Summary
Gangs of London uses flashbacks to explain some recent developments while continuing to redefine an old character with a new purpose.
This Gangs of London season 2, episode 3 recap contains spoilers.
After the bombshell revelation at the end of Gangs of London season 2, episode 2, the show has a lot of explaining to do, not just about how Sean survived but about what he has been up to over the last 12 months and why he’s knocking off all of Koba’s allies. So, we turn to that most trusted of narrative devices — the flashback.
Gangs of London season 2, episode 3 recap
A year ago, we see that Sean survived the gunshot and was taken out of the hotel by Lale and her people (paying off that out-of-nowhere romance, I suppose). But they were ambushed by the British government, or at least elements of it — the same elements, we later learn, to whom Elliot is trying to sell his evidence — and both Sean and Lale were taken captive. Over months, Sean was saved from death’s door, rehabilitated, and tasked with taking down the Investors. Since the initial plan to have him anonymously testify in court wouldn’t work, he comes up with a new plan to instead retake London piece by piece, reclaiming territory and assets from the Investors until he alone controls organized crime in the capital. To do that, though, he’ll need a gang, and by that, he means he needs Lale.
In the present day, Elliot tells Koba that it was Billy who assassinated Basem, and Billy is now dead, which is a lie that he can’t believe will hold up very long, but at least it temporarily gets the Georgian off his back. In the meantime, Sean tips off Marian that Koba will be coming for her since Darragh gave up her location to Luan. Just in time, a helicopter arrives with a giant Gatling gun mounted on the side, and Koba’s men shred Marian’s hideout and her men to pieces. Marian, Floriana, and the latter’s child, Roze, are all able to escape, though, with the help Lale’s people.
The problem is that Lale’s people are still working for Koba, so the entire Wallace clan is forced to hide when Koba’s enforcer Tamaz — who looks like a well-kept Shia LeBeouf — turns up with Rojan to get to the bottom of why he was stealing. In a nasty bit of gore, Tamaz slices the thief’s hand in two and ups the shifts of all Lale’s workers. It’s a testy dynamic that isn’t going to be sustainable. And amidst all this, Sean hasn’t bothered to tell Marian that he’s really working with Singer and the British government.
Koba squeezing Lale’s people is bad news since they need business to be good. It isn’t just power for its own sake with them — they send the profits back home to fund the fight to reclaim their homeland, so they lean on Sean to make himself useful and do something about what’s happening. After a brief scene with Elliot, who is following him, and to whom Sean reveals that he’s also working for Singer, Sean comes clean to Marian and asks her to transfer Finn’s money to him so he can provide Lale’s people with support. But Floriana has already anticipated this and stated, quite unequivocally, that she won’t allow it. As if to make the point clear, she even goes to Lale and offers to fund her fight directly, in exchange for the Wallaces being cast out of the arrangement.
So… Sean shoots Floriana in the head, soaking his mother in her blood and brains. He isn’t playing around this season, and it seems like anyone who doesn’t see things his way won’t be seeing anything at all. After the first season spent almost its entirety exploring how Sean wasn’t up to the task, this one is taking the right steps in showing that he just might be after all.
