Cush Jumbo on Criminal Record S2: Leo's Death, June & Hegarty
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- Cush Jumbo reveals that in the Season 2 finale of Apple TV+'s "Criminal Record," her character June Lenker's husband Leo (Stephen Campbell Moore) is killed by a car bomb meant for June, following a heartfelt conversation about the collapse of their marriage
- Season 2 opens with the stabbing of 15-year-old Rohann (Rasaq Kukoyi), a Muslim teen killed at the Nallswsworth Street rally, which pulls June back into an uneasy partnership with former nemesis DCI Daniel Hegarty (Peter Capaldi)
- Hegarty has assembled a specialized unit to infiltrate a white supremacist organization led by conman and conspiracy theorist Cosmo (Dustin Demri-Burns), and June recognizes one of the agitators, Billy Fielding (Luther Ford), as someone who should already be in jail for murder
- Jumbo describes June as a "lone wolf" on the brink of burnout whose marriage is falling apart and whose teenage son Jacob (Jordan Nash) has chosen to live with his father full-time, leaving her increasingly isolated
- Jumbo and Capaldi, real-life friends of 20 years, deliberately don't rehearse their scenes together to protect the on-screen tension between their characters, whom Jumbo says June finds Hegarty so frustrating because both are "old-school" in their belief systems
- The season explores the interior lives of political extremists, showing how young people like Billy are drawn to charismatic figures like Cosmo, with Jumbo noting the show wants audiences to see "complex human beings" rather than simple monsters
Why it matters: Jumbo confirms a major character death that resets the show's emotional stakes heading into a potential Season 3, while her commentary positions "Criminal Record" as a show deliberately engaging with how far-right radicalization happens in real time — the murder of a 15-year-old at a rally mirrors real-world incidents and frames the series' extremism storyline as a direct commentary on contemporary politics.
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