Gangs of London Season 1, Episode 3 recap: Sean takes on Kinney Edwards

Another week, another extremely intense episode of Gangs of London, one of the best new shows on television right now. Gangs of London Episode 3 focuses on Elliot adapting to life in the Wallace family and the heroin trade. When Lale steals heroin from Asif, she ignites a war that we’ll likely see play out across the remainder of the season. her continued business is a problem for Sean, who has ordered a business embargo. And things come to a head between the Wallace family and Kinney Edwards.

Gangs of London Episode 3 begins with a flashback to when Sean and Billy were teens. Finn and Marian took their sons to the woods so Finn could teach them how to kill a man in cold blood. It’s honestly super creepy.

When we return to the present, it’s inside a cattle caravan that blows up within seconds. We’re in Turkey and a group of assailants attacks the cargo to search inside the dead animals for what I’m assuming is smuggled heroin. Then they set a bomb to take care of the rest of the scene before fleeing to their next destination. In Kent, England, several butchers are furious to find the slaughtered cows are “empty.” So, that establishes how drugs are being smuggled in, via the cattle.

It looks like Lale was behind the initial attack in Turkey to get control of the smuggled heroin. She’s blatantly disregarding Sean’s business embargo. Lale is taking advantage of his distraction and the fact he “doesn’t even realize London is slipping from his grip.”

Speaking of Sean, he visits Jack and discovers his body. Will he believe that Jack genuinely killed himself?

Gangs of London Episode 3 recap: Sean finds Jack’s body

Across town, Elliot receives a psych evaluation monitored by his handler, Vicky and her superior. We learn that Elliot’s wife passed away two years ago and he went undercover soon after. He also has a son named Sam, although it’s not clear what happened to him yet. Elliot’s boss is unsure if keeping him under is a smart move, is he in too deep? Is all of this going to pay off? Vicky says they need to let things play out.

Sean calls Elliot to Jack’s apartment. “What does it look to you?” He obviously doesn’t believe that Jack killed himself. Whoever killed Finn is tidying up after themselves. Finn mentions to Elliot that a lot of “havoc” has been done on his word. It sounds like a warning. On his way out, Elliot notices that two of Jack’s mugs are missing from the wooden mug tree on the counter. For now, he keeps that observation to himself.

Gangs of London Episode 3 recap: Asif tries to find out who stole from him

Asif comes to London in the wake of the cow slaughtering and theft orchestrated by Lale (though he doesn’t know Lale is behind it yet). Needless to say, he’s pissed that his stuff was stolen, but Sean isn’t exactly sympathetic considering Asif is operating outside of his embargo.

Asif is a powerful man, and one of the Wallace family’s most notable businessmen. He’s down 5 million pounds and he makes sure Sean knows that what’s bad for him, is bad for all of them. Sean might not be thrilled with Asif, but he’s smart enough to realize the hit to Asif is significant. He recounts the meeting to his mother and Billy. “If there’s anyone dealing smack in London, I want to know about it.”

At a local bakery, Luan orders a birthday cake for his daughter and then sits down for coffee with Ed. Luan has some incriminating photographs to share with Ed, he mentions that while Ed is supposedly the “keeper” of Finn’s secrets, he didn’t know about this one. And we don’t either yet since the photos aren’t shown to the camera!

Back to the Asif/Lale drama, Lale and Hekar start making a plan of action for their next shipment, especially if Sean’s embargo is still active by then. Meanwhile, Asif is questioning all of his workers in the slaughterhouse to find out which one is responsible for his stolen heroin. And yes, that means killing them all, one by one as punishment for their lack of information. I guess one way of ensuring none of your men are leaks is to kill them all?

Since Billy is a heroin user, he tries to figure out who is still dealing heroin in London with some of his fellow partiers.

Gangs of London Episode 3 recap: Kinney tries to bargain with Sean

During an elegant luncheon, where Ed and Alex are trying to convince Sean to let the Afridi’s keep doing their business because they need money (“And we trust the Afridis.” Well, Sean doesn’t), Kinney Edwards and his fellow men arrive to meet with Sean.

Sean is immediately on edge since they know Darren killed Finn. Obviously, the bigger question is who ordered the hit. Kinney tells Sean that his son was ordered to kill Finn. He wants to make a deal to send Sean after the one pulling Darren’s strings so he’ll leave Darren alone, the man who ordered the hit is more dangerous than the one who pulled the trigger. In exchange for this, he gives Sean the encrypted phone Darren received his orders on.

Sean doesn’t make any promises to keep Darren safe, but his focus is more on the hit and he tells Alex to find out what he can from the phone. Elliot is part of the lunch date and after it’s over, he calls Vicky to tell her what he found out about Darren. He thinks Sean’s planning something big so he tells her to stay tuned.

Then Elliot gets an errand from one of Sean’s associates. He’s tasked with going to a nearby auction house to pick up a package for Ed. Here he makes a connection with Shannon, the two have obvious romantic chemistry. The “package” for Ed, is Shannon. She needs a driver for the evening.

While Elliot would love to spend the evening with Shannon, he doesn’t want to miss out on a chance to see what Sean is up to. He says as much to Shannon, though obviously, he doesn’t tell her the real reason he wants to stick by Sean’s side. Sean ends up tasking Elliot with finding Billy.

Gangs of London Episode 3 recap: Billy tracks down the source of the heroin

While all of these political dealings are going on, Billy is out looking to score some more heroin and partying with some of his fellow druggie pals. Billy is going through intense withdrawals because of Sean’s embargo and the lack of heroin. He’s desperate for smack. At a party, he got the location of someone who’s still dealing and goes looking for it, running headfirst into trouble.

At a club, Alex does some expert investigation and gets Darren’s location. He gives it to Sean with apprehension. Alex doesn’t agree with Sean’s methods of trying to burn down the whole city to find the man he’s after. He refuses to go with Sean to hunt down Darren. “I have to protect the business, this isn’t a good idea.” There is some obvious tension now, between Alex and Sean, especially since Alex is keeping his hands clean of all the bloodshed and Sean isn’t impressed.

Since Billy refuses to leave the place without heroin, he gets roughed up by the guys there. Luckily, Elliot gets there in time to break things up and retrieve Billy. When he leaves, the dealer gets on his phone and calls someone, saying, “They know.” Is he one of Lale’s men?

Gangs of London Episode 3 recap: Sean slaughters Kinney’s camp

While I’m sure Billy is struggling with his addiction, we find out that the real reason he went searching for heroin is that he’s really struggling in the wake of their father’s death. He wanted to help, and he does since he finds out the heroin is coming from Lale.

In a tender scene between Billy and Sean, we get to see a much softer side to Sean as he takes care of his brother, but Sean doesn’t want Billy involved in the business because he’s “sick,” which I’m guessing he’s referring to his addiction.

Plus, Sean wants to do the right thing for once because Billy has always been the one looking out for him, and now it’s the other way around. We return to the flashback from the beginning. Sean couldn’t kill the man so Billy stepped up to do it instead.

Gangs of London Episode 3 culminates in a showdown destined since Darren pulled that trigger. Working on the basis of Alex’s tip, Sean leads his men to Kinney’s camp, slaughtering everyone with what basically amounts to a firing squad with Sean in the front. Kinney barely survives and hides just in time to watch as Sean and his men kill everyone. The only way he manages to escape is by blowing up his whole campsite as a distraction so he can slip out before they get him.

And while all of this is going on, Marian just watches from the car, similar to the flashback. I’m starting to think she might be the one behind it all.

What did you think about Gangs of London Episode 3? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

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