There is simply no replicating Tom Hardy. It is difficult to define exactly what makes him so singular, but the actor possesses a bruising, bizarre magnetism that no other leading man can quite match. Back for the second of three currently approved seasons on Paramount+, Hardy brings his unmistakable gravelly intensity to MobLand, giving the crime drama an edge that feels wholly its own. In other words, dust off that Bane impression and celebrate: HARRY DA SOUZA IS BACK.
Hardy again plays Harry Da Souza, the disheveled-looking yet exceptionally capable fixer employed by the Harrigan crime clan. Calling them a family may be generous at this point, though. Conrad Harrigan (Pierce Brosnan), the calculating patriarch, remains the official boss following his release from prison in the Season 1 finale. Yet his son Kevin (Paddy Considine), the presumed successor, is quietly positioning himself to seize control. With the support of his politically astute wife, Bella (Lara Pulver), Kevin has had enough of his father’s long history of destructive behavior.
Among Conrad’s many betrayals is the truth about Eddie (Anson Boon), the reckless young criminal whose impulsive decisions fueled much of the first season’s carnage. Eddie is Conrad and Bella’s son, though he was presented as Kevin’s. Currently absent from the wider family operation, Eddie remains under the influence of Maeve (Helen Mirren), Conrad’s volatile and deeply unreliable wife. The series has strongly suggested that Maeve abused Eddie in childhood, alongside the traumas suffered by Kevin at the hands of prison guards and Bella at the hands of her father. MobLand does not shy away from dark territory.
Seraphina (Mandeep Dhillon), Conrad’s so-called illegitimate daughter, is also eyeing the top job. This episode finds her joining forces with Kat McAllister (Janet McTeer), a formidable American figure whose influence stretches across legitimate business and organized crime. Seraphina has every reason to trust Kat: McAllister once saved her from a cartel boss armed with a chainsaw, repaying a favor owed to Harry. But when Kat tried to cash in that debt by using Harry to engineer a Harrigan takeover, he refused. That decision has left Kat as a growing danger to everyone involved.
Harry’s personal life is hardly less chaotic. He has recovered from being accidentally stabbed in the chest with a steak knife by his frustrated, estranged wife Jan (Joanne Froggatt). Their daughter Gina (Teddie Allen), however, has struck out on her own and is helping her terrible boyfriend Eddie operate a profitable protection scheme targeting streamers and influencers. Maeve very much objects to Gina being around her beloved Eddie. Now that Harry’s trusted lieutenant Zosia (Jasmine Jobson) has located the pair, it is safe to assume he will have plenty to say about it.
His marriage to Jan appears to be nearing its final collapse, too. Harry seems to be well beyond his last chance when he abandons couples counseling to deal with the Harrigans’ newest disaster. Jan finally reaches her limit and hands him divorce papers. Harry meets the news with the same exhausted, faintly incredulous expression he reserves for every crisis, whether he is trying to repair his marriage or eliminate an inconvenient witness.
Conrad’s latest provocation gives Harry another bloody problem to manage. At a dog track meeting with Turkish business partners, Conrad realizes Kevin has gotten ahead of him. His response is characteristically extreme: with Maeve and his chief enforcer Paul (Emmett J. Scanlan) at his side, he murders the entire group. Paul’s unseasoned nephew Fergus, played by Jack Archer, is intentionally kept away from the violence.
Conrad sees only Kevin’s betrayal, convinced his son undermined him by arranging a meeting with Gakbu (Stewart Scudamore), the Turkish group’s leading figure. Harry, however, recognizes that something larger is at work. He has stayed out of Kevin’s attempt to take power, apparently judging his friend’s connections, assets and likelihood of success with clear-eyed realism—and finding them insufficient.
For someone like Gakbu to partner with an uncertain prospect such as Kevin rather than an established operator like Conrad, Harry concludes, another player must have financed the deal. In his mind, there is only one likely culprit: Kat. As the Harrigans turn their guns toward their own allies instead of focusing on their true adversary, Kat is almost certainly enjoying the chaos.
Even so, Harry does what he always does: he carries out Conrad’s command, killing Gakbu and his men despite believing the move is strategically disastrous. He likely has the right read. Conrad and Kevin need to settle their differences and stand together against Kat, the looming American threat. McAllister now carries the political protection of an American ambassadorship, a position once held by her Irish-American political gangster predecessor Joseph Kennedy. More importantly, she has Seraphina ready to act on her behalf.
But most importantly, she has the help of the Harrigans’ most dedicated enemy, crooked cop Tattersall (the great Toby Jones). 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. 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. 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.
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. Certain comparisons are therefore unavoidable. MobLand lacks The Gentlemen’s satirical intent, its project of depicting the English aristocracy as gangsterism by another 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.
Thematically and visually, MobLand is a lower-stakes concern. It’s also less obviously a black comedy, being more of an action thriller drama that’s funny. What it really has going for it is its powerhouse cast, toplined by charisma machines Hardy, Brosnan, and Mirren. You can say whatever you want about Hardy’s mushmouthed machismo, Brosnan’s foul-mouthed Irish gangster caricaturing, and…whatever it is Helen Mirren is doing with that accent. I say to hell with it, and I say the three performances are fun as all get-out.
Hardy in particular marvelously understates Harry’s menace. He presents abduction, torture, and murder as enormous inconveniences he’s desperate to avoid, rather than grave moral questions he’s fully prepared to answer in the negative. That reaction is both amusing and, when you stop to think about it, terrifying. No wonder this guy’s daughter wished her mom had done a better job stabbing him.
Now that I think about it, though, I do wonder about the guy. Why does Harry Da Souza prize his loyalty to some idea of the Harrigans above the reality — the backstabbing, the lying, the abuse, the senseless violence he himself helps commit even as he realizes how senseless it is — above his own happiness, and that of the family he supposedly loves more than anything? Why does this man continue serving a system that has done nothing but harm to himself and everyone and everything he cares about?
Huh. Maybe MobLand is asking harder, deeper questions than I thought.
Sean T. Collins (@seantcollins.com on Bluesky and theseantcollins on Patreon) has written about television for The New York Times, Vulture, Rolling Stone, and elsewhere. He is the author of Pain Don’t Hurt: Meditations on Road House. He lives with his family on Long Island.