Season 2, Episode 1, I Wanna Be Your Dog

I’ve written this in the Season 1 recap as well, but I genuinely love the music in MobLand. It is exactly what the series itself is. Fast-paced, intense, with plenty of pawns on the chessboard, each one serving their own purpose. And somewhere in the middle of it all is Harry, the man constantly trying to keep a collapsing family standing, while his own family has already started falling apart.

The first episode of Season 2, “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” wastes no time. The Harrigans are back and, of course, they start spreading death from the very first minutes. Conrad and Maeve are now out of prison, but the family is in a much worse state than where we left them. Kevin is moving against his father, Serafina is already looking towards what comes next, and Maeve continues to play her own game, this time with even more cards hidden up her sleeve.

And Harry? Harry is once again trying to clean up the mess. Only this time, he doesn’t just have the Harrigan family to deal with. His wife, Jan, asks him for a divorce after the events of the Season 1 finale (fair enough, right?), while his daughter, Gina, has left with Eddie. In other words, the man who is always there to fix everyone else’s problems can’t even fix his own. And that makes Harry even more interesting this season.

What I liked most about the episode is that MobLand continues to work like one giant game of chess. Only now, the chessboard has grown. Kat McAllister turns out to be much deeper into the game than it initially seemed, Serafina is trying to use this new balance to her advantage, and Colin Tattersall now has his own role to play behind the scenes.

And this is where the new pawn enters the game. Or rather, as Tattersall himself calls him, the “knight.” Frankie Cooper, played by Johnny Flynn, only appears in the final minutes of the episode, but that is more than enough. Tattersall presents him as the man who could become Kat’s champion, her own man to move against the Harrigans without having to get her own hands dirty.

And the first introduction to Frankie is... very MobLand. The guy is in the yard of his house, barbecuing and chopping away with a cleaver, when Tattersall shows up. He doesn’t need to tell us much. The series immediately makes it clear that this new pawn wasn’t put on the chessboard for decoration.

I also really liked how quickly the episode finds its Season 1 rhythm again. It doesn’t try to over-explain what has happened. It throws us straight back into this world, lets the characters do what they do best, and puts Harry in the middle of one fire after another. And, of course, by the end, it does what it always does: gives him yet another fire to put out.

And then there’s the music. “T Pain” by Pete & Bas over the end credits is an absolutely fantastic choice and fits perfectly with that strange mix of violence, dark humour and British gangster aesthetic that MobLand has. The episode also features “Starburster” by Fontaines D.C. and “Lacrimosa” by Mozart, so yes, the series still has a very specific idea of how it wants to use its music.

The first reactions from critics have been fairly positive, although not unanimous. Rotten Tomatoes currently lists a 4.5/5 score from TV Fanatic, with particular praise for the performances of Pierce Brosnan, Tom Hardy and Helen Mirren. On the other hand, The Guardian was much more negative towards the second season, arguing that the series falls back on familiar gangster clichés and that the execution doesn’t always make the most of its impressive cast.

Personally, I’m clearly on the first side. The first episode does exactly what I wanted from MobLand’s return: it takes an already fractured Harrigan family and makes them even more dangerous, adds new players to the game, and leaves Harry right in the middle, once again trying to keep everything balanced in his own unmistakable way.

The question now isn’t whether the Harrigan family is going to end up in a war. We already know the answer to that.

The question is who will still be standing when it’s over.