Happy holidays, you get a spy show! Only one show at Netflix now meets all the genre requirements and also throws in a few delightful extras: spirited characters and lively world-building, frenetic action and fizzy conversation, Ben Whishaw’s luscious hair, Keira Knightley smiling like she wants to rip you apart with her teeth. Black Doves is the platonic ideal of a spy thriller, all of its elements fully in sync for a fun time.

From creator Joe Barton, who previously played in the crime space with the fantastic Giri/Haji, Black Doves is named for the spy organization at the heart of the series. They’re an at-the-highest-bidder’s-whims group that sells secrets and information all around the world, and Black Doves focuses on deep-cover spy Helen (Knightley); her triggerman, driver, and best friend Sam (Whishaw); and their handler Reed (Sarah Lancashire, giving Margo Martindale a run for her money in the unimpressed-older-mentor department). When Helen’s lover Jason (Andrew Koji) is murdered in the premiere, she’s devastated and then desperate for answers and revenge — so much so that she threatens her decade-long cover as happy housewife to the U.K.’s Defense secretary. To keep Helen’s hands somewhat clean, Reed calls in Sam, who seven years ago left the U.K. after a job went wrong.

With the pair reunited and Reed lurking over their shoulders, Black Doves sprints and tumbles through a pleasantly complex series of mysteries, with flashbacks illuminating how the three initially came to work together, action sequences that will make you go, “Damn, Paddington is good at murdering,” and an excellent ending that sets up Netflix’s already-ordered second season. What else could you possibly want from a spy thriller? Black Doves is like if The Gentlemen were good-good instead of trashy-good, or if Alias could have had cursing and way more blood spray, or if Gangs of London had pithier exchanges and more lighthearted relationships, or if The Diplomat … well, it’s actually nothing at all like The Diplomat. (Good!) Here, five reasons to give thanks for Black Doves.

Black Doves doesn’t avoid real-world politics entirely. Helen’s husband Wallace, whom she was ordered to seduce and then marry when she joined the Black Doves a decade ago, has risen in the British Conservative Party to the position of Defense secretary; all that time, Helen has been leaking information to Reed about the country’s relationships and negotiations with the Saudis, the Chinese, and other groups. A major plotline this season involves the murder of the Chinese ambassador to the U.K., the subsequent disappearance of his hard-partying daughter, and the assassinations of Jason and two of his friends, a series of crimes that some of Wallace’s colleagues are revealed to be involved in. But the primary focus is never really the jockeying between the British, Chinese, and Americans over who is at fault. It’s the underworld operators who are spying on those negotiations and figuring out how to use them for their benefit, and Black Doves resembles the composite worlds of John Wick and Guy Ritchie in how well it builds out its network of assassins, moles, and crime lords.

Knightley and Whishaw’s chemistry has a lot to do with this; in both their present-day and flashback scenes, they have a spiky, sarcastic, sweet bond that adds humor both to action sequences, like when Sam saves Helen’s life by shotgun-blasting a foe’s body all over hers, and quieter moments of contemplation. (Sam’s recurring “Darling, I will certainly endeavor to try” vow to Helen is a lovely running beat through the years of their friendship.) Most of the series’ professional relationships have this kind of lived-in texture, from Helen and Reed’s venomous friction to Sam and his assassin rival Williams (Ella Lily Hyland) listing people in their lives that the other has killed. These are killers with moral codes, but they’re also people with favorite holiday movies, business fronts, and inside jokes; Sam buying Helen’s kids toy guns for Christmas is a particularly inspired touch.