Summary
MobLand doubles down on the idea of the Harrigans being the true villains in Episode 6. The gang war is heating up as things go international, but all is not as it seems back home.
After MobLand revealed that we’d been following the bad guys all along, Episode 6 completely doubles down on the idea, as well as taking the Harrigans’ nonsense international (hence the title, “Antwerp Blues”). Freed from any semblance of peacekeeping, Maeve and Eddie are remarkably aggravating here, but it seems like the former has even more tricks up her sleeve than we first realized. Even having Tom Hardy on the payroll hardly seems like enough.
Just in case you needed a reminder, the previous episode ended with Vron Stevenson being blown up outside Richie’s front door, presumably on Maeve’s command, but there could well be more to the story than that. If nothing else, Maeve makes another move, one that shocks even Eddie, to get someone else she doesn’t like taken off the board. She can’t survive the season, for my own sanity.
I’m still of the opinion that sooner rather than later, this is all going to backfire on Harry, putting him in the crosshairs of the Harrigans. This is, perhaps, how the enigmatic American Donnie and his boss Kat McAllister will factor in. Kat is going to be played by Janet McTeer, who isn’t shy about playing deplorable matriarch types (see also: The Old Man and Kaos). This seems like a connection Harry has personally that isn’t connected to the Harrigans – when Donnie shows up again, he tells Zosia to memorize Kat’s number but not to store it anywhere – that could end up providing a new ally or a new enemy. Time will tell.
In the meantime, Harry has other things to worry about – namely, getting Jan and Gina out to the Cotswolds before Richie starts his revenge tour. Neither are particularly happy about this development, but needs must. Interestingly, when they arrive Conrad claims to have detonated the bomb himself in response to Richie disrespecting him during the previous episode’s peace talks, though given we saw Maeve place the call to Paul and it wouldn’t really make much sense for Conrad to have done it, he’s probably just lying to protect his wife.
But he commits to the bit either way. Conrad declares open war on the Stevensons and plans to take them all out one by one while the Harrigan clan holes up at the family manor – when Richie calls, they even let Eddie antagonize him over the phone. When will this kid get his comeuppance? He’s a nightmare.
Tom Hardy in MobLand | Image via Paramount+
Fundamentally, this is about fentanyl, which the Stevensons have a grip on in London, and MobLand Episode 6 sheds a little bit more light on how that came to be. The supply of the drug is controlled by the Mexicans, but the Mexicans are nursing a 30-odd-year grudge towards the Harrigans after Conrad called their leader a load of racist vitriol at a boxing match. So, wiping the Stevensons out isn’t going to magically give them control of the fentanyl trade in the capital, even though Conrad pretends it will. This is just another reason why it doesn’t make sense for Conrad to have blown Vron up. Then again, given Archie was the only one with a connection to the Mexicans, it didn’t make sense for Conrad to shoot him either, but here we are.
The main point of contention at the moment is that the entire Harrigan family hasn’t quite gotten the memo about the looming gang war. Seraphina and Brendan are in Antwerp trying to make a fortune on a ruby deal and, in the process – at least in Brendan’s case – win Conrad’s respect. So they’re totally off the grid because Brendan has no clue what he’s doing, and when Harry arrives in Antwerp to track them down at Conrad’s behest, Brendan keeps screaming at him and putting the phone down. Seraphina is a bit more switched on, which is just as well, but it’s still a little unclear whether Harry will be able to get there before one or both of them is killed by the Mexican assassins Richie has sent to kill them.
If you’re wondering how Richie knew where Seraphina and Brendan were, it’s because Maeve told him. This is probably the most important scene of the episode, not just because it could potentially result in the deaths of two characters but also because it implies a more longstanding personal connection between Richie and Maeve than we realized. She’s confident that he “knows better than to cross her”, which is an intriguing thing to say. Even Eddie is a bit thrown by this development. He probably doesn’t mind that Maeve is taking an opportunity to have Seraphina killed since she famously hates her for being the offspring of one of Conrad’s many affairs, but using Richie to do it when the families are supposed to be mortal enemies is a little questionable. What’s really going on here?
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