“We are the Harrigans! You don’t know the name? Then f—— Google us…You’ve been warned.” — Pierce Brosnan’s Conrad Harrigan, making a typically subtle proclamation in “Mobland” Season 2.
We’ve had a steady stream of acclaimed and popular TV series where there are so many killings in a relatively concentrated area that the whole world would be wondering what’s going on in that place. “The Sopranos,” “Sons of Anarchy,” “Ozark,” “Yellowstone,” and so on.
The stylish, violent, and darkly funny crime series “Mobland” certainly fits in the category. Over the course of the crackling good Season 1, there was a staggering trail of corpses. Counting primary players as well as the obligatory retinue of unnamed gangsters and enforcers, it’s probably conservative to estimate some 50 characters were shot, stabbed, blown up, chainsawed, or otherwise dispatched by then in the 10-episode run. This is the show. You either relish this kind of escapist brutality, or you don’t.
Suffice it to say, the body count increases rapidly in Season 2, with the Shakespearean machinations of the Harrigan crime family creating such chaos from within that they might implode before their enemies can take them down. Season 1 focused primarily on the Harrigans’ war with the rival Stevenson clan; the sophomore campaign is more about the treacherous, bloody battle for control within the Harrigan empire.
Your reminder of who’s who and where they stand at the outset of Season 2, and what works best:
Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren are magnificent together as the North London crime patriarch Conrad Harrigan, a volatile codger who still relishes getting his hands dirty, and his wife Maeve, who is so ruthless and cunning that she almost makes Conrad seem like a cuddly oul fella. Almost.
His heir apparent, Kevin Harrigan (Patty Considine), has finally found the nerve to stand up to his father. Kevin’s scheming and troubled wife Bella (Lara Pulver) was with Conrad before she was with him, and their sociopathic son Eddie (Anson Boone) is actually Conrad’s son, which means Eddie is simultaneously Conrad’s son and grandson. Good God.
Then there’s Seraphina Harrigan (Mandeep Dhillon in a shining performance), who is Conrad’s daughter from another woman. To say Maeve has some issues with Seraphina is putting it mildly. The foul language spewing from Dame Helen in this series would make Tarantino blush.
The glue holding the Harrigans together, barely, is Tom Hardy’s longtime family fixer, Harry Da Souza. At the outset of Season 2, Harry’s personal life is falling apart: his wife Jan (Joanne Froggatt) is considering divorce, and his daughter Gina (Teddie Allen) is estranged from her parents, shacking up with Eddie and getting into some unlawful doings of her own. Gina’s transition from brooding teen daughter to a mini-me criminal is a bit of a whiplash, but then again, she learned from the best.
Guy Ritchie, a master of this sort of kinetic action, directs the season premiere, which kicks off with a rip-roaring sequence at a Greyhound racetrack. Maeve crows over making a small fortune on a fixed race, while she and Conrad take a meeting that goes…not according to plan.
Off to the races we go, so to speak, with Harry torn between his loyalties to Kevin and Conrad as he deals with the fallout of turning down an offer to work for the powerful crime boss—and newly appointed United States ambassador to Ireland—Kat McAllister (a suitably imposing Janet McTeer). The invaluable Toby Jones expands his role as retired chief inspector Colin Tatersall, while Johnny Flynn and Ophelia Lovibond join the cast in roles best left for you to discover.
At times, “Mobland” relies on savvy characters making really bad decisions, or missing something that should be immediately clear. (Joanna Froggatt’s Jan is particularly frustratingly obtuse more than once. Come on, Jan!) Still, every episode hums with furious action and devilishly funny dialogue, as when Maeve says to a colleague who was elsewhere during a shootout, “You missed a classic! You know, the lead flying, blood everywhere. Proper f— Bonnie and Clyde.”
That’s the Harrigans. They’re rotten to the core, and they relish that. Not for a second do any of them pause to consider the ramifications of presiding over widespread drug distribution. They do enjoy the spoils of their criminal enterprise; Conrad in particular loves playing lord of the manor at the sprawling family estate in the Cotswolds. (Though a piece of furniture might have to be replaced when a crime family meeting turns bloody.)
Harry is no different, though he’s far less prone to irrational and emotional chess moves. He’s a bruised, battered soul whose typical morning involves grabbing an espresso from a local coffee stand, driving off to casually gun down an obstacle to the Harrigans. He doesn’t brood; he just takes a breath and moves on to the next assignment.
Which usually involves someone else in great pain, or drawing a last breath.
The first four episodes of “Mobland” Season 2 were screened for critics.
