Apple TV's 90% RT Crime Series Surges the Charts Following Its Most Devastating Case Yet

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By

Amanda M. Castro

Published May 5, 2026, 7:29 PM EDT

Amanda M. Castro is a Network TV writer at Collider and a New York–based journalist whose work has appeared in Newsweek, where she contributes as a Live Blog Editor, and The U.S. Sun, where she previously served as a Senior Consumer Reporter.

She specializes in network television coverage, delivering sharp, thoughtful analysis of long-running procedural hits and ambitious new dramas across broadcast TV. At Collider, Amanda explores character arcs, storytelling trends, and the cultural impact of network series that keep audiences tuning in week after week.

Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Amanda is bilingual and holds a degree in Communication, Film, and Media Studies from the University of New Haven.

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After a quiet-but-respected first season, London-set crime drama, **Criminal Record, **_has surged up Apple TV’s charts following its Season 2 premiere, landing in the Top 5 in the U.S. and holding its ground in the days after, according to FlixPatrol. Plenty of shows spike and disappear, but this one didn’t.

The series airs its second case, which is much harder than anything it has done to date, and is also much meaner and more emotionally punishing. Current critics were also on board, too — and the series currently has a 90% on Rotten Tomatoes — but viewers now have something sharper to latch on to in season two.

‘Criminal Record’ Hooks You Quickly

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Episode 1 of Season 2 begins with a cruel moment. At a rally in London, a teenage boy gets stabbed and dies in the arms of November 2019's DS June Lenker (Cush Jumbo). This moment is shown without style or haste, and it lasts long enough for the audience to experience it in the same fashion that June did.

As the season progresses, June's actions will continue to be influenced by her feelings of loss, affecting all of her decisions, leads, and conversations. The second time she meets with DCI Daniel Hegarty (Peter Capaldi), she doesn't do so out of trust; she meets him because the investigation requires it. This dysfunctional relationship between June and Daniel is the show's structure, and always has been. What Season 2 does differently is strip away any illusion that these two can keep things professional and contained. The stakes are personal now, and the show lets that bleed into everything.

COLLIDER. Collider · Quiz

Collider Exclusive · Taylor Sheridan Universe Quiz Which Taylor Sheridan_**Show Do You Belong In? Yellowstone · Landman · Tulsa King · Mayor of Kingstown

Four worlds. All of them brutal, complicated, and built on power, loyalty, and the price of survival. Taylor Sheridan doesn't write heroes — he writes people who do what they have to do and live with the cost. Ten questions will reveal which one of his worlds you were made for.

🤠Yellowstone 🛢️Landman 👑Tulsa King ⚖️Mayor of Kingstown

FIND YOUR WORLD →

QUESTION 1 / 10POWER

01 Where does your power come from? In Sheridan's world, everyone has leverage. The question is what kind.

ALand, legacy, and a name that's been feared and respected for generations. BKnowing the deal better than anyone else in the room — and being willing to walk away first. CReputation. I've earned it the hard way, and everyone in the room knows it. DBeing the only person both sides will talk to. That makes me indispensable — and dangerous.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 2 / 10LOYALTY

02 Who do you put first, no matter what? Loyalty in Sheridan's universe is always absolute — and always costly.

AFamily — blood or chosen. The ranch, the name, the people who carry it with me. BThe company — or whoever's signing the cheques. Loyalty follows the contract. CMy crew. The men who stood with me when it counted — I don't abandon them for anything. DMy community — even when my community is a powder keg and I'm the only thing stopping it from blowing.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 3 / 10CONFLICT

03 Someone crosses a line. How do you respond? Every Sheridan protagonist has a line. What matters is what happens after it's crossed.

AQuietly, decisively, and in a way that sends a message to everyone watching. BI outmanoeuvre them legally, financially, and politically before they even know I've moved. CDirectly. Old school. You cross me, you hear about it to your face — and then you deal with the consequences. DI absorb it, calculate the fallout, and find the move that keeps the whole system from collapsing.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 4 / 10SETTING

04 Where do you feel most in your element? Sheridan's worlds are as much about place as they are about people.

AWide open land — mountains, sky, silence. Somewhere you can see trouble coming from a mile away. BThe oil fields of West Texas — brutal, lucrative, and indifferent to whoever happens to be standing on top of them. CA mid-size city where the rules haven't quite caught up yet — fertile ground for someone with vision and nerve. DA rust-belt town built around a prison — where everyone's life is shaped by what's inside those walls.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 5 / 10MORALITY

05 How do you feel about operating in the grey? Nobody in a Sheridan show has clean hands. The question is how they carry the dirt.

AI do what has to be done to protect what's mine. I'll answer for it eventually — but not today. BGrey is just business. The line moves depending on what's at stake, and I move with it. CI have a code — it's not the law's code, but it's mine, and I don't break it. DI've made peace with it. Keeping the peace requires compromises most people don't have the stomach for.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 6 / 10AMBITION

06 What are you actually fighting to hold onto? Every Sheridan character is fighting a war. The real question is what they're defending.

AA way of life that the modern world is doing everything it can to erase. BMy position — and the leverage that comes with being the person everyone needs to close a deal. CRelevance. I've been away, I've been written off — and I'm proving that was a mistake. DWhatever fragile order I've managed to build — because without it, everything burns.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 7 / 10LEADERSHIP

07 How do you lead? Authority in Sheridan's world is never given — it's established, maintained, and constantly tested.

ABy example and force of will. People follow me because they believe in what I'm protecting — and because they know what happens if they don't. BThrough negotiation and leverage. I don't need people to like me — I need them to need me. CBy being the smartest, most experienced person in the room and making sure everyone quietly knows it. DBy being the calm centre of a situation that would spiral without me — and accepting that nobody thanks you for it.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 8 / 10OUTSIDERS

08 Someone new arrives and tries to change how things work. Your reaction? Every Sheridan show has an outsider disrupting an established order. Sometimes that outsider is you.

AThey'll learn. Or they won't. Either way, the land was here before them and it'll be here after. BI figure out what they want, what they're worth, and whether they're an asset or a problem — fast. CI was the outsider once. I give them a chance — one — to show they understand respect. DNew players destabilise everything I've built. I assess the threat and manage it before it manages me.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 9 / 10COST

09 What has your position cost you? Nobody gets to where these characters are without paying for it. The bill is always personal.

AMy family's peace — maybe their innocence. The ranch demands everything, and I've let it take too much. BRelationships, time, any version of a normal life. The job eats everything that isn't nailed down. CYears. Decades in some cases. Time I can't get back — but I'm not done yet. DMy conscience, mostly. And the ability to ever fully trust anyone on either side of the wall.

NEXT QUESTION →

QUESTION 10 / 10LEGACY

10 When it's over, what do you want people to say? Sheridan's characters all know the ending is coming. The question is what they leave behind.

AThat I held the line. That the land is still ours and everything I did was worth it. BThat I was the best at what I did and that no deal ever got closed without me at the table. CThat I built something real, somewhere nobody expected it, and I did it on my own terms. DThat I kept the peace when nobody else could — and that the town is still standing because of it.

REVEAL MY SHOW →

Sheridan Has Spoken You Belong In… The show that claimed the most of your answers is the world you were built for. If two tied, both are shown — you're complicated enough to straddle two Sheridan universes.

🤠 Yellowstone

🛢️ Landman

👑 Tulsa King

⚖️ Mayor of Kingstown

YELLOWSTONE

You are a Dutton — or you might as well be. You understand that some things are worth protecting at any cost, and that the modern world's indifference to history, to land, to legacy, is not something you're willing to accept quietly. You lead from the front, you carry your family's weight without complaint, and when someone threatens what's yours, you don't escalate — you finish it. You're not cruel. But you are absolute. In Yellowstone's world, that combination of ferocity and loyalty doesn't make you a villain. It makes you the only thing standing between everything that matters and everyone who wants to take it.

LANDMAN

You thrive in the chaos of high-stakes negotiation, where the money is enormous, the margins are thin, and the wrong word in the wrong room can cost everyone everything. You're a fixer — the person called when a situation is already on fire and needs someone with the nerve to walk into it. West Texas oil country rewards exactly what you are: sharp, adaptable, unsentimental, and absolutely clear-eyed about what people want and what they'll do to get it. You're not naive enough to think this world is fair. You're smart enough to be the one deciding who it's fair to.

TULSA KING

You are a Dwight Manfredi — someone who has served their time, paid their dues, and arrived somewhere unexpected with nothing but their reputation and their wits. You adapt without losing yourself. You build loyalty through respect rather than fear, though you're not above reminding people that the two aren't mutually exclusive. Tulsa King is for people who are still standing when everyone assumed they'd be finished — who find, in an unfamiliar place, that they're more capable than the world gave them credit for. You don't need a throne. You build one, wherever you happen to land.

MAYOR OF KINGSTOWN

You carry the weight of a system that is broken by design, and you do it anyway — because someone has to, and because you're the only one positioned to do it without the whole thing collapsing. Mike McLusky's world is for people who are comfortable operating where there are no good options, only less catastrophic ones. You speak every language: law enforcement, criminal, political, human. That fluency makes you invaluable and it makes you a target. You've made your peace with both. Mayor of Kingstown belongs to people who understand that keeping the peace is not the same as being at peace — and who do the job regardless.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

At Its Core, This Is a Show About Two People Who Shouldn’t Work Together

_ Cush Jumbo in "Criminal Record," premiering April 22, 2026 on Apple TV.Image via Apple TV

The concept isn’t new; you have two very different detectives** — one nearly finished with his career and one just starting out — who come together to solve a case that neither of them believes should have been brought to them. But Paul Rutman doesn’t want simple relationships or simple endings.

Hegarty is both a detective seeking closure and escaping from his history; June is also a young woman determined to succeed in life, but has a strong moral compass that steers her toward what is fundamentally right, regardless of the difficulty or personal risk involved. When these two are placed in the same room, they will be severely tested, leading to conflict rather than partnership.

During Season 1, the storyline developed through the ongoing tensions between Hegarty and June created additional escalation in their respective stories, leading up to Season 2, as Hegarty finds himself under increasing pressure to find the person who belongs to an extremist organization, while continuing to build upon the characteristics of his own character's development throughout the current episodes. Furthermore, June continues to struggle with the consequences associated with the trauma she experienced from the earlier incident; therefore, her impulsivity has also risen dramatically and would result in her being more confrontational with Hegarty as well.

Season 2 reframed the story in a way that makes going back to Season 1 feel essential. Viewers who missed it the first time now have a reason to catch up, while returning fans are revisiting earlier episodes with new context. There’s also the way Apple handled the release. Weekly episodes gave the show space to build tension and conversation, instead of getting lost in a weekend binge cycle. That kind of rollout works in the show’s favor because Criminal Record_ thrives on accumulation — details stacking, tensions rising, characters revealing themselves slowly.

What Sets ‘Criminal Record’ Apart From Every Other Crime Drama Right Now

_ A man stares frustrated in a police interview setting in 'Criminal Record'Apple TV+ / Courtesy Everett Collection

There’s no shortage of crime shows trying to out-twist each other with bigger conspiracies, louder reveals, and more shocking turns. Criminal Record,_ however, goes the opposite direction. The violence, when it shows up, isn’t there to impress but to unsettle. The writing doesn’t chase grand statements, but builds meaning through small, specific choices. On top of that, the central question — What happens when the truth gets buried, ignored, or reshaped? — never feels abstract, and is baked into every interaction.

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