Sky Atlantic’s latest original series Heel has arrived as one of the most intense, morally complex crime dramas of the year, and at its centre is a towering, career-best performance from Stephen Graham. The six-part limited series, created by Paul Abbott (State of Play, Shameless) and directed by Lewis Arnold (Broadchurch, Sherwood), follows Graham as Tommy “Heel” McAvoy, a feared Manchester debt collector and enforcer who has spent 25 years breaking bones and collecting money for the city’s criminal underworld. When a routine collection job goes catastrophically wrong, leaving a young father dead and Tommy’s own moral compass shattered, he begins a slow, brutal unraveling that forces him to confront the man he has become — and the price of loyalty in a world that rewards cruelty.

The show opens with Tommy executing a “standard” job: a young builder owes £8,000 to a local loan shark. What should be a quick intimidation turns deadly when the man resists, and Tommy — following orders — goes too far. The death is ruled an accident, but Tommy cannot escape the image of the man’s terrified face. From that moment, the series becomes a slow-burn character study wrapped in a taut crime thriller. Tommy’s descent is not into villainy — he’s already there — but into self-reckoning. He begins quietly sabotaging jobs, protecting debtors, and questioning the bosses who’ve controlled him since he was a teenager. “Tommy isn’t a hero,” Graham said in a press interview. “He’s a man who’s spent his life doing terrible things for people who’d kill him if he stopped. This is about what happens when he finally can’t do it anymore.”

Graham’s performance is nothing short of extraordinary. Known for his explosive energy in roles like This Is England and Boardwalk Empire, here he dials it back to a terrifying simmer. Tommy speaks softly, moves deliberately, and carries the weight of every punch he’s ever thrown. His eyes — usually full of fire — are hollowed out by guilt and exhaustion. The supporting cast is equally strong: Stephen Graham’s real-life wife Hannah Walters plays his long-suffering wife Marie, who has endured decades of his double life; Mark Stanley (Game of Thrones) is the ruthless boss who sees Tommy as both asset and liability; and newcomer Amara Karan shines as a young detective who begins to suspect Tommy’s change of heart.

The series is shot in stark, rain-soaked Manchester, with cinematographer Ole Bratt Birkeland capturing the city’s industrial decay and neon-lit nights in a way that feels both beautiful and oppressive. The script is lean and brutal — Abbott’s dialogue crackles with Mancunian wit and menace — and the pacing is relentless. Each episode peels back another layer of Tommy’s past: the teenage debt that first trapped him, the brother he couldn’t save, the wife who stayed despite everything. The violence is graphic but purposeful — never glorified, always a consequence.

Critics have been unanimous in their praise. The Guardian awarded five stars: “Stephen Graham has never been better — this is acting of the highest order.” The Times called it “a masterclass in moral decay and redemption — gripping from the first frame.” On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 93% critics score and 89% audience score, with viewers describing it as “unflinching,” “heartbreaking,” and “impossible to look away from.”

Heel is more than a crime drama — it’s a meditation on loyalty, guilt, and the cost of a life spent in the shadows. As Tommy says in the finale: “I spent my whole life collecting debts. Turns out I owed the biggest one to myself.”