Episode 7 of MobLand was basically one long rescue mission conducted by Harry to get Seraphina and Brendan out of the clutches of Jaime. He was partially successful because, by the time he got in touch with Kat and requested that she stop the execution of the Harrigan siblings, Jaime had already gotten his executioner to run his chainsaw through Brendan, thereby killing him. Seraphina was still in one piece, so that was a win. However, by contacting Kat, Harry had become indebted to her, which potentially put him at odds with the Harrigans since they needed him at all times to hold themselves together. While all this was going on between Antwerp and Amsterdam, back at the Cotswolds, the Harrigans were running a mole hunt to find out who had leaked the information about Seraphina and Brendan’s location to Richie. Even though it was obvious that Maeve was the guilty party, apparently everyone, especially Conrad, was having a hard time figuring that out. Well, did they make any progress in episode 8 regarding that matter? Umm… no. But there were some other startling revelations. So, let’s talk about it.
Spoiler Alert
Seraphina Returns Home
Episode 8 of MobLand opens with Conrad and Maeve mourning the loss of Brendan by remembering the time he was born. Conrad’s description of that moment is almost Shakespearean, but isn’t it odd that when Brendan was alive, neither parent missed an opportunity to mock him for his incompetence? Maeve even considered putting Brendan (as well as Seraphina) out of his misery because he was dead weight for the Harrigans. But if they actually loved him so much, what did they do exactly to make him the future king of the Harrigans’ kingdom? How did he become such a liability? Was he just raised like a spoiled brat and expected to make great business decisions all on his own? Or maybe that’s the whole point of this scene: the only good thing about Brendan’s time in this world was the moment he was born; everything after that was forgettable, even to his parents.
Either way, Brendan is gone, and Seraphina is back in England. When Seraphina is dropped off, Jaime’s men tell Harry that he should let Kat know that she is indebted to Jaime, which is odd. No, not the part about Kat owing a favor to Jaime; the part about him getting Harry to convey that information to Kat. I mean, Jaime could have told that to Kat himself, but I guess he wanted Harry to know that he is the reason why Kat is indebted to Jaime, which is why it’s possible that Kat will get Harry to settle scores with Jaime. Why? Well, to show the Harrigans that the leash of their attack dog is in somebody else’s hands just because he went out of his way to safeguard Brendan and Seraphina.
Maeve Embraces Seraphina
After reaching the Harrigan household, Seraphina gives a brief recap of what went down after the ruby transaction, and she is broken up about the possibility that she is the reason why Brendan is dead. But Kevin assures her that she isn’t at fault here, because she didn’t know about everything that happened at or after Tommy’s funeral. If she would’ve known that Vron was dead, she would’ve anticipated that going for a business deal in Antwerp wasn’t a good idea, and it was best to stay at the Cotswolds until things cooled down. In hindsight, not keeping Brendan and Seraphina updated about everything that was going on does seem dumb.
Given how Conrad always knew about the bomb in Vron’s car, maybe he could’ve told her and Brendan to restrict their work to London instead of keeping them in the dark for no real reason. Anyway, the Harrigans realize that what’s done is done and they can’t do anything to bring Brendan back. Maeve, who hates Seraphina’s guts, puts up an act to show that she is sympathetic towards her stepdaughter because she has been through a harrowing ordeal. Now, I don’t want to alarm anybody, but the scene where Maeve takes away Seraphina to put some food and drink into her belly is the last that we see of the traumatized girl. Later on in the episode, Maeve tells Kevin that, while putting her to sleep with the help of some heavy medication, Seraphina mumbled about being “number one,” thereby insinuating that she is the rat who told Richie about the ruby transaction to get Brendan killed. So, I have a feeling that Maeve has killed Seraphina, and her corpse is rotting in her room. If that’s something that’s revealed in the next episode, I won’t be surprised.
Conrad Suspects Harry’s Allegiances
Harry is sort of cornered by Kevin and Conrad because they want to know how their fixer got Jaime to stop the execution. When Harry utters the name “Kat McAllister,” both of them are appalled. Conrad tells Kevin to exit the room so that he can have a chat with Harry on this topic, which means the old timer is not at all happy that he contacted Kat of all people. After informing Harry that Kevin, Bella, and Eddie will be moved to a safe house, while the Da Souzas will continue to stay in the Harrigan mansion, Conrad asks Harry to explain how exactly he knows Kat. Harry gives a pretty elaborate response. He underscores the fact that, as the Harrigans’ protector, he needs to have access to every possible exit strategy so that he can exploit it when the time arrives. Kat is one such exit strategy, and that’s that. Conrad might be senile and quite reactionary in his old age, but he doesn’t fail to notice that Harry hasn’t actually answered his question. So, he repeats his question, and Harry again avoids giving a straight answer. He basically says that he knows Kat by reputation. So, when he was approached by her henchman, Donnie, he saw her as a tool he should have in his arsenal.
Since Kat did come in handy, no one can really blame Harry for calling her up. However, based on Harry and Kat’s interaction, it did seem like they have history. Also, seeing how Conrad talks about Kat, I think they have some history too. That said, Conrad realizes that, for some reason, Harry doesn’t want to open that can of worms. Hence, he doesn’t pry into it any further. Instead, he questions Harry’s allegiances and whether or not he is “Team McAllister” now. Harry assures Conrad that he’ll always be “Team Harrigan,” as he knows that betraying Conrad would be tantamount to inviting his own death. I don’t know about you, but it seems like Harry is lying to Conrad to keep him from hurting Gina and Jan, and when the time comes, he is going to switch sides and make the Harrigans pay for all the horrible stuff they’ve made him do on their behalf. For now, even though Conrad tasks Harry with getting info on Richie, Jaime, and the fentanyl, as soon as Harry reveals that Kat approached him for the first time 2 years ago, I suppose the seed of doubt that has already been sown by Maeve regarding the Da Souzas has bloomed. Sure, Harry has probably not done any work with Kat in these 2 years, but he never informed Conrad about that either, which is reason enough for doubting Harry’s intent regarding how he wishes to exploit the Harrigans’ current predicament.
Harry Confronts Eddie
Harry asks Freddie to meet him at a multistory parking lot in London, and Kevin seemingly intends to go with him. Before leaving, Kevin again brings up the topic of Kat, because he apparently knows that if she gets her claws into the Harrigans’ empire, she is going to take over instead of simply aiding them. Harry brings up the fact that Conrad wants to talk to Jaime regarding the fentanyl business. Since Archie is no more, Kat is the only way to arrange that sit-down between Conrad and Jaime without the two parties blowing each other’s brains out because Conrad hurled a racist slur at Jaime’s dad and Jaime has recently chainsawed Brendan to death. Given how vindictive Conrad is, I don’t think he wants to enter a professional partnership with Jaime anymore; I think he wants to be in the same room as Jaime so that he can kill him and control the fentanyl business himself. Kevin has a bad feeling about all this, which is only exacerbated by Jan’s interruption, because she wants Harry to know that Gina is in a physically intimate relationship with Eddie now.
Like any dutiful dad, Harry confronts Eddie, who, in his signature over-the-top and extremely annoying way, tells Harry that he can’t touch a hair on his head because he is a Harrigan and he has taken Harry’s “be a man” advice to heart. In this moment, you can actually see Eddie hoping that Harry acts violently so that he can have him thrown out or worse. However, Harry, being Harry, subverts everybody’s expectations and disarms Eddie by telling him that he is okay with this relationship as long as Eddie is respectful towards Gina’s feelings. Eddie is evidently surprised and probably even a bit disappointed that Harry didn’t react the way that he wanted him to and just left the room after delivering this sagely advice. That said, just when Eddie thinks he is in the clear, Harry returns to tell Eddie that he’ll help him in every way he can to get him to the proverbial top of the ladder and then push him right off it. Now, that probably puts the fear of God into Eddie because, even though it’s unclear if Eddie has it in him to be a successful gangster in this lifetime or the next, he realizes that maybe Harry has been pushing Conrad towards the ledge all this while? And while he can fornicate with Gina all he wants to get on Harry’s nerves, while exploiting whatever nonsensical “Electra complex” Gina is suffering from, what can he realistically do to stop Harry from backstabbing the Harrigans if he wants to? Nothing really, and I think that that’s better than folding Eddie in half on the spot, which is something that anybody, regardless of age, sex, or gender, would’ve done if they heard Eddie yapping even for a second.
Eddie doesn’t need to disrespect anybody’s daughter to elicit that reaction; just him opening his mouth is enough to get you to risk facing the wrath of the Harrigans and pummel him into the ground he’s standing on. Kudos to Anson Boon, though, for being as hate-worthy as Jack Gleeson’s Joffrey Baratheon. By the way, I think we can extend the Game of Thrones parallel by comparing Gina with Sansa, right? Much like that member of the Stark family, Gina is willing to be in a relationship with a murdering psychopath for reasons that make sense only to her. I mean, if Gina wants to sound edgy, sure, she is free to say that both Harry and Eddie are killers; hence, she is solving her daddy issues by getting into Eddie’s pants. But once her goggles of stupidity come off, I think she’ll start to realize that there’s a chasm of difference between someone who kills to protect and one who kills to instigate. Until then, let’s hope that Gina will get a redemption arc, much like Sansa got, and I pray that Eddie will get a death more horrific than Joffrey’s.
Eddie is probably Conrad’s son
After dealing with his family issues, Harry calls up Donnie to set up a meeting with Kat and leaves for London with Kiko and Zosia. Conrad uses Harry’s absence to corner Jan and get her to arrange a face-to-face chat with her dear friend, Alice. The covert police officer accepts the invitation, but I have a feeling that she is walking towards her death and she’ll be killed before she gets to sneak a bug into the Harrigan household. After his conversation with Jan, Conrad zeroes in on Bella and essentially tells her to spy on Kevin while also ordering her to not go to London at the moment because it’s not safe. When Kevin asks Bella about her chat with Conrad, she says that she has a gynecologist appointment in London, which she’ll attend even though Conrad doesn’t want her to. Of course, Bella is lying because she is meeting with Antoine, even though Harry has requested that she put a pin in that matter. Is this going to backfire as badly as Brendan and Seraphina’s ruby deal? Absolutely. But given how we are at the tail end of this season, maybe that’ll be used as the tease for the next season or something like that. So, instead of worrying about that, let’s focus for a second on Conrad’s “don’t forget who owns you” remark aimed at Bella and the moment where Eddie enters the room where Maeve and Kevin are having a chat about Kevin and his “other brother” being the future of the Harrigans.
Now, I think this pretty much confirms the fact that Eddie is not Kevin’s son; he is actually Conrad’s son. Since this isn’t spelled out in the most explicit manner, I am guessing that right before Bella was introduced to Kevin, Conrad had gotten her pregnant. But then Kevin married Bella, and she gave birth to Eddie. Hence, everybody, including Eddie, assumes that he is Kevin and Bella’s son. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case at all, which explains Maeve’s obsession with him. Going by Kevin’s reaction, he has always known about this and has still treated Eddie like his son even though the lad’s his brother. With all that said, if a fresh Harrigan who has been in hiding all this while pops out of nowhere, then this whole theory is going to fall apart. Until then, let’s just assume that when Maeve says “other brother,” she is referring to Eddie. By the way, that makes me wonder why Maeve hates Seraphina so much. Both Eddie and Seraphina are the result of Conrad’s illegitimate relationships. Just because she got Eddie’s mother to marry Kevin, she is willing to accept Eddie as her stepson? And since she didn’t get Seraphina’s birth mother to marry someone in her family, she is worthless? Or is all this a sign of Maeve’s racism and internalized misogyny that she is willing to embrace a White guy as her own while demeaning the Brown girl? I will let you be the judge of that.
Harry Kills Freddie & Shakes Kat’s Hand
Harry has a very interesting conversation with Freddie, Richie’s right-hand man, at the aforementioned multistory car park. Firstly, Freddie says that he is unwilling to give Harry any information about Richie and Jaime’s fentanyl deal. When Harry threatens to leak Freddie’s pictures with Vron to Richie, Freddie pulls out his gun with the intention of killing Harry. After explaining to Freddie why that’s an impractical choice, given Kiko and Zosia are waiting downstairs to come in guns blazing if Freddie decides to pull the trigger and escape, while also throwing in a meta The Dark Knight Rises Batcopter reference, Harry says something that builds on his warning to Eddie about pushing him off when he reaches the top. Harry reveals that Conrad and Maeve are spiraling out, and he and Kevin intend to use this opportunity to take both of them out of the equation. Given how Richie is in a particularly vulnerable state, with Freddie’s help, they can kill him too and rule over London. The thing is, I am not really sure if Harry says all this to disarm Freddie or if this is an actual plan that Harry has been working on in the background. If you look at it as an isolated scene where Harry learns about the fentanyl coming in from Holland, the fact that Archie wasn’t backstabbing Conrad (and hence, died in vain), and a third piece of information that we don’t get to hear about (I suppose it’s about Maeve colluding with Richie), which leads to Freddie’s death, you can see this as Harry doing Conrad’s bidding while weakening Richie’s kingdom.
However, if you compound this with Harry’s insinuation to Eddie that he can be both the kingmaker and the kingslayer, it’s possible that he has been planning to take down the Harrigans for quite a while. That said, given how Kevin is so hyperfocused on confronting, and possibly killing, his abuser, Rusby, I have a feeling that Harry isn’t exactly collaborating with Kevin in this potential coup. Coming back to Harry, he sits down for a virtual chat with Kat and tells her that she’ll get 50 percent of whatever profit the Harrigans will net from the business deal between Conrad and Jaime. Kat is happy to broker this deal, but only if Harry accepts that he owes not just one, but two favors to Kat. Once Harry acknowledges that fact, Kat hangs up and starts making plans on how she’ll get Jaime and Conrad under one roof. Now, I don’t remember when Conrad said anything about a 50 percent cut, which makes me suspect Harry’s intentions even more. At this point, it’s safe to assume that Harry isn’t accidentally becoming indebted to Kat. He is doing this purposefully so that the transition from “Team Harrigan” to “Team McAllister” is smooth. Will you be all that surprised if Harry, Kat, and Jaime team up to take out Conrad in the meeting that’s being set up, thereby allowing Harry to take over the Harrigans’ business ties and give Kat what he owes her? I won’t.
Fisk and Mukasa Are Dead
Former Deputy Chief Inspector Colin Tattersall enters the picture, played by the great Toby Jones, to work with Fisk and Mukasa on putting a stop to this whole war that’s brewing between the Harrigans and the Stevensons. It does seem like the casting team of MobLand called up every famous actor in the United Kingdom, and all those who responded have been welcomed. And since I love all the actors that have shown up so far, I am a happy customer. Getting back to the plot, Tattersall and the audience get a brief recap of the events that have unfolded in the show so far. I don’t know if this has been happening since the early days of television or if it’s a recent phenomenon caused by viewers’ low attention span, but writers are inserting or being made to insert these summaries into their scripts, just in case people have been watching the show whilst looking at their phone. There are crude ways to do this; however, introducing a new character like Tattersall, who is somewhat familiar with the world of the show but needs a little refresher, is quite smart. And considering how he has some idea of how to deal with crime families, he advises Fisk and Mukasa to strike a deal with Richie instead of trying to infiltrate the Harrigans. Fisk doesn’t agree with Tattersall, but the latter insists that they can benefit by providing immunity to Richie and then extracting all the information they need from him.
Now, Fisk and Mukasa’s alarm bells should’ve started ringing as soon as Tattersall started listing down all the times that he’d put away Richie since 1976 in order to explain how well he knows the gangster. Because when a police officer has been in touch with a criminal for that long, you have to consider the fact that some of the criminal’s traits have rubbed off on the police officer. Since Fisk and Mukasa don’t realize that, as they are probably too impressed by Tattersall’s insistence that they should lead the operation, at the end of MobLand episode 8, they are presented as sacrificial lambs to Richie just so that Tattersall can resume his business ties with the gangster. If you are wondering how Tattersall is going to brush the death of two police officers under the rug without harming Richie, he can totally paint them as corrupt police officers who got killed in a bad drug deal or something. What I am interested in learning is how Tattersall and Richie’s partnership is going to play out. Unbeknownst to Richie, Freddie is dead, and Harry is taking Kat’s help to sever Richie’s ties with Jaime. What good is Tattersall going to do if he doesn’t have any backing from the criminal world? At this stage of his career, if anybody catches a whiff of the fact that Richie is a grass, aren’t all the crime families going to band together to take him out? So, yeah, I don’t know what Richie is thinking by collaborating with Tattersall instead of Kat. Let’s hope that he plays his cards right, or else he is never going to avenge Vron and Tommy. What are your thoughts on MobLand episode 8, though? Let me know in the comments section below.
