It starts like any other Monday morning in the gleaming high-rise of Lochmill Capital, a pension-fund investment firm in the heart of London’s financial district. Zara Dunne (Sophie Turner), a hungover trade processor nursing another weekend blackout, drags herself to her desk, cracks jokes with her best friend and colleague Luke (Archie Madekwe), and settles into the soul-crushing routine of spreadsheets and compliance checks. Boredom is the enemy here, not danger. But within minutes of the opening credits rolling on Prime Video’s six-part thriller Steal, that mundane office life explodes into pure, heart-pounding chaos—and viewers haven’t stopped talking about it since the full season dropped on January 21, 2026.
The series wastes no time. Armed robbers—masked not with balaclavas but with eerily sophisticated prosthetics designed to defeat facial-recognition software—storm the floor. They herd junior staff like Zara, Luke, and the rest into one conference room while locking the senior management committee in another. Gunfire echoes, screams fill the air, and the thieves issue their demand: execute a series of high-stakes trades transferring £4 billion from ordinary people’s pension pots into untraceable accounts. The heist of the century isn’t just happening—it’s happening right under Zara’s nose, and she’s forced to play a central role.
Then comes the twist that has social media in meltdown: the final moments of Episode 1 reveal Zara wasn’t an innocent bystander. She knew this was coming. Recruited by Luke, who himself was pulled in by an insider, Zara had agreed to a “simple hack” for a payout—never expecting the full-blown armed takeover that would turn her into a hostage and a fugitive. The screen cuts to black on her stunned face as the realization hits: she’s complicit in stealing billions from retirees, and there’s no turning back. Fans have flooded Twitter, TikTok, and Reddit with stunned reactions: “I gasped so loud my roommate came running,” one viewer posted. “By the six-minute mark, I was canceling my weekend plans—this thing doesn’t let go.”
Sophie Turner, best known as Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones and now stepping into more mature, flawed roles, delivers a magnetic performance as Zara—a cornered terrier rather than a superhero. Critics praise her for keeping the character credible: hungover, messy, trapped in a dead-end job and numbing herself with weekend partying. “Turner leans into the chaos,” one review notes, highlighting how cathartic it feels to watch her character unravel and fight back. Archie Madekwe brings heartbreaking groundedness to Luke, the friend who dragged her in, while Jacob Fortune-Lloyd shines as DCI Rhys Kovac, the conflicted detective leading the investigation—a relapsed gambling addict racing against time to crack the case while battling his own demons.
The series, created by Sotiris Nikias (writing under the pen name Ray Celestin for previous thrillers), is produced by Drama Republic and directed by Sam Miller and Hettie Macdonald. All six episodes were filmed in London starting in May 2024 and released in full on Prime Video, making it the perfect binge. The plot spirals from the initial raid into a web of deception: who orchestrated the theft? Why target pensions? And who stands to gain from the fallout? As Rhys digs deeper, he uncovers secret agendas, competing interests, and betrayals that blur the lines between criminals and victims. Zara and Luke, now on the run from police, MI5, and the robbers who see them as loose ends, must navigate a high-stakes game where trust is currency and every ally could be a threat.
The show’s tension is relentless. Cinematography traps viewers in claustrophobic conference rooms and sleek trading floors, while a pulsing score keeps hearts racing. The prosthetics-wearing thieves are nimble, intelligent, and quietly vicious—never cartoonish villains but calculated professionals who execute with chilling efficiency. Violence is sparse but impactful: a gruesome beating here, a lethal taser strike there—enough to remind everyone of the stakes without descending into gore. Amid the action, Steal pauses for thought: a meditation on greed, the root of all evil, and how easily ordinary people get entangled in extraordinary crimes.
Social media is ablaze. Viewers post late-night threads: “Just finished Steal and my brain is still buzzing—Sophie Turner commands every scene!” Others rave about the twists: “The Episode 1 reveal had me screaming at my TV. Hooked from minute one!” Reddit threads dissect the ending, where the true mastermind is unmasked in a final, breathless reveal that feels earned after layers of misdirection. One user called it “a grand-scale chess match where everyone is a pawn—including the audience.”
Critics are largely on board. The Guardian awarded four stars, calling it “breathless and hugely entertaining,” praising the cast and writing while noting how it meditates on money’s corrupting power. The Telegraph echoed the sentiment with four out of five, lauding the twists. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 75% from critics and audiences alike, with Metacritic at 64/100—solid for a thriller that prioritizes suspense over perfection. Some note the middle episodes drag slightly with exposition on financial subterfuge, but the consensus is clear: it’s addictive, binge-worthy, and “superbly tense.”
Turner herself has spoken about loving messy characters like Zara: “They’re quite liberating to play.” Shot shortly after her return to England following a high-profile divorce, the role allowed her to channel rock-bottom vulnerability into steely resolve. Fans see it as a strong signpost for her upcoming Lara Croft series on Prime Video—her performance here is confident, layered, and utterly compelling.
In an era of workplace thrillers, Steal stands out by making the rat race feel terrifyingly real. A cost-of-living crisis backdrop, pension funds as the ultimate target, and the idea that a low-security firm could be bled dry with the right keys—it’s scarily plausible. Viewers aren’t just watching; they’re losing sleep, refreshing feeds for theories, and declaring Steal the must-watch thriller of 2026.
Prime Video has delivered a high-octane ride that doesn’t just ask for your attention—it steals it, episode by episode, twist by twist. If you haven’t started yet, clear your schedule. Once Zara’s ordinary day turns extraordinary, there’s no escaping the grip.
