‘MobLand’ Season 2 Episode 5 Recap: Family Reunion

By Sean T. Collins

Is Harry Da Souza too good for the Harrigans? I don’t mean too good a person; we’ve seen him execute way too many people in blood way too cold to have any illusions about the kind of person Harry is. But is he too good at his job, too good at being a fixer and fixing things, for a family as thoroughly broken as the Harrigans?

It sure looks like it this week, as Harry invites the entire family to a sort of peace conference at the Cotswolds. There, he endures the abuse of Maeve, the ego clash of Conrad and Kevin (“Now I suggest we just get our cocks out and see which one’s the biggest,” he deadpans at one point, sick to death of their dick-measuring contest), Conrad’s increasingly obvious dementia (he briefly thinks his slain son Brendan is still alive), the live issue of Seraphina’s dual loyalties, coked-up Bella’s hugely inappropriate remarks about her unrequited lust for him in front of everyone, et cetera.

Before he arrives, Harry gets the news from Paul that Conrad roped him into a massacre of Frankie Cooper’s boys the night before, and that the old man’s been torturing one of them out in the barn. (Harry’s first glimpse of Conrad this episode is of him walking around covered in blood, wearing nothing but an apron and his skivvies.) Harry grabs a plastic bag and brutally puts the man out of his misery so Conrad can’t come back for seconds.

And that’s not all. He’s desperate to convince Jan that her lover has been part of a set-up by Frankie Cooper; she assumes he’s fucking with her and hangs up the phone, furious. Meanwhile, his daughter Gina is off with Maeve’s chosen one, Conrad and Bella’s no-longer-a-secret son Eddie, in Ireland, doing god knows what. Lucky for Harry, Paul overhears the increasingly incautious Maeve ranting to Eddie on the phone; he tells Harry that Eddie and Gina are in Ireland together to “bring me the head of the Medusa.” It’s not clear to either us or even Eddie what Maeve means, but it sure is clear to Harry: He borrows Paul’s gun, grabs one of the family’s helicopters, and takes off without another word.

“Medusa” turns out to be the sobriquet of a burly Irish gangster known for burying his enemies in concrete. Played by the great Colm Meaney, Medusa gets the drop on Eddie, who’s such an inexperienced assassin he has to look up instructions for his gun on YouTube. He’s about to shove a red-hot poker up the younger man’s ass, literally, when Gina — who’d stormed off when she learned she was being brought along on a hit — shows up unexpectedly, banging on the window to save the man whom, I guess, she loves.

It’s all about to go very badly for both our lovebirds when blam blam blam blam blam, gunshots ring out and drop Medusa and every last one of his henchmen. It’s Harry, of course, showing up at the last second. Gina sees, in Conrad’s phrase, the kind of man Harry is up close and personal: a troubling combination of loyal and lethal. However she takes this lesson, his timing couldn’t be better.

But back at the Cotswolds, his timing couldn’t be worse. In an error of judgment, Harry has Seraphina preserve her cover with Donnie, the agent of Kat McAllister who’s running Seraphina while banging Jan, by revealing the big family meeting. Word gets passed along the chain to Tattersall, Frankie Cooper, and finally Kat, who okays a massive one-and-done strike on the entire Harrigan family. Seraphina tips off her fractious relatives, but it’s too late; everyone has to grab a gun and shoot their way to safety, escaping by the skins of their teeth in the family’s second helicopter. 

It’s not just that things might have gone better for the Harrigans had Harry still been there, of course. Harry gathering the whole family together and then literally taking off will surely raise alarm bells with some members of the family. Maeve has wanted him out of the picture for years, Conrad’s instability could finally turn him against his most loyal soldier, and even Paul might keep what he knows a secret to keep himself out of hot water with Maeve.

About the only silver lining in all this for Harry is that Jan gets wise to Donnie’s real motives when she sees he’s received a text from Seraphina. That’s proof he really is involved in some big Harrigan-related scheme and has been lying to her all along. She acts cheerful as she calls it an early night, then wipes his kiss from her lips the moment she’s clear of his building. This poor woman deserves a much better lot in life than what she’s gotten; trying to improve it has only made things worse.

This episode primarily just builds to the twin raids on the Harrigans’ house by Frankie and Medusa’s place by Harry. As is always the case on MobLand, the action delivers. I wouldn’t have minded Team Harrigan taking at least one major casualty during the raid, for the purposes of both believability and dramatic stakes, but it’s not as though the violence is presented as sterile and sanitary. Conrad and Medusa’s enthusiasm for torture and Harry’s dragged-out mercy killing of Conrad’s victim make sure of that.

As usual, it’s mostly very well acted. Pierce Brosnan has a rare serious moment as Conrad, gritting his teeth as he remembers he’s lost a son and also realizes what it means that he’d forgotten. Bella’s confrontational performance during the family meeting, aimed right at her hated husband Kevin, is another demonstration of the eroticized intensity and directness Lara Pulver has brought to the role. Joanne Froggatt conveys Jan’s horror and disgust at finding out her boyfriend is some kind of spy with real heartbreak. As Eddie, Anson Boon finds the confusion and fear beneath his bluster, feelings it’s clear Maeve has triggered in him all his life. 

But there’s still room for a funny sight gag or two, like the poster in Medusa’s favorite pub reading “DON’T HAVE FIVE AND DRIVE!”, a joke about the Irish’s idea of an anti–drunk driving ad campaign. Harry Da Souza may be serious all the time, but MobLand’s wise enough to let you laugh a bit between executions.

Sean T. Collins (@seantcollins.com on Bluesky and theseantcollins on Patreon) has written about television for The New York Times, Vulture, Rolling Stone, and elsewhere. He is the author of Pain Don’t Hurt: Meditations on Road House. He lives with his family on Long Island.