RIPPER STREET Returns Saturday, February 22

East London. 1890. The long shadow of Jack the Ripper may be gone, but The Job of protecting London’s Whitechapel district has never been harder for Detective Inspector Edmund Reid (Matthew MacFayden, Anna Karenina) and his loyal deputies Detective Sergeant Bennet Drake (Jerome Flynn) and Captain Homer Jackson (Adam Rothenberg). As the century enters its final decade, recession stalks Great Britain. Its preeminent role in the world is under threat and nowhere is the bloated British Empire’s problems felt more keenly than in its dark heart: the East End of London. The Metropolitan Police’s H Division must battle new evils that threaten to disrupt the delicate peace struck at the end season one. David Costabile, Damien Molony, Joseph Mawle and Leanne Best join the cast for season two. BBC America's RIPPER STREET premieres Saturday, February 22, 10 p.m. ET/PT.

Against a society in rapid decline, the men of H Division take on new crimes including a new drug scourge of an imperial nature, a female gang set on vengeance against their industrial tormentors, escaped bombers, subversive cult Svengalis and a mad eugenicist that stalks the circus freak shows for prey – an investigation that brings the elusive “Elephant Man” (Joseph Drake) to their aid. These new threats will test Reid and his allies to their very limit, all while facing corruption in their own ranks from the neighboring force of Limehouse’s K Division, and its formidable and entirely amoral leader, Detective Inspector Jedediah Shine (Joseph Mawle).

The team faces challenges on the home front too. Without his wife Emily to anchor him, Reid wrestles personal demons of guilt and isolation. Drake has a new wife; but in committing to her, may have lost the brutal intensity that was a hallmark of his policing. Jackson, no longer bound by the need to keep a low profile, questions the suitability of Whitechapel as a place to call home while ‘Long’ Susan Hart (Myanna Buring) struggles to protect her brothel on Tenter Street and livelihood from the secret debt she owes the ruthless moneylender, Silas Duggan.

The past is gone but our heroes need to find a way to come to terms with a new present in order to combat the ever-shifting menace of life on the Whitechapel frontline.

Guest stars this season also include Paul Kaye as Gabriel Cain, Neve McIntosh as Raine, Gina Bellman as Jemima Swan and James Wilby (Maurice, Clapham Junction) as Charles Broadwick.