MobLand (1×09) Beggars Banquet Review

For our review of the last episode of MobLand, click here.

Spending so much time waiting for the proverbial bomb to explode following the long-simmering tension between the Harrigans and the Stevensons, other characters have slowly come in to fill the space between the feuding families, tipping the scales in one direction or the other. In what has essentially become a Cold War of sorts, their feud has played out like an arms race, with the Harrigations coming together at the seams under the weight of their enemy which has pulled them in many different directions. But their flaws could be traced back to the top with the growing divide between Conrad and Maeve, one who has lost control and one who can’t be trusted with it. The season could be boiled down to merely a series of games, both big and small, and now those games are coming close to its end. Now that everything (or almost everything) is on the table, there is little need to hide anymore so at this point, viewers are left to sit back and watch it crumble. That being said, there is still plenty of tension to be had, not that the final outcome is in doubt, but rather in how that outcome will come to be.

The penultimate episode of the season did not waste any time in drawing lines. Looking to take advantage of the discord between Richie Stevenson and Jaime Lopez, Conrad’s focus was on the meeting Kat said up so the Harrigans could enter the fentanyl business. Whenever Conrad is involved, there is always a concern that his volatile nature would somehow get in the way. Sowing more discord, the meeting left Conrad with a seed of doubt about Harry’s true allegiance to him (Kat’s feelings about Harry were not a mystery). Carefully managing all the personalities at play, the deal between Lopez and the Harrigans was on once he dealt with the Harrigan family rat (their identity should not come as that much of a surprise). At this point, Maeve’s feelings about her nephew are pretty clear. While Harry gave Eddie the talk, she did the same with Gina but unlike Harry, her warnings came from a more vengeful place.

Kevin, spiralling since his past trauma was brought back to the surface, finally went about dealing with it. Tracking down one of the men responsible for allegedly raping him while he attended a prison for juveniles around the same time as Harry, a tense exchange led to him getting his revenge. Far from a killer, a range of emotion was there on Kevin’s face, a testament to Paddy Considine‘s performance.

Alice was set to visit the Cotswolds for dinner. Tattersall, meanwhile, plotted his way into control of the task force dispatched to take down the Harrigans. Understandably apprehensive about the prospects of putting herself in enemy territory, he had a way to maneuver people into doing what he wanted. In a set up that seemingly implied a trap, the dinner devolved into a tense exchange as Maeve looked to put so much pressure on Alice until she got uncomfortable. As the piling on continued, the conversation became less about Alice and more about Maeve asserting her power. Exposed and cornered, the filter was off as she let the rest of her family know what she really felt. Using their exchange as a moment to escape, Harry caught on to Alice’s plan to collect Conrad’s DNA to set him up. Seeing the writing on the wall for a long time, he simply let her go.

The end of the episode got especially dicey when, in the midst of the shenanigans inside the estate, the police were not far behind Alice, arriving just in time to arrest Conrad and Maeve. Despite their heated argument mere minutes prior, they still presented an united front.

Score: 79/100

still courtesy of Paramount+

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.