Gangs of London Season 1, Episode 2 recap: Elliot goes deeper in the underworld

Gangs of London Episode 2 opens with Sean’s eulogy for his dead father. He speaks about Finn’s permanent presence on London’s streets and how his dad will live on through him.

Amid his emotional eulogy, several people make moves in the audience, which doesn’t go unnoticed by Sean. His mother surreptitiously passes Jackie a book wrapped up in a scarf, and the Albanians get a phone call that forces them to dip out early –– we can assume they hear about Elliot and the mess with Besimir.

Speaking of which, we pivot to Elliot and Besimir in the back of a truck. The two men driving the truck answer a call in Albanian, disclosing to someone that they “have him” and he’s only armed with a knife. It sounds like they’re referring to Elliot, and they promise to keep him until whoever is on the phone gets there.

Besimir leads Elliot into a dingy hole-in-the-wall location and takes him underground down a long hallway. Jack is being kept in a bed down there. Elliot gets Jack on his feet to take him back to the Wallaces, but Luan and the other guy from the funeral shoot Besimir and approach before they can leave.

They let Elliot go with a few warnings, “Don’t ever come to my place of business brandishing a weapon again.” “I just came to get him.” “And I let you make that clear.” The Albanian mafia doesn’t seem to want any smoke from the Wallaces, so letting Elliot take Jack is all about ensuring he tells Sean they cooperated.

In the car, Jack is barely hanging on to life as Elliot whips out his phone and blasts some loud hip-hop so he can get answers. All Jack can gutter out is that it was a bunch of kids, some nobodies, who killed Jack. He also mentions seeing their car, a red Nova, and the license plate number.

Gangs of London Episode 2 recap: Kinney Edwards hunts down his son and Ioan

We switch over to poor Darren and Ioan, who are in hiding. Ioan is panicking and advises that they call “them” again. He thinks Darren’s father, Kinney Edwards, must know what happened by now. It’s not quite clear who Ioan is referring to, but whoever it is, Darren is sure “they f***ed us” because every time he calls, he gets a dead phone line.

As for the famed Kinney Edwards (Mark Lewis Jones), leader of a group of Welsh travelers, he’s no joke. Kinney has since heard that something went down with his son and Ioan, but he doesn’t know what yet. So he turns to Ioan’s poor brother, Pat (Garmon Rhys), who is busy tending to a car when Kinney grabs him, releases the jack and crushes his leg with the car tire. He claims he doesn’t know what happened, only that Ioan asked to borrow his car.

At the Wallaces, Ed tells Sean that dragging Luan across the city isn’t going to solve their problems. They can’t keep making enemies of business partners. But Sean doesn’t care about peace, he wants the person responsible for killing his father, and Marian agrees with him. “Whoever killed my husband remains an enemy to this family. “If we back down now, they’ll walk all over us.”

Alex demands everyone to be quiet. “Our strength lies in our unity. That’s what your dad built for us.” Ed uses that point to tell Sean that in the earlier meeting, he acted alone, which made them look weak and divided. Ed promises Sean that if they work together, then he will give him everything. It doesn’t look like Sean entirely believes him, but they can’t discuss much more since Elliot shows up with Jack in tow right then.

Gangs of London Episode 2 recap: Elliot earns favor with Sean

Jack passes out before anyone can talk to him, but Sean wants to speak to Elliot, considering he took out eight guys one-handed. Sean doesn’t believe anything Elliot says since what kind of low-level street grunt would be able to take out all these men? Did Luan send him? Sean accuses him of being a wooden horse while holding a gun to his head.

Elliot says that Luan could have killed both of them, but he didn’t, and then he relays the information he got from Jack while reiterating that he works for Sean, “Not Jim, not Mark, I work for you.”

Sean finally takes the gun away and tells his men that he wants everyone looking for these kids. If they want to work for the Wallaces, “they join the hunt.”

After getting everything settled with the Wallaces, for now, Elliot returns home to check in on his father. It sounds like he’s preparing for the worst as he hands his dad a wad of cash and tells him he might not be able to come back for a while. It seems like his dad needs regular medical attention, so a woman named Sally regularly checks in.

Gangs of London Episode 2 recap: We find out that Elliot is an undercover cop!

Ioan gets a call from his brother, Pat. Ioan tells him that they messed up. They had no idea what was really happening, and Ioan tried to stop it, but it was too late. Unfortunately for Ioan, he’s getting duped as Pat is calling him with Kinney and his men surrounding him so they can listen in and track Darren and Ioan down. Ioan tells Pat where they are, St. Ralph’s railway, and Kinney heads out straightaway.

Elliot gets a text reporting the location of the car at St. Ralph’s shortly after that call, and he slips out in the middle of the night while his dad is still asleep. He ends up at the railway station where one of Kinney’s associates (a big beefy dude in his underwear played by the talented Lee Charles!) has tortured and killed Ioan. Pat is there too, although it’s not entirely clear if he helped. He’s deeply disturbed by the whole thing, disowning his father for what he let happen to his sons. Elliot pulls a gun on the big guy, but he easily handles him and then goes for a butcher’s knife to kill him, all while Pat sits idly by.

Elliot gets into yet another violent scuffle with this guy as he fights for his life in a scene that feels straight from a horror film. Elliot manages to kill the big dude, but it’s a close call. Elliot makes a run for it and crosses paths with Pat, who pulls a gun on him. It doesn’t last long, though. Pat is obviously emotionally distraught. Elliot tries to find out where they took Darren, but Pat decides enough is enough and shoots himself in the head.

Outside, we finally find out some more integral details about Elliot and who he is. Elliot is an undercover cop who wants to crumple the Wallace empire. He meets with his handler outside of St. Ralph’s. He’s pissed that she didn’t give him the address earlier because he couldn’t save Ioan or find out where they took Darren.

According to his handler, Vicky Chung (Jing Lusi), their superiors want Elliot off the job. But Elliot’s in too deep now, especially after he earned favor with Sean and asked to help him find the person who killed his dad. “Don’t make this all be for nothing.”

Back with Darren, Kinney intends to stick him on a boat and sends him away using his Travellers connections. He asks his longtime lieutenant Mal (Richard Harrington) to go and keep an eye on Darren.

Elsewhere, we catch up with Lale (Narges Rashidi), a Kurdish militant who oversees a heroin distribution ring and her right-hand man Hekar (Aksel Ustun). Lale isn’t happy with Sean at the moment because of him prohibiting cargo and therefore stalling her business. But Hekar points out that while that rule affects them, it seems the Pakistani heroin kingpin, Asif Afridi (Asif Raza Mir), is allowed to conduct business as usual, which obviously doesn’t sit right with Lale.

Gang of London Episode 2 recap: Ed kills Jack to keep Finn’s secrets hidden

As for the Wallaces, there are still a lot of mysteries to be solved regarding these characters. Ed is seen making a phone call, and Marian watches him from behind the curtains. She clearly doesn’t trust him.

And it looks like Marian might have a good reason for that, as Ed visits Jack while he’s alone and murders him! Ed points out that Finn had money on him when he did, a bag of it. “I’m tired, Jack. I’m tired of being the one holding all of this together.” Jack mentions that sooner or later, they’re going to “find all of this out, about her, about all of it.” Jack promises that they won’t find it out from him. FIND OUT WHAT!?

Ed questions about where he was going to take Jack later. What was the plan? Then Jack realizes he’s dying because Jack gave him some kind of paralytic tea, and he can’t move his arm, and Ed slits his wrist so that it will look like Jack killed himself and Finn’s secrets can die with him. “It’s for the good of the family, Jack, and that’s all there is to it.”

What did you think about Gangs of London Episode 2? What’s the deal with Ed? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

New episodes of Gangs of London Season 1 air Sunday nights on AMC.