MobLand returns with literal vengeance, dialling up everything good from its debut season to maximise entertainment.

As soon as the hilarious opening bullet storm fades into the post-punk of “Starburster”, you will realise how much you have missed the messy, Machiavellian madness of MobLand. Catching up with Tom Hardy’s genial ‘fixer’ Harry Da Souza is like sliding on a favourite pair of steel-toe-capped slippers. As the initial familiarity of the carpet C-bombing, tungsten-sharp needling, paroxysmal meltdowns, and withering one-liners takes hold, so does the show’s advanced ambition, as lead writer Ronan Bennet unleashes the same blistering form that elevated Top Boy and The Day of the Jackal beyond concept and caricature.

The toxic Harrigan family dynamics and insane plot acrobatics remain as addictive as ever. However, there is a new level of conviction to apply shade to the Olympian profanity and intense violence. Attempting subtlety in a show as brazenly brackish as MobLand may seem like forcing a honey badger to wear a tuxedo, but the show’s writers are skilled enough to do the tailoring. Fresh layers of hatred, motivation, survivalism, misery, and even humanism have been added to the characters. They still drink far too early in the day and fester with unresolved resentment deep into the night, but there is greater depth and augmentation to their savage opportunism and melancholic entitlement.

Temper tornado Conrad continues cramming frogs into boxes but there are glimmers of nuance in his nuttery now, as well as a tantalising edge to his psychopathy. Pierce Brosnan clearly relishes the role’s enhancements, leaning harder into his much-lambasted accent with all the joie de vivre of a thespian well past his give a fuck date. The superb Toby Jones redefines slimy as the devious D.C. Tattersall, and the icy death by aloofness of Kat McAllister reaches new levels of indifferent puppetry. Both of them open wounds for the cutthroats higher in the criminal food chain to gnaw on the exposed bones of the Harrigan dynasty.

This enhanced world-building carries through the cast as we gain vital insights into all of the show’s major players, and some of the more minor ones too. Even odious Eddie, revealed to be Conrad’s bombshell biological son in season 1, shows glimpses of a soft centre through his interactions with a further fleshed out Gina Da Souza. While consolidating its already amazing cast, the show introduces fresh meat to the gangland grinder. The gnarliest of them is the sexually ambiguous apex psychopath on an e-scooter, Frankie a.k.a. Beast, played by Johnny Flynn.

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His charismatic performance lands somewhere between Mick Jagger if he had fronted Oasis and A Clockwork Orange-era Malcolm McDowell trapped inside an Adidas commercial. Either way, he is a formidable nemesis for our Harry as he punches every button to expel him from his expansive comfort zone. Watching the normally unshakable trouble-shooter have his headspace invaded by theatrical mind games is grimly fascinating. Unlike Harry, his new foil has no moral or professional code. Instead, Frankie is driven by an autonomous thirst for havoc and sadism and has fewer weak points as a consequence.

Despite its elaborations the sophomore season doesn’t skimp on the wanton violence and grievous harm. The action is upgraded in terms of style if not scale with meaty muzzle flashes and gloopy bullet wounds, and when things get really nasty it hits hard. This could have been a tricky second outing for the Harrigan clan and those caught in its virulent tailspin. However, showrunner Jez Butterworth and his talented ensemble have such a steady handle on expectations and execution that season 3 has already been confirmed. Keeping a cast of this quality together for this long can’t have been easy.

Die-hard fans will devour the new episodes with increasing gusto, as will those watching for an undiluted dose of dramatised Schadenfreude. Anyone stopping by for catharsis from their own dysfunctional family dynamics will leave feeling positively cleansed.

★★★★★

Streaming on Paramount+ from 18th September / Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren, Paddy Considine, Joanne Froggatt, Lara Pulver, Anson Boon, Mandeep Dhillon, Jasmine Jobson, Teddie Allen, Emmett J. Scanlan, Johnny Flynn, Ophelia Lovibond, Janet McTeer, Toby Jones / Paramount+