The finale of the first season of Sky’s violent drama Gangs of London was, it’s safe to say, explosive. Two years later, the prestige show is back – and it’s bigger, glossier and more brutal than ever.
This time around, horror director Corin Hardy is at the helm, and he wastes no time jumping straight in at the deep end. Set one year after the events of the end of season one, the landscape of London has been completely transformed. The Dumani gang is on top, undercover cop Elliot (á¹¢á»páº¹Ì Dìrísù) is working for the mysterious investors and his mother Marian is nowhere to be seen.
Not that this means things are tranquil. From season one’s original cast, Alex Dumani (Paapa Essiedu) is now nursing a raging cocaine habit and haunted by images of his best friend Sean Wallace (Joe Cole), who was shot in front of him, while Shannon Dumani (Pippa Bennett-Warner) is in prison for murdering a police officer.
Elliot, the show’s protagonist, is also in a darker place than we’ve ever seen him – Dìrísù plays him as a tightly-wound spring, ready to burst at any second into violence as his character is exiled from his home city and kept in check through threats to his family.
Over the course of season one, the Investors were gradually revealed as Gangs of London’s true villains: puppet masters operating in the shadows and pulling the strings. And are they involved in the appearance of fearsome Georgian mobster Koba? Played with delicious menace by newcomer Waleed Zuaiter, he steals each scene he’s in; it’s safe to say he’ll be a force to be reckoned with in the episodes to come.
This being Gangs of London, the action is just as brutal and heart-pounding as ever. One scene featuring a laundrette in Istanbul was a masterpiece in balletic violence; another, set in a London family home, will have the more faint-hearted viewers hiding behind the sofa. And yes, all the series’ favourites are back: alongside the Dumanis and Elliot, Albanian Mafioso Luan makes a reappearance as a family man worried for his childrens’ safety, as well as Pakistani mob boss Asif Afridi, whose has a big grievence following the events at the end of season one. Safe to say, he’s still got a score to settle.
Not that there aren’t a few quibbles. While the show is slick and well-produced, an odd quirk is the use of CGI for London’s landscape. Several times a character is gazing off the balcony of a skyscraper in front of a pixellated backdrop which jars, and detracts from the show’s prestige - though Corin Hardy has previously said it’s to ‘Gothamise’ London, it seems a shame to swap out the amazing real-life skyline with a generic CGI one.
But beyond a few small glitches, quality oozes from every inch of the screen – from the frankly incredible stunt-work to the range of locations we visit even in the first episode – resulting in an end product that’s as glossy as anything you’d see on American television.
So to all the fans: welcome back. Season two’s Gangs of London is a purring beast, flexing its muscles. Get ready for it to grab you by the throat.
