I know many of you came here looking for an answer to a very obvious question, so allow me to save you some time. [Spoiler Alert] No, Harry isn’t going to die. In an uncontrollable fit of rage, Jan did stab Harry in the chest, but it was an “accident.” And as one can see, the knife is stuck on the right side of Harry’s chest, which evidently suggests that she didn’t puncture his heart. Nor did she break his heart because, as much as we know Harry, he saw this coming. I mean, not exactly Jan stabbing him with a kitchen knife, but he did expect his wife to punish him for the chaos she had been put through for the past few days. I see that outburst as an accumulation of all those suppressed emotions and frustrations, and you wouldn’t want me to bore you with the details because there’s a whole list of things Jan hates; still, for starters, Conrad tops that list. And if you ask me what exactly triggered that explosion, then it was Harry telling Jan that “Richie’s dead.” It was back in episode 4 when Harry was discussing his daily chores with Jan, telling her about how Eddie killed Tommy Stevenson, which was when Jan, in very simple and straightforward language, told Harry that she didn’t want to know what he did all day. She’s never liked what he does, but still has been living with it for the past 20 years, which doesn’t mean Harry ought to remind her again and again how many people he’s killed on the job. She had been trying her best to ignore her husband’s profession, and she’d love to continue doing that.
The duo had been having issues in their marriage from the very first episode of season 1, and Jan’s more affected by it because, unlike Harry, she really doesn’t have any outlet to express her heightened emotions or pent-up anger. In the first episode itself, she tried primal therapy, as she felt her needs were not being met. Jan, by taking those sessions, got a pretty good idea of who was actually behind her nightmares. Yes, it was Harry, which was why she had been willing to sit with him and talk it out, but Harry, being busy fixing dead bodies for the Harrigans, failed to give his wife the time she deserved. Jan had even made an appointment for couples therapy, but as usual, Harry didn’t show up. So, I think you can’t really blame Jan for losing control of herself and stabbing him. Accidentally or not, it’s up to you to decide.
However, you have to see the irony here. No one from the outside could so much as put a scratch on Harry’s body, and in the end, it was his own wife who did the favors. The show, from the very beginning, had been about a rat in the family who was trying to damage its foundations, and even though Jan wasn’t exactly a rat or a mole, she was an insider who dealt a lot of damage, at least to Harry. It will take him time to recover from that stab wound, but he will be back on his feet to fight some battles in the second season of MobLand. But, his injury will allow him to spend some quality time with his family, which is exactly the need of the hour. So, what was the lesson learned here, especially for Harry? Firstly, he needs to have more “work-life balance” and give as much time to his family as he does to the Harrigans. Secondly, the lad really needs to stop telling Jan about the people he goes on killing all day, because it only reminds her of Harry’s dark side, bringing back all the haunting memories. She doesn’t like Harry reminding her that she has, in reality, married a criminal. And thirdly, Harry needs to keep his family away from the Harrigans, Conrad and Eddie, in particular.
But even though the whole scene with the kitchen knife seems like cute banter between the couple who had been trying to find some time together, things aren’t going to be the same once the new antagonist steps into the show. Remember how Kat McAllister subtly told Harry that he wouldn’t like to lose his own family for the Harrigans? Well, that was exactly the way Richie had tried to threaten Harry, by bringing his family into the equation. And we all know what happened to Richie; so if Kat were to decide to go after Jan or Gina, then indeed all hell is going to break loose, and Kat will suffer Harry’s wrath. This is also to say that, so long as Harry runs with the mob, the dark cloud will always loom over his family’s head, and no matter which safe house he puts them into, he cannot protect them forever. Jan is already feeling suffocated in her life, and Gina doesn’t like the way her father lives. So, I am just assuming in the end, Harry will have to choose between his “real” family and his “loyalty.”
