English writer George Kay isn’t necessarily a household name, but he’s been responsible for some of the most-watched television shows to air over the past several years. Among his crowning achievements are the French Netflix heist thriller series Lupin, starring Omar Sy, and the high-intensity real-time Idris Elba series Hijack at Apple TV, both of which he co-created and which earned a BAFTA and Emmy nomination, respectively. Kay is also responsible for masterminding the ambitious four-country police procedural Criminal and lending his writing skills to a handful of other shows, from Litvinenko to Killing Eve. Earlier this year, however, he returned with a brand-new British crime drama, Gone, and now, we’re excited to highlight it as part of Collider’s Exclusive Summer Preview series ahead of its BritBox premiere.
Loosely inspired by Julie Mackay and Robert Murphy‘s true-crime novel To Hunt a Killer, Gone is set in Bristol, UK, and revolves around a disappearance that has rocked the fictional prestigious St. Bartholomew’s Independent School. Headmaster Michael Polly (David Morrissey) has suddenly become the prime suspect, given that the missing person is his wife, Sarah. Enter gutsy Detective Sergeant Annie Cassidy (Eve Myles), who engages in a game of cat-and-mouse involving the strict instructor whom the media and the rest of the police have been quick to judge. What unravels is a far more complex mystery, questioning the nature of guilt and privilege, and forcing her to work with the headmaster and change tactics to deal with the tense situation unfolding.
We can exclusively share two new images that highlight the central pair while on the investigative trail. The first shows DS Cassidy in the woods with another officer, searching for evidence and looking quite perturbed by what she’s turned up. On the flip side, Polly looks as calm as can be, looking every bit like the stone-faced instructor despite being on the opposite end of an interrogation room with his future on the line. Best remembered for playing one of The Walking Dead‘s most intimidating, stoic, and downright maniacal villains, The Governor, Morrissey has experience playing more controlled characters, and he brings that same presence to Gone. That facade will be tested, though, as Polly is hounded for what the public believes he did.
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
01
You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
03
You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
07
Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
10
It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
Who Else Is Involved in ‘Gone’?
Joining Myles and Morrissey in Gone is a starry main cast featuring Emma Appleton, Billy Barratt, Rupert Evans, Claire Goose, Clare Higgins, Peter McDonald, Elliot Cowan, Jennifer Macbeth, Arthur Hughes, Nicholas Nunn, Jodie McNee, and Oscar Batterham. Adding to the creative firepower is BAFTA-winning director Richard Laxton, known for Him & Her, An Englishman in New York, and, more recently, the Sophie Turner-led Joan, who helms all six episodes. Kay’s latest series first debuted on ITV1 and ITVX back in March and was lauded by critics, giving it a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes. BritBox immediately pegged it as a perfect fit for its catalog, picking it up for release in North America back in February before an episode even aired.
Gone arrives on BritBox later this year. Check out the new images in the gallery above, and stay tuned here at Collider for more from exciting new looks from our summer preview series throughout the month.
