have felt completely out of place in another crime drama. Here, somehow, it makes sense. The tiger becomes another piece of the show’s controlled chaos, and Cico seems like precisely the sort of man who would find himself standing next to one while everyone else is wondering how the situation got this far.

How Cico Maldini Fits Into the Season 2 Story

The larger story of Season 2 is built around expansion. Eddie and Susie are no longer simply protecting the marijuana operation hidden beneath Britain’s historic estates. They want to make the business larger, richer, and more international, which inevitably puts them in contact with criminal organizations that operate on a much bigger scale.

Cico is one of the bridges between those worlds. Through Bella, his Italian connections, and his network of criminal contacts, he gives Eddie and Susie access to a part of Europe they could not simply walk into and conquer. He understands the local rules, even if those rules are constantly changing.

His role also brings Eddie closer to Marco Moretti, played by Sergio Castellitto. Moretti is a powerful Italian crime boss with the kind of elegance that makes his ruthlessness even more noticeable. Where Moretti controls the larger infrastructure, Cico is much closer to the practical, messy side of criminal business.

That difference creates a useful dynamic between the characters. Moretti represents organized power at the top, while Cico deals with the people and situations underneath it. Eddie and Susie find themselves caught between these layers, and the result is a steady stream of uneasy alliances, betrayals, confrontations, and negotiations where nobody seems entirely certain who will still be standing when the dust settles.

Cico Maldini at a Glance

The Gentlemen Takes the Story to Italy

Moving the story into Northern Italy gives Season 2 a noticeably different visual identity. The English estates remain part of the series’ world, but the production now has the luxury and natural beauty of Lake Maggiore to play with. Those locations are not simply background decoration. They help underline how far Eddie and Susie have moved from the relatively contained criminal operation they inherited.

The contrast is particularly effective. The British countryside carries the old-money atmosphere that has always surrounded Eddie’s family, while the Italian locations bring another kind of wealth and another set of social rules. The beautiful lake, expensive properties, and aristocratic surroundings sit right beside criminal violence, which is very much in keeping with the show’s sense of humor.

Matthew Read has described the geographical expansion as an important part of the Season 2 vision. Bringing the story outside Britain also allows the series to introduce a more authentically European ensemble, with Morrone, Castellitto, and Porcaroli giving the Italian side of the story its own identity rather than making it feel like a temporary detour from the main plot.

That matters because the Italian characters are not simply there to give Eddie another obstacle. They have their own relationships and power structures. Cico in particular feels like someone who existed before Eddie arrived and will continue existing if Eddie eventually leaves.

The Returning Cast of The Gentlemen Season 2

Morrone joins a returning cast that already has plenty of personality. Theo James is back as Eddie Horniman, while Kaya Scodelario returns as Susie Glass. Daniel Ings once again plays Eddie’s chaotic brother Freddy, and Ray Winstone returns as Bobby Glass.

Joely Richardson is also back as Lady Sabrina, with Vinnie Jones returning as Geoff Seacombe. Giancarlo Esposito reprises his role as wealthy American businessman Stanley Johnston, adding another piece to the increasingly international power struggle surrounding Eddie and Susie.

The main returning players include:

• Theo James as Eddie Horniman
• Kaya Scodelario as Susie Glass
• Daniel Ings as Freddy Horniman
• Ray Winstone as Bobby Glass
• Joely Richardson as Lady Sabrina
• Vinnie Jones as Geoff Seacombe
• Giancarlo Esposito as Stanley Johnston
• Michele Morrone as Cico Maldini
• Benedetta Porcaroli as Bella
• Sergio Castellitto as Marco Moretti

What Michele Morrone’s Cico Means for the Future of the Series

The biggest benefit of bringing Cico into The Gentlemen is that he gives the show another character who cannot be neatly categorized as ally or enemy. Eddie and Susie need him. They also have very good reasons to keep an eye on him. That is fertile ground for the kind of character-driven crime comedy Ritchie likes to build.

Morrone also gets the chance to show a side of his acting that audiences who know him mainly from 365 Days may not have seen before. Cico is stylish, but he is not a fantasy version of a dangerous man. There is something grubby and unpredictable underneath the expensive clothes, and that makes the character feel at home among the criminals, aristocrats, hustlers, and eccentric personalities already populating the series.

Season 2 therefore expands The Gentlemen in more than a geographical sense. Eddie and Susie are trying to turn a British criminal enterprise into something much larger, and the moment they cross into Italy, the rules become less familiar. Cico Maldini is one of the people standing in that doorway, smiling, offering to help, and leaving everyone else wondering what exactly he wants in return.

All eight episodes of The Gentlemen Season 2 are currently streaming exclusively on Netflix. With the story moving between England and Italy, the new season keeps the tailored suits, criminal maneuvering, dark humor, and sudden violence of the original while giving Eddie and Susie a much wider world to get themselves into trouble in.