Filming is under way on Code of Silence season two, and ITV has released the first-look pictures to prove it, bringing with them a roster of new faces joining Rose Ayling-Ellis as Alison Brooks. If the first series demonstrated anything, it was that a crime drama built around a Deaf protagonist could cut through a very crowded field. The question now is what the second series does with that momentum.
Who Is Joining the Cast for Code of Silence Season Two
The new additions are considerable. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Jonah Hauer-King, Jo Joyner, and John Hollingworth are all joining Ayling-Ellis for the second series, each bringing a different weight to what is already a tightly constructed ensemble. Hauer-King is the face visible in the first-look images opposite Ayling-Ellis, the new presence the production has chosen to lead with visually, which tells you something about how central his character is likely to be to the new storyline.
Not everyone is new. ITV’s press centre confirms that Andrew Buchan is returning for series two, providing a thread of continuity back into the world the first series constructed. In a drama where trust and familiarity are always in question, a returning face carries narrative weight that a newcomer simply cannot.
Why the First Series of Code of Silence Still Matters
It is worth returning briefly to what made the original series worth discussing at all, because the awards it collected were not of the consolation variety. Code of Silence won the Bafta for best drama series, and earned further recognition at both the Royal Television Society Programme Awards and the National Television Awards. That is a sweep that most dramas, however well-reviewed, do not manage.
The reason it landed so squarely is not difficult to locate. As Kayleigh Dray wrote for Stylist of the first series: ‘Yes, there are secrets, suspense and more than a few twists, but what makes this ITV series truly compelling is how it redefines everything we expect from the genre. Because, by centring a Deaf protagonist in a world where listening is everything, Code Of Silence is about so much more than solving crimes; it’s about who gets to be seen and heard on screen.’ That framing, the idea of a crime drama whose central tension is structural rather than merely procedural, is what separated it from the considerable noise of the genre.
Crime drama is, by any measure, the most crowded corner of British television. Every season brings another detective, another missing person, another estuary location lit to look vaguely threatening. Most of them are competent. Very few of them find a formal idea strong enough to sustain the weight of the plot. Code of Silence found one: place a Deaf woman at the centre of a genre that treats listening as its primary instrument, and suddenly every scene carries a secondary layer of meaning that has nothing to do with clues or suspects. The procedural mechanics become almost incidental.
Ayling-Ellis’s Alison Brooks is not a protagonist who overcomes her deafness to solve crimes, which would have been the lesser version of this story. She is a protagonist whose experience of the world reshapes how the audience processes the drama itself. That is a harder thing to write and a harder thing to perform, and the Bafta reflects both.
With Hauer-King, Joyner, and Hollingworth now alongside her, and Buchan back in the fold, Code of Silence season two arrives carrying expectations that the first series spent its entire run building. The first-look images ITV has released are deliberately spare, offering texture without plot. A new face opposite a familiar one. The rest, for now, is silence.
