Diksha Sundriyal
Paramount+’s ‘MobLand’ takes the audience into the underbelly of the criminal world of London, where two families fight with each other over control. The first episode gives the lay of the land by introducing the characters and setting up their dynamics, giving us a glimpse of the extent to which things can and will escalate. The families warring with each other are the Harrigans and the Stevensons. In the middle of this is Harry Da Souza (Tom Hardy), the fixer for the Harrigans who does everything for them, from cleaning up the mess of a young Harrigan to clearing the board by getting rid of the rivals for the eldest one. From the looks of it, his job is only going to get harder from here. SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Harrigans Make a Bold Move Right at the Beginning
‘MobLand’ opens with Harry sitting in the middle of two parties, trying to get them to find a common ground. They have been fighting each other for too long, and to make peace between them, all they have to do is shake hands (for which both agree) and say sorry (for which neither agrees). After much deliberation, when the terms are not agreed upon, Harry relays the situation to Conrad Harrigan, who tells him to go with the second option: kill them all. Even if a truce were reached, it would be a temporary solution, and the next time, the problem would only get bigger. So, both parties are shot down, and whatever problems they had die with them.
This scene sets the stage for the ruthlessness that the Harrigans and Harry are capable of, which they have to adhere to in order to maintain their supremacy, especially since they have the Stevensons as rivals. The night ends for Conrad and Harry with this, but on the other side of the town, Conrad’s grandson, Eddie, is just getting started. He is out partying with Tommy Stevenson, which he is clearly not supposed to. Both know that they would be skinned alive or outright killed for this, but Eddie, at least, is not fazed by it. They enter a pub in Mayfair, where a minor tussle escalates when Eddie stabs the other guy.
This act scares Tommy, who is already a little wary of Eddie despite being friendly and hanging out with him. As he leaves the pub, Eddie follows him, and they meet by the river. Eddie throws the knife in the water, and Tommy tells him how much he scares him. Eddie laughs it off. The next morning, his father, Kevin, calls Harry to tell him about his son’s late-night rendezvous and how he came back with blood on his hands and clothes. Meanwhile, Richie Stevenson discovers that his son, Tommy, has not come home.
Harry Tries to Fix Eddie’s Mess
Harry visits Kevin and his wife, Bella, and is filled in on the situation. After asking Eddie about the details, he visits the pub, where he finds the CCTV that has Eddie stabbing the other kid. Initially, he meets some resistance from the owner, but his polite yet intimidating demeanor, paired with the fact that he represents the Harrigans, clears all the hurdles, allowing him to get the CCTV footage, leaving nothing for the cops to come after Eddie. The other thing is for him to make sure that the victim doesn’t say anything. He calls up his contacts, discovering that the victim is yet to be interviewed by the cops. He quickly finds the guy who is still bedridden and makes the situation clear to him. He has two options.
The first is that he tells the cops the truth about what happened the previous night and how Eddie Harrigan stabbed him. Then, about three days later, when he comes out of the hospital, he will be stabbed again, this time properly, and he will not find himself waking up in the hospital again. The second option is for him to tell the cops that it was too dark for him to see who stabbed him. Moreover, he was high on ketamine, so he is not sure about his attacker. This time, when he comes out of the hospital, he will go back to his life, and Harry will never bother him again. The victim takes the second option, with which Harry’s job is done, or so he thinks. While he was cleaning up this mess, Richie Stevenson had his own man tracking down Tommy. He found that the boy was last seen in the Mayfair pub with Eddie Harrigan, and this rings off all the alarm bells. Richie calls Kevin, threatening to take action if his son is not returned safe and sound.
While Eddie claims that he didn’t meet Tommy, Kevin knows that he is lying, and once again, he rings up Harry to tell him that there is another mess that needs to be sorted out. Meanwhile, Harry has problems with his own family to take care of. The previous night, he and his wife, Jan, had an argument that he seems to have forgotten about until his daughter reminds him about it. It seems that Jan wants them to see a therapist and resolve the issues in their marriage. He, on the other hand, doesn’t believe they should bring a third person into their relationship. Still, he decides to go forward with her plan and tells her to set a meeting with a therapist. At the same time, we also see Jan cross paths with a woman named Alice, and they bond over trying out several ways of therapy and are entirely dissatisfied with the current one. How Alice factors into Jan and Harry’s life remains to be seen, but she certainly sets out as someone to look out for.
Tensions are Heightened Between the Harrigans and the Stevensons
With no sign of Tommy, the threat of a gang war emerges, but no one wants to be a part of it. To find common ground with Richie, Harry is sent to sit down and chat with him. They agree to meet on neutral grounds, at Moody’s boxing gym, where Richie gives Harry till noon the next day to find his son. If Tommy doesn’t return by then, he will be forced to retaliate. The time window is good enough for Harry, but at the same time, he knows that there is a good chance that Eddie did something bad to Tommy. The boy is highly impulsive and doesn’t think twice about the consequences of his actions, so by noon the next day, it might come out that he did something to Tommy. This would escalate the situation, which means that there is only one opportunity to nip this situation in the bud, and it is now. The moment Harry walks out of Moody’s, he calls Conrad to ask him if they should kill Richie and his men right now. Because considering all avenues, the possibilities dictate that a war is on the horizon.
There is a limited window to make this decision, so Conrad consults with Maeve, who, in the end, tells him not to go forward with it. She sets two very important points. First, they need to know more about the situation before making any decisions. Second, would she and Conrad prefer to be there when they finally get off Richie Stevenson? Conrad agrees wholeheartedly with her logic, which means that Richie and his men live to see another day. Archie, however, is not so lucky. While his grandson was going around creating trouble, Conrad was planning a big move for his organization. The Harrigans already had a lot of control over the market, but they needed to create a new revenue stream, which led Conrad to focus on fentanyl, which happens to be controlled by the Stevensons and is already a very sensitive topic for the two families before Tommy’s disappearance comes into the picture.
To discuss this business prospect, Conrad calls a family meeting, which is attended by his eldest son Brendan, younger son Kevin, his daughter Seraphina, the family lawyer O’Hara, and Conrad’s longtime friend Archie. He appears earlier in the episode, where he meets with Conrad to discuss his plan. However, by the time he shows up for the meeting, distrust has been sown against him. Maeve believes that Archie went behind Conrad’s back and has been dealing with the Fire, the gang involved in the fentanyl trade. During the meeting, when Conrad mentions the plans for fentanyl, Archie interrupts, saying that perhaps the timing is not right and maybe they should discuss this a little more before taking any action. This is enough to convince Conrad of all the allegations made against the man, and the meeting ends when he shoots Archie point-blank in the chest. This act shocks everyone, but it also hurts Conrad to kill his best friend, all because of Maeve’s suspicions.
Read More: Where is Paramount’s MobLand Filmed?
