Is Alice Dead? Did Emily Barber Leave MobLand?

Paramount+’s ‘MobLand’ follows the war for control of the criminal empire in London. The primary focus is on the Harrigans, who want to push their competition, the Stevensons, out of the fentanyl business to gain more power and control. Meanwhile, the cops want to rein in their activities, and over the course of the first season, they focus on the ways to bring down the Harrigans, who already seem to be coming apart at the seams. For this, they send an undercover agent, who assumes the identity of a woman named Alice, to befriend Harry Da Souza’s wife, Jan, in the hopes of creeping her way into the family, but she ends up paying dearly for it. SPOILERS AHEAD.

Alice’s Usefulness Runs Its Course in MobLand Season 1

With all the danger already lurking around Jan and her husband’s employers, one would think Alice would have to be careful of the Harrigans and the other criminals who are prone to violence with a disgusting ease. In the end, however, she is betrayed by her own people, which is why she never sees her death coming. While Alice is busy getting closer to Jan and digging up dirt on her targets, a major shift happens in her unit. A new man, Colin Tattersall, is sent to help them speed up their investigation.

The first thing that Colin does is advise the officers, Fisk and Mukasa, to make a deal with Richie Stevenson. He believes that getting him on board would make it easier for them to bring down the Harrigans. Against their best judgment, the duo accepts the plan and sets up a meeting with Richie, but they are both killed, and Tattersall seems entirely unfazed by this. A fake story is concocted around their murder, while he is put in charge of the investigation. This should have been the blaring red sign for Alice to stay away from the new guy, but he finds a way to reel her in.

Given Alice’s history of planting false evidence to help arrest and convict criminals, Tattersall uses it against her to make her plant evidence against Conrad and Maeve Harrigan. He proposes it as a moral thing where she would be helping get justice for Fisk and Mukasa, who Alice believes were killed by the Harrigans. However, once the deed is done and the criminal couple is in prison, Alice becomes a liability. She was offered a lot of cash in exchange for her services, but she also became a loose end that could easily unravel the whole case against the Harrigans. This means that she has to be pulled out of the equation.

Emily Barber’s Return is Unlikely in MobLand Season 2

In shows like ‘MobLand,’ a character’s death is usually permanent, and the same holds true for Alice, as well. The last we see of her is in the car, where she is attacked by what looks like one of Richie’s men. Tattersall walks out of the car to inform Richie that the problem has been taken care of. So, even though we don’t see the life run out of Alice’s eyes on the screen, it is clear that the intent was to do away with her, and there is no possibility of her survival. Moreover, Tattersall’s loyalty towards Richie has already led him to sacrifice two good police officers.

It would be extremely out of character for him to show mercy towards Alice, who is already corrupt in some ways. What makes it even more tragic is that with Fisk and Mukasa gone, there isn’t anyone particularly looking out for her. Her only friend, Jan, who, by now, has realised that she was deceived by the person she thought was a kindred spirit, is also not concerned about her anymore. This means that Tattersall will easily bury her death, clean his hands off of the whole thing, and move on to accomplish whatever task he had set in mind when he came out of retirement.