Idris Elba in LutherImage via BBC
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Kelcie Mattson
Published 2 hours ago
Kelcie Mattson is a Senior Features author at Collider. Based in the Midwest, she also contributes Lists, reviews, and television recaps. A lifelong fan of niche sci-fi, epic fantasy, Final Girl horror, elaborate action, and witty detective fiction, becoming a pop culture devotee was inevitable once the Disney Renaissance, Turner Classic Movies, BBC period dramas, and her local library piqued her imagination.
Rarely seen without a book in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, Kelcie explores media history (especially older, foreign, and independent films) as much as possible. In her spare time, she enjoys RPG video games, amateur photography, and attending fan conventions with her Trekkie family.
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John Luther (Idris Elba) meets his match in his very first episode. The pilot of Luther Season 1, the hit BBC crime series named after the titular Detective Chief Inspector, introduces murderess Alice Morgan (Ruth Wilson) with a magician's deceptive flourish. The magnificently sinister and relentlessly hypnotic sociopath presents herself as a loving daughter traumatized by the shocking murder of her parents. Alice, the perpetrator of said crime, would have evaded capture thanks to her thoroughly convincing performance if she, in turn, hadn't met her match in John — an unplanned encounter that delights both characters, albeit the former with obsessive delight and the latter with reluctant unease.
The last time fans saw John in Netflix's Luther: The Fallen Sun, the film continuation failed to confirm the most burning mystery following Season 5's tragic conclusion: whether Alice actually met her untimely end. Series creator Neil Cross put the rumors about her death to rest in 2023, but the recent announcement that Netflix has commissioned a second Luther movie, this time with Wilson on board to return, is precisely the correct next step for a series that has maintained a captive audience for 15 years and counting. Including Alice already improves Luther: The Fallen Sun's biggest misstep — and in a perfect twist of fate, Wilson’s current time playing a heroine in Apple TV's mystery thriller Down Cemetery Road reminds everyone why she needs to reprise her villainous breakout role.
Alice Morgan and John Luther Are 'Luther's Longest-Lasting and Most Compelling Relationship
Alice and John's mutual fascination evolves into an ongoing exchange across the series' five seasons. Intrigued by this remarkably perceptive man, Alice — eternally disarming despite all those frantically waving red flags — violates all rules of social etiquette, monitoring his movements from afar and invading his home. Yet Alice also demonstrates an uncanny penchant for leaping to John's defense when he most needs an ally, especially one who's willing to, let's say, ignore legalities. For a detective who finds himself in as many dire straits as John Luther, she's quite a boon.
Even when the ever-independent Alice lingers offscreen, the pair's complex draw — aided by Elba and Wilson's volcanic chemistry — thrums like a constant beating pulse. Their mental dance embodies the classic dynamic of two powerful people on opposing sides of the law who keenly understand one another’s worst devils and best angels to an extent no one else can grasp. Alice's sporadic heroism exclusively applies to John, but his influence doesn't redeem her. John, although never underestimating what she's capable of, indulges himself in some wary fondness for this ruthless killer who's not quite his friend yet never fully his enemy. John's also fully aware of how much the darkness he hunts can consume his temperament. When it comes to Alice, however, the morally ambiguous lines blur nevertheless.
Their pair's charge shifts to romantic and sexual once John temporarily abandons his work between Seasons 3 and 4. It's an evolution many fans recognized as inevitable, but even those who shipped their toxic potential predicted that their relationship was doomed. After John emerges from retirement in Season 4 to investigate Alice's apparent murder, the fifth season reveals why their dalliance couldn't survive their fundamental differences. In the present day, Season 5 ends with Alice murdering John's current partner, detective Catherine Halliday (Wunmi Mosaku), in cold blood, before falling to her potential death.
'Luther' Just Isn’t the Same Without Ruth Wilson's Alice Morgan
While promoting Luther: The Fallen Sun, Cross confirmed Alice's survival (no surprise there, given her slippery ingenuity). Insofar as her potential return, Cross stated, "we'd be fools not to want to explore [that dynamic] again." As for The Fallen Sun, while John's first feature film outing is a solid action-thriller ride grounded by Elba’s reliable star power, it lacks the specific spark that distinguishes Luther from other grim-and-grisly crime dramas. Although seeing John don his famous coat again feels like a warm hug (albeit an odd comfort, given Luther's bleak material), without the series' slower-paced, moodier psychological edge, and with the film's frantic pacing and abrupt story additions (Andy Serkis' character's diabolical plot, MI6 offering John a job), the result is generic at best and muddled at worst.
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Posts By Erin Konrad Nov 5, 2025Simply put, Luther isn't Luther without Alice. Without taking anything away from Elba, who carries the series with majestic distinction and aching humanity, and without minimizing the importance of a Black man leading an enduring series, Cross designed Alice as his antagonist-slash-secondary protagonist. To be fair, incorporating her into The Fallen Sun in a major capacity might have distracted from the resolution it provides for Season 5's cliffhanger, which sees John arrested for a murder he didn't commit. Just like the subject of her dark matter astrophysics PhD, Alice is a black hole devouring the attention and lives of everyone around her. Revealing the circumstances of her non-death deserves its own dedicated feature.
However, her absence is palpable. Alice remains John's equal, opposite, and universal balance, his dark indulgence, and his reminder to resume enforcing the laws she casts aside. She beautifully complicates his heart, and vice versa. In 2019, Wilson spoke to Entertainment Weekly about how the pair's ever-evolving push-pull relationship reset when Alice used her jealousy to justify killing Halliday. Wilson called the violent act "definitely [...] a point of no return," even though Alice "realized that she was losing him." Elba confirmed John is "a broken man" after Alice's betrayal, stating, "I think the last string of love in his heart was snapped away at that moment."
Ruth Wilson's Return for Netflix's Next 'Luther' Sequel Can Fix 'The Fallen Sun's Oversight
Alice Morgan and John Luther in LutherImage via the BBC
Shattering the series’ foundational relationship undoubtedly needs exploration. Even when Alice hovers offscreen, she haunts the narrative; the question of where she's fled post-Season 5, what havoc she has or hasn't induced, and where her dynamic with John progresses from here, is top of mind for virtually every fan, as well as an incomplete puzzle piece Luther must resolve in order to stay coherent. Alice carved out a space within her world where she made exceptions for John; he reciprocated the favor. Now, the rules are off. It's almost required by Luther law that John tragically lose his loved ones, and although Alice lives, he's lost his last genuine connection, however unhealthy it is. And who can ever predict Alice’s responses, even toward the object of her twisted affection, who managed to humanize her ever so slightly?
Not to mention, the fictional world still doesn't feature enough competent, charismatic, and ruthless female villains, especially ones positioned as a Moriarty figure. Another movie installment instead of a full-blown Luther season raises some concerns; Alice deserves a storyline with bite, and the way Season 5 informs the characters' entwined, tumultuous future needs both room and substance. Understandably, Netflix's press release teases the unnamed movie's overarching plot ("a wave of brutal, seemingly random murders" that necessitates Luther's skills, even though "everyone on all sides seems to want him dead"). As long as Cross does justice by his parallel creations, then Wilson's tremendous performance is the gift that keeps on giving — and it should stay that way.
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Luther
TV-MA
Drama
Release Date
2010 - 2019-00-00
Showrunner
Neil Cross
Writers
Neil Cross
Cast
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Idris Elba
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Ruth Wilson
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Idris Elba
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Ruth Wilson
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