Nobody does it like Tom Hardy.
asserted
Nobody → do → Hardy
I’m not one hundred percent sure what it is, but I’m positive no one else has whatever it is in the palm of their meaty hands the way this exceedingly strange leading man does.
asserted
man → ’m → hands
Returning for the second of (so far) three greenlit seasons on Paramount+, Hardy gives MobLand a gravel-throated gravitas no other crime show on TV has, because no other crime show on TV has Tom Hardy in it.
asserted
show → return → it
HARRY DA SOUZA HAS RETURNED!
asserted
SOUZA → return → ?
Tom Hardy returns as Harry Da Souza, the perpetually rumpled but frighteningly competent fixer for the Harrigan crime family.
asserted
Hardy → return → family
But Kevin (Paddy Considine), Conrad’s legitimate son and theoretical heir to the empire, is making a move for the throne with the help of his politically shrewd wife Bella (Lara Pulver), disgusted with decades of his father’s behavior.
asserted
Kevin → make → behavior
That behavior includes fathering Eddie (Anson Boon), a callow young hoodlum whose rash actions sparked much of Season 1’s bloodshed, with Bella, and passing the kid off as Kevin’s.
asserted
actions → include → Kevin
It’s been heavily implied that she abused Eddie as a child, just as Kevin and Bella were abused by prison guards and her own father respectively.
asserted
Kevin → imply → guards
Things can get heavy in MobLand.
asserted
Things → get → MobLand
Meanwhile, Conrad’s “bastard” daughter Seraphina (Mandeep Dhillon) is making a play for the big chair of her own.
asserted
daughter → make → own
As we see in this episode, she’s aligning herself with Kat McAllister (Janet McTeer), an American power broker in both the legitimate and criminal worlds.
asserted
she → see → worlds
Seraphina has good reason to ally with McAllister, of course: Kat intervened to save her life from a chainsaw-wielding cartel boss as a favor to Harry.
asserted
Kat → have → Harry
When the time came to collect on that favor with a plan to use Harry to take over the Harrigan organization, though, Harry refused, leaving her a threat to all concerned.
asserted
Harry → come → all
He has at least recovered from getting accidentally stabbed in the chest with a steak knife by Jan (Joanne Froggatt), his increasingly disgruntled and estranged wife.
asserted
He → recover → Jan
But their daughter Gina (Teddie Allen) is off on her own, helping her awful boyfriend Eddie run a lucrative protection racket with streamers and influencers.
asserted
daughter → help → streamers
Maeve highly disapproves of Gina’s presence in her boy Eddie’s life.
asserted
Maeve → disapprove → life
Now that Harry’s right-hand woman Zosia (Jasmine Jobson) has tracked both Eddie and Gina down, I can’t imagine Harry will be any happier.
asserted
Harry → track → Eddie
As for him and Jan, he seems to be on his tenth strike, which he blows by walking out of couple’s counseling to take clean up the Harrigans’ latest mess.
asserted
he → seem → mess
Jan finally gives up and serves Harry divorce papers, which he greets with the same weary you’ve got to be kidding me, yeah? attitude he brings to every obstacle in his life, from patching up his marriage to silencing pesky eyewitnesses.
asserted
he → give → eyewitnesses
He’s got plenty of that sort of work on his plate thanks to Conrad’s latest shenanigans.
asserted
He → get → shenanigans
A meeting at a dog track with Turkish business associates reveals to Conrad that he’s been outfoxed by Kevin.
asserted
he → reveal → Kevin
He retaliates by killing every last one of them, with help from both Maeve and his top soldier, Paul (Emmett J. Scanlan).
asserted
He → retaliate → Maeve
(Paul’s inexperienced nephew Fergus, played by Jack Archer, is deliberately left out of the action.)
asserted
nephew → play → action
All Conrad can sense is betrayal by Kevin, who went over his dad’s head in setting up a meeting with Gakbu (Stewart Scudamore), the Turks’ top man.
asserted
who → sense → Gakbu
But Harry sees an invisible hand moving behind the surface.
asserted
hand → see → surface
Harry has refused to get involved with his friend Kevin’s power play; he appears to have made an honest assessment of Kevin’s resources, contacts, and chances, and found them wanting.
asserted
them → refuse → resources
If a guy like Gakbu is going into business with an unproven variable like Kevin instead of a known quantity like Conrad, it’s because someone paid him to.
asserted
someone → go → him
That someone, Harry knows, can only be Kat, who’s no doubt salivating as the Harrigans start a war with their allies instead of saving all their ammo for their real enemy.
asserted
Harrigans → know → enemy
Harry does his usual thing and follows Conrad’s orders, killing Gakbu and his men even though he thinks this is a mistake.
asserted
this → do → Gakbu
Probably correctly, he believes Conrad and Kevin should patch things up and present a united front against the Yankee threat, Kat.
asserted
Conrad → believe → threat
She now has the armor of political legitimacy in the form of the American ambassadorship that her Irish-American political gangster predecessor Joseph Kennedy once enjoyed.
asserted
predecessor → have → that
She also has a willing agent in Seraphina.
asserted
She → have → Seraphina
But most importantly, she has the help of the Harrigans’ most dedicated enemy, crooked cop Tattersall (the great Toby Jones).
asserted
she → have → enemy
He’s hardly the only dirty badge in play here — Harry’s pet cop Finch (Warren Brown) does most of the mopping up after the dog track massacre, for instance.
asserted
Finch → ’ → instance
But even as Harry threatens to kill the bartender who witnessed Conrad’s big shoot-em-up to keep the apparently straight detective Kavanah (Ophelia Lovibond) from coming after the family, Tattersall offers to help Kat find a catspaw through whom she can rule the London underworld.
asserted
she → threaten → underworld
That “paladin,” as Tattersall calls him, comes in the form of Frankie (Johnny Flynn), a family man whose non-threatening nature — he’s grilling wieners, for god’s sake — makes him seem really, really threatening indeed.
asserted
him → call → sake
Written by Esther Watson and showrunner Jez Butterworth, MobLand’s Season 2 premiere is directed by Guy Ritchie, whose other stylish British gangster thriller, The Gentlemen, just dropped its excellent second season earlier this month.
asserted
thriller → write → season
MobLand lacks The Gentlemen’s satirical intent, its project of depicting the English aristocracy as gangsterism by another name.
asserted
MobLand → lack → name
It also eschews that show’s emphasis on grand visuals — romantic vistas of the English countryside, screenshot-worthy costuming, gunfights in luscious low light.
asserted
It → eschew → light
It’s also less obviously a black comedy, being more of an action thriller drama that’s funny.
asserted
that → ’ → drama
…and 14 more, not listed.
The Aporia
