I expected to hate MobLand – after five minutes of season 2 I was hooked

The following review is based on the first four episodes of MobLand season 2

I have a confession to make. Up until about two weeks ago, I had zero interest in watching MobLand.

Yeah, I’d heard it was a fun series, but from the outside looking in, my greasy nose pressed up against the glass, it looked like yet another gangster show.

And I’m sorry to all the fans of people who love nothing more than watching bad men shooting worse men; I find the whole genre tiresome.

I find them all too self-serious, and their desperation to be taken seriously reeks of a certain immaturity, like a pimply teen who thinks dropping an f-bomb every other word will cover up the fact they don’t need to shave. 

So what convinced me to watch MobLand season 2? Well, I got an email offering me the chance to interview Pierce Brosnan and Dame Helen Mirren for the second series.

After all, when you get the opportunity to talk to the Queen and James Bond, you should always grab it with both hands. 

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It was with a degree of reluctance then that I tuned in to the first episode of season two, expecting to half-watch it, make a few notes I could use for the interview before pivoting to some wider career stuff – what we in the celeb raconteur biz would call the ‘set menu’. 

So there I was, lying in bed, laptop propped up next to me, notebook in hand, doodling away when the first episode began.

Well, within minutes of tuning in, I started to wonder if I’d perhaps misjudged Mobland. 

The characters weren’t dour or moody at all; they were funny, eccentric and larger-than-life, like something from an early Guy Ritchie movie (I later learned he directed the first episode). 

And as I watched Maeve (Mirren) and Conrad (Brosnan) wander through a dog track, Maeve distracted by the thoughts of a quick score and Conrad talking shop with Paul, I had abandoned my notebook and was sat up with the laptop, now on my knee. 

I can’t say what happens next without spoiling the fun, but I will say there was a moment of such spectacular violence and carnage that I had to pause the episode so I could head to my living room and watch it on my big TV.

And I know that might not sound like a big deal, but if I have to go to the effort of whipping out the HDMI to connect my laptop to the TV, that’s basically the highest honour I can give to a show I’m watching for work. 

And I was right to show MobLand season two in this respect because it’s a rather marvellous series.

In terms of violent spectacle, the show is up there with the greats, on a level with a show like Gangs of London. It’s not quite as gritty or realistic; it’s more stylised, but there’s a real charm in the often frantic, gore-flecked bursts of action we see.

Beyond the pugilistic pageantry, there’s a really compelling story as well. 

This series sees the Harrigan crime family essentially under siege after the events of season one. Besieged on all sides, even the normally reliable Harry (Tom Hardy) starts making mistakes, and in the four episodes I saw, there was real tension building around the idea that the Harrigans might be old news. 

Undoubtedly though, the best thing about MobLand is the compelling gang of characters at the heart of this show. 

Maeve and Conrad are, of course, a brilliant double act, like two unhinged geese; they’ve mated for life, are ferociously protective of what’s theirs, and will break a man’s arm (or shoot him in the head) if you so much as look at them askew. I loved Brosnan and Mirren’s performance; they’re clearly having so much fun with the roles, and bounce off each other with the grace of trained gymnasts. 

Hardy, meanwhile, is fantastic as the slightly more grounded but increasingly weary Harry.

I enjoyed how competent he was compared to the lunatics around him, but there’s real delight in seeing that calm capability crack, especially when he has to interact with his long-suffering Jan Da Souza (Joanne Froggatt), who simply will not put up with his gangland nonsense any more. 

However, if I had to pick an MVP for this second season, it would be Johnny Flynn’s new villain, Frankie.

I can’t quite put into words how menacing he is, but he’s terrifying in an oddly understated way, meandering through the carnage he causes with the swagger of a man who’s never worried about anything in his life. 

This unattached menace really reminded me of Heath Ledger’s Joker; Flynn just gives the character a real sense that he’s above the petty squabbles of the Harrigans, and that this is all a game for him – a game he’s definitely going to win. 

Or at least, I think he will. I’ve only seen the first few episodes, but I know I’ll be tuning in when the show drops this Friday. 

MobLand launches Friday, September 18, on Paramount Plus with one episode; new episodes of the ten-episode second season will be available to stream weekly on Fridays