For what used to be known as terrestrial television, a new hit drama is an increasingly precious commodity. And BBC One’s This City is Ours ticked plenty of boxes: snappy genre hook, cast of up-and-comers leavened with wily veterans, and the spotlight turned well away from London.
Stephen Butchard’s scripts also had the knack of ramping up tension to the point that each episode felt like a season finale. It made the first season of the show drainingly engrossing and addictive, with a juxtaposition of family and Family that may sometimes have felt familiar, but never played out.
All of the above is back in place for season 2, with Michael (James Nelson-Joyce) once again tidying up after others – “Things happened, none of which I could avoid,” he says at one point, bathetically if accurately.
The repercussions of the otherwise reliable Banksey’s (Mike Noble) murder of Colombian kingpin Ricardo are almost instant, as Michael’s pregnant partner Diana (Hannah Onslow) and the vengeful mob widow Cheryl (Saoirse-Monica Jackson) are taken hostage by Ricardo’s smoothly sadistic brother Felipe (Alvaro Morte), their release contingent on Michael’s recorded execution of Ricardo’s assailant. “It is one thing after another, and it is never-ending,” laments Diana. “How much more trouble can there be?”
Plenty, it turns out: back in Liverpool, ever-impulsive Jamie Phelan (Jack McMullen) continues to demonstrate his unsuitability to lead his late dad’s firm by reaching out to the Albanians to enable his citywide ambitions, while his mum (Julie Graham) and cousin Rachel (Laura Aikman) try to curb his worst excesses and smooth the ruffled feathers of rivals and potential allies.
That big bag of “lemo” (AKA cocaine) remains at large. Banksey’s fate sends his suggestible son Freddie (Adam Abbou) into a spiral. And then there’s Shaun Evans, joining the show this series. His former Phelan firm ally Ozzie Thompson is out of prison and seeking compensation for time served, regardless of how much chaos he sows in the process.
Cue close shaves, arson, arrests, chases, sitdowns, stakeouts, torture, violent death and double-crosses – oh, so many double-crosses – but also, crucially, the streak of black humour that extends to acknowledging its forebears. For example, the reviewer who compared season 1 to “a highly superior Scouse Dallas” will be delighted with one particular pay-off, The Godfather gets an explicit nod as a weapon is found in a public convenience, and the resemblance of Ozzie’s story to that of Tony Blundetto, Steve Buscemi’s character in The Sopranos, is surely no coincidence.
Fans of the House of Bamboo line dance will also get their fix, although edging further away from the soundtrack aisle labelled “Rat Pack Classics” might not be a bad call next time (series three has already been commissioned by the BBC).
The flaws are still present – Bonehead’s (Bobby Schofield) abrupt and compromising (albeit richly deserved) comeuppance is more or less forgotten about, and there is a marked over-reliance on musical montage. Thankfully, like the most august entries in the gangster genre, This City Is Ours also stands out for its adherence to narrative logic. People act rashly, ill-advisedly, even foolishly, but never inexplicably – at least until the final episode, where one particular character’s motives for their obsessive behaviour prioritise narrative expediency over plausibility.
But the biggest asset of the show is its impeccable ensemble, used to perfection. Nelson-Joyce’s coiled charisma is now tempered by increasing desperation as the stakes rise both personally and politically and his New Man aspirations wrestle with the Old Ways.
The vulnerability underpinning Jamie’s blinkered ambition is surfacing, while Kevin Harvey does excellent work with Bobby as his internal conflicts intensify, and Noble turns what could have been one-dimensional hired muscle into a character we truly care about.
But behind the scenes, it’s the women who are pulling the strings and stealing the show: Julie Graham’s shrewd matriarch, Laura Aikman’s pragmatic dealmaker, Darci Shaw’s calming but clear-eyed Jamie whisperer and, above all, the brilliant Onslow.
While the men of the piece are turned inside out by flawed instincts or the slings and arrows, it is the women who have the vision and purpose to find a way through.
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