We can’t really draw many comparisons between Guy Ritchie’s ‘The Gentlemen’ show and movie, since each is one of a kind in its own way. But there is one thing that we must admit: Kaya Scodelario’s Susie Glass is one of the most unique female characters to emerge from Ritchie’s criminal world.
While the 2019 film gave us Michelle Dockery’s Rosalind Pearson, the TV series takes this familiar archetype and gives it so much more room to operate. Susie is not simply the woman standing beside a gangster – she is the gangster everyone else has to reckon with.
Why Susie Glass Draws So Much Comparison To Rosalind Pearson
In the original ‘The Gentlemen’, Michelle Dockery plays Rosalind Pearson, the wife of cannabis kingpin Mickey Pearson. Mickey is unquestionably the central figure, but even Rosalind isn’t your conventional gangster’s wife.
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Rosalind is tough and fiercely independent, and she runs her own business with the same ruthless efficiency we see in her husband. In Ritchie’s dangerous criminal world, she is one of the few female players capable of commanding both fear and respect.
This makes Rosalind a natural point of comparison for Kaya Scodelario’s Susie Glass. After her father is imprisoned, Susie takes responsibility for his cannabis business while simultaneously looking after her younger brother and helping him pursue his boxing career. Men underestimate her. But Susie rarely allows them to dictate her decisions.
Both women therefore occupy a similar space in Ritchie’s criminal universe. Neither exists simply as a damsel waiting to be rescued. They are perfectly capable of operating in a world dominated by men and understand that survival will require ruthlessness.
How Susie Glass Gets To Do What Rosalind Couldn’t
But there is an important distinction between Susie and Rosalind. The TV show gives Susie much more agency than Rosalind ever had.
As interesting as Rosalind’s character is, she is ultimately Mickey Pearson’s partner. Her ambition and interests all exist alongside Mickey’s story. She simply never gets her own narrative.
‘The Gentlemen’ series changes that equation completely and switches the trope.
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Susie is one of the two central players of the show. When Eddie enters the criminal world, Susie is the one who introduces him to it. It is Eddie who relies heavily on her and not the other way around.
Kaya Scodelario herself has explained that Susie isn’t someone learning to become a criminal since she is already at the top of the ladder. The expectation that she would simply be the girlfriend, wife, or sidekick is deliberately overturned.
Moreover, the series never forces the conventional romance between Susie and Eddie, though the chemistry is definitely there. But Susie’s narrative isn’t dependent on becoming Eddie’s love interest. And that is where the character becomes so genuinely refreshing.
Susie Glass Represents The New Female Gangster Archetype
In television gangster stories, female characters have largely been pushed into a few very familiar categories. They might be romantic interests, objects of desire, victims caught in the crossfire, or powerful matriarchs who influence events from behind the scenes.
Susie Glass represents an evolution of this archetype. Her power isn’t connected to any man. She isn’t secretly pulling strings while allowing a male character to take the spotlight. And she doesn’t have to sacrifice her femininity to be accepted as a serious player.
In fact, Susie doesn’t conform to the traditional visual image of a gangster at all. She loves glamorous clothes, red lipstick, and an immaculate hairstyle. Her femininity isn’t something the show asks her to abandon in order to become powerful. This is because Susie doesn’t spend the whole time convincing the audience that she belongs in this world. She already does, and she exercises that power with ease.
While Rosalind showed that women can exist within Guy Ritchie’s gangster world without simply being helpless wives or love interests, Susie takes that idea several steps further. She isn’t just allowed into the criminal underworld; she dominates it without hesitation. And this is why Susie represents what happens when female characters are finally given the same narrative power often reserved for male characters.
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