MobLand season 2 episode 7, “Ace of Spades,” starts with Conrad (Pierce Brosnan) burying his beloved dogs and Maeve (Helen Mirren) sitting atop one of her many dead horses.
We all know this means severe retribution, but just in case anyone doesn’t, Maeve recounts a tale of Conrad starving a bloke to death for kicking his bulldog in the ’70s.
Kat and Frankie
Kat McAllister (Janet McTeer) has a catch-up with Frankie Cooper (Johnny Flynn). He complains about her punctuality, or lack thereof, and she puts him in his place, which he seems to appreciate, actually.
There probably aren’t many people who can do that without losing their lives, and you get the impression he quite likes the novelty.
The Harrigans regroup
A Harrigan family meeting starts with Conrad and Maeve bad-mouthing an imaginary person in a chair. The family looks on pretty much as you’d expect any family would, but with less courage to section them than the average family would have.
Harry (Tom Hardy) puts them into teams to shake down their allies across London, a wise attempt to regroup at this point in their war with Cooper and McAllister. They need to know who’s really on their side. It’s Conrad and Paul (Emmett J. Scanlan), and Harry and Kevin (Paddy Considine). Set to Get Down Services’ cheerfully obscene “Dog Dribble,” this montage brings the show back to its demented British gangster roots, which is very hard not to enjoy.
Someone’s hand gets a horrifying deep-fat fryer bath, to which Harry responds nonchalantly while scrolling on his phone: “Get his feet in and all, yeah?”
Kevin and Harry reminisce about simpler times. It’s all very romantic. Kevin beats someone up and sits back down next to Harry in the car, exclaiming, “I needed that.” Harry agrees; he did. Kevin says it felt good and that he misses it being just the two of them on the ground “f***ing slunching a few people.”
Maeve’s hurdles
Maeve encourages Gina (Teddie Allen) to fake a suicide attempt. She seems to consider it, or maybe she’s actually learned something from her heart-to-heart with her dad in the last episode. Gina also asks Maeve a great question: why did she send Eddie (Anson Boon) to Ireland?
Maeve’s response is dark, predictably. There are hurdles to jump. One does not simply walk into the role of future head of the Harrigans; one must prove one’s mettle. If anyone doubted she means it, they won’t after she holds a knife to his throat on discovering him googling flights to Bali.
Cards on the table
During a sit, Kat is revealed as the US ambassador. Well, that explains a lot. Elsewhere, Bella (Lara Pulver) and Seraphina (Mandeep Dhillon) connect, a relatively rare occurrence. Sera decides to bankroll "Harrigan 2.0" and appears to let Bella in on it, an opaque move given that Bella is loyal to Kevin. But perhaps more of Sera’s cards will be laid out in future episodes.
Harry finds his gun in Donny's apartment along with Donnie's rotting corpse, presumably joining the dots and working out that Jan killed him. But she is nowhere to be found.
Paul’s robbery
Paul’s sense of humor never falters. “This is a robbery,” he jokes, pulling back the strip curtains in one of the Harrigans’ unfortunate operatives’ joints. Paul’s “Here’s Johnny” moment is the tip of the iceberg. His humor doesn’t even falter later, when he is captured by Frankie, courtesy of his ex, Sicily, who was cornered by Frankie at the strip club where she works.
Frankie threatening Sicily with tales of the parasitic whipworm invading mammals up the anus is sleazily fascinating in the way all his evil diatribes are, but it drips more sleaze with every item of clothing she removes as she lap dances for him. He fingers a dimple in the sofa, and it’s anyone’s guess what he’s thinking about.
Where to now?
Under duress, Paul lures Harry to Frankie but calls him “bro,” the sign that all is not halal in this butcher’s. Frankie and Paul are made to thug together. Even while being tortured by Frankie, Paul is his match and more. Harry even more so, evident every second of screen time the two share, because of course Harry breezes into the trap confidently with nary a foot soldier of backup, mirroring Frankie’s scooter ride into the Harrigans’ den in episode 3. When Frankie suggests he, Paul, and Harry should be a team, it’s tough to disagree. The three together would be unstoppable, but more importantly, totally hilarious.
It can’t be ignored that Frankie seems to just want to have fun. He just wants to know people as scarred as him, equally up for playing out their traumas and regrets through life-endangering games like Russian roulette, and equally up for swapping jokes mid-interrogation. That’s probably why, despite it all, he lets Paul and Harry go at the end of the episode instead of ordering his men to kill them both. Or is it because Harry told Frankie he’d hurt his son in jail? Or is it the game of Russian roulette he played with Harry, being turned on him after Harry grabs him and flips him onto the table? Anyone’s guess.
New episodes of MobLand premiere Fridays on Paramount+. Check back next week as we recap episode 8.
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