In episode 6 of MobLand, Conrad admitted that he was the one who had ordered the hit on Vron. Then the Harrigans proceeded to call up Richie and mock him for failing to protect his wife and son from their wrath. And as Conrad vowed to destroy everything else that Richie held dear, he and the rest realized that two of their family members were in Antwerp for a ruby deal. Now, Richie had no idea that Seraphina and Brendan, oblivious to everything that had gone down in London, were roaming around in Belgium with very little protection. But, for some demented reason, Maeve thought that she should use this opportunity to get rid of Seraphina. So, she told Richie to kill Seraphina and get even for all the losses he had incurred, but she ordered him to not touch a hair on Brendan’s head. Nobody, except Eddie, was aware of this interaction. So, by the time Harry got to the warehouse where Brendan and Seraphina were partaking in a high-profile business transaction, Richie had ordered Jaime, one of the head honchos of the Mexican cartel, to send his men to abduct the Harrigans. The episode ended on a cliffhanger. Did episode 7 of MobLand come with some concrete answers? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Richie has Seraphina and Brendan.
Episode 7 of MobLand opens with the revelation that Harry has failed to reach the warehouse on time. The attackers have taken away Brendan and Seraphina with them and written “WAR” with the blood of those they have slain; kind of tacky, but that’s fine. The reason I’m saying “the attackers” instead of specifying Richie’s men or Jaime’s men is because, as per Harry, those who have abducted the Harrigan siblings are part of the Moroccan gang that controls the docks of Antwerp, El Youfsi. Yes, Richie did tell his men to contact Jaime, but it’s apparent that Jaime has in turn outsourced it to the Moroccans to do their dirty work. More on that later. Harry relays all this info to Kevin, Conrad, and Maeve, and then heads off to the docks to see if Brendan and Seraphina are being held there.
Maeve pretends she is heartbroken—well, she probably is heartbroken for Brendan, but not for Seraphina—and excuses herself so that she can call up Richie and remind him of the terms of their deal. Richie essentially says that he is unwilling to negotiate with her anymore, which causes Maeve to have a meltdown. I mean, I predicted that Richie was going to do this as soon as Brendan and Seraphina were ambushed. However, Maeve, the queen bee of London, couldn’t see that? Why did she think that after killing Richie’s son and wife, he was going to be “honorable”? I’ve said this before, and I will keep saying it again and again: Maeve thinks she is smarter than everyone else, but she is probably the biggest idiot around. Anyway, after moping around for a bit, she goes back to eavesdropping on Kevin and Conrad talking about who could’ve been the one to leak the details of Brendan and Seraphina’s trip to Antwerp.
Eddie and Gina are a couple now?
Eddie hasn’t actively done anything after killing Tommy, but in this episode, we see him getting friendly with Gina. I am going to cut to the chase: Eddie wants to fornicate with Gina, and Gina is okay with reciprocating those feelings. Now, this is a bit confusing for a variety of reasons. In the last episode, Gina was up in arms about being under the same roof as the Harrigans. She wanted to get as far away as possible from them. She even advised Jan to divorce Harry so that they don’t have to be obligated to be associated with this world of gangsters and creeps. Has she become stupider in the last 24 hours? What is she thinking, getting romantic with the grandson of Conrad, the guy who apparently tried to make a pass at her, saying that he’d like to be her “protector”? Or is she just playing the hand she has been dealt?
I am hoping that she is thinking that if she angers Eddie, then both she and Jan will be in trouble. She is probably aware of the kind of crime that Eddie is capable of committing on a whim. So, maybe she is trying to stay in his good books until they have an out. As for Eddie, I have a feeling that he hasn’t approached Gina for a casual fling or a serious relationship; he is doing this on Maeve’s orders. We’ve seen multiple times that Maeve doesn’t like Harry at all, and she keeps casting doubt on his allegiances. Hence, it’s possible that she has employed Eddie to entice Gina so that if Harry decides to protest against the Harrigans’ actions for one reason or the other, they’ll have a bargaining chip. However, much like every move that Maeve has made so far, I’m guessing this is going to backfire too, and she’ll hopefully see that she isn’t the one who is playing Gina; it’s actually the other way around.
What’s Up With Jan, Bella, And Kevin?
The character arcs of Jan and Bella are getting a bit stale, to be honest. Jan continues to fall for Alice’s “I am just a friend” nonsense. As far as I know, it’s a 2-hour drive from London to the Cotswolds, and Jan doesn’t think there’s something off about Alice asking her to meet as soon as possible because she is distressed about stuff in her personal life? By comparison, Paul is smarter than Jan because he points out why Alice’s behavior is suspicious. FYI, Paul doesn’t have any legitimate information about whether or not Alice is working for Mukasa and Fisk. He just has a hunch that since the Harrigans are being targeted from all possible angles, someone like Alice, who they know nothing about, cannot be trusted so casually. Then there’s Bella, who is still trying to strike a business deal with Antoine, even though Harry has told her to put a pin in it for the time being.
I am guessing this whole transaction is going to blow up in Bella’s face because we know next to nothing about Antoine. The least that Bella can do is ask someone to run some background checks on the Frenchman and see who his real boss is. Talking about background checks, Kevin learns about Rusby’s address from Maria, which is Meadow Stone Court. This particular subplot might seem irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. But it’s obvious that Kevin needs closure on this matter in order to be a better husband and father. He is clearly still traumatized by what Rusby did to him in juvie, and maybe confronting or killing him will set Kevin free. Then again, deviating from the task at hand, which is protecting the Harrigans and their businesses, may not be a good idea for Kevin. Who knows? Maybe Rusby is being used as bait by someone to lure Kevin out of the Harrigans’ fortress so that the family can be weakened.
Maeve Is Caught In Her Own Web Of Lies.
O’Hara arrives at the Cotswolds to point out the obvious to Kevin, Conrad, and Maeve: there’s a rat in the family. Additionally, Fisk is working 24×7 to break the family from the inside. Maeve is way too confident that nothing can cause them to come apart at the seams, even though she is clearly the one who has thrown the Harrigans into a whirlwind of trouble. Conrad goes on one of his unhinged rants about how ruthless he is, which is pretty goddamn pointless given he is unable to figure out that the one stabbing him in the back is his own wife. FYI, that’s the point of the monologue and the entirety of Conrad as a character. He can kill 2 gangs at once (as seen in the opening scene of the first episode). He can have Paul put C4 in his enemy’s wife’s car. And he is capable of cutting out tongues, eyes, and whatnot.
However, Conrad can’t seem to understand that he is being played like a fiddle by Maeve. Right after all this, there’s a scene where Maeve claims that she got a text from Richie saying that he has Brendan and Seraphina. And Conrad literally asks her to show him the text. What does Maeve do? She turns the whole thing into a “You don’t trust me? If you need to check my phone to trust me, we are over” routine that every toxic romantic partner out there does. Now, given how observant and cunning Conrad is, he should discard all the insinuations about Harry and the Da Souzas being the rats and put Maeve under the spotlight and ask her some tough questions. Will he do it? Based on his past behavior, I very much doubt it. Maeve’s refusal to show her phone is such a blatant admission of guilt that I can’t believe she has been trying to convince Eddie that she is some unbeatable criminal mastermind.
Harry Locates Brendan and Seraphina
The contrast between every other subplot and Harry’s subplot is straight-up hilarious. All the Harrigans and the Da Souzas are comfortably sitting in a tightly protected mansion, wondering who is betraying whom. Jan is leaking information to the police, thinking that she is Alice’s personal therapist. Gina is making out with Eddie. And then there’s Harry, who is zooming all across Antwerp, like he is in GTA or Call of Duty, walking into a Moroccan bar, and asking, “Are you a criminal?” Tom Hardy has mastered the art of using a small part of his face, particularly his eyes, and his body language to emote, thanks to his collaborations with Christopher Nolan, and you can see that at play in this episode. He doesn’t take his helmet off, and yet you can feel how quietly humorous he is. Also, the action sequences are so well shot, choreographed, and performed.
The whole segment where Harry waltzes into an enemy den where all kinds of illegal operations are going on, and the fluidity with which he uses the guns and the grenades, is so satisfying to watch. There are so many mega-budgeted action movies nowadays that fail to reach this level of immersiveness, and here you have a subplot in an episode of a show that’s one-upping them like it’s a walk in the park. Anyway, going back to the plot, Harry informs the Harrigans that Richie instructed the Mexicans to kidnap Brendan and Seraphina. Jaime then employed the Moroccans to infiltrate the ruby transaction and execute the kidnapping. And then the Moroccans delivered the Harrigan siblings to a heavily guarded fortress in Amsterdam, which is where they are currently being held by the Mexicans. Conrad still thinks that he can crack a deal with Jaime, but Kevin reminds him that that’s impossible because of how he insulted Jaime’s dad back in the day.
Brendan Is Dead
At the end of MobLand episode 7, Jaime, who is being played by the legendary Jordi Molla, appears before Brendan and Seraphina. They are on a conference video call with the Harrigans and Richie. Everyone knows what’s about to go down. So, Seraphina makes one last-ditch attempt to buy off Jaime. But Jaime’s refusal to forget Conrad’s racist insults and the sound of the chainsaw being revved by the executioner drown out Seraphina’s pleas. Kevin calls up Harry and tells him that Brendan and Seraphina are about to be butchered on a live video session. Harry is nowhere near the location where Brendan and Seraphina are. Hence, with no other option left, he calls up Donnie and tells him to connect him with Kat McAllister, who is being played by the equally legendary Janet McTeer. Harry requests that Kat get in touch with Jaime and tell him to stop the execution of the Harrigan siblings. Kat relays the message to Jaime, who does shut down the chainsaw. However, Harry is too late because Brendan has already been turned into a puddle of blood, bones, and sinew. Seraphina is alive, though. And on that note, the video call ends on all sides.
The Harrigans don’t know exactly what happened. Richie doesn’t know why Jaime didn’t finish the job. Harry doesn’t know what Kat said to Jaime to stop the execution. And we, the viewers, don’t know what the equation is between Harry and Kat, and how he convinced Kat to do a favor for him. All we know is that Seraphina is in one piece, and Harry has to probably pay a heavy price for getting in touch with Kat again. My guess is that Harry used to work for Kat before he leveled up and became the Harrigans’ attack dog. That said, before leaving Kat’s company, I guess he didn’t pay his debts properly, which was why Kat was constantly sending Donnie to get Harry to contact her. Harry tried his best to avoid her, but his loyalty to the Harrigans has caused him to rekindle this old relationship. I have a feeling that Kat is going to make a bid for the throne of London. I mean, she is clearly more powerful than Conrad and Richie combined if she could stop Jaime with just a call. And I think that she is going to turn Harry against the Harrigans to make that happen. That’ll obviously take a toll on Harry’s mental health, but as soon as he learns how Maeve has been trying to create distrust between Conrad and him, how Conrad has been creeping out his daughter and wife, and how Eddie is probably seducing Gina, I suppose he is going to change sides. What about Richie? Either his story is over, since he has succeeded in taking down one Harrigan, or he is going to join hands with Kat to defeat the Harrigans. As for Daniel Betts, he’ll be sorely missed. He has given a stellar performance in the role of Brendan, and his final interaction with Mandeep Dhillon, who can totally be a scream queen, was both hilarious and heartbreaking. With all that said, I think this is the beginning of the end of the Harrigans, and since I want to see that happen, I can’t wait to watch them, especially Maeve, flail around aimlessly even more next week before gradually sinking into the abyss.
